TIMBER RESOURCES OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE: WORLD 



327 



The forests extend to the Arctic tundra, the 

 dense stands being largely confined to the lower 

 slopes of the larger river valleys and their main 

 tributaries. The more open woodlands, or sparse 

 forests of the same species (white spruce and birch) 

 reach up the slopes to timberline and extend over 

 the higher plateaus. Over 99 percent of the In- 

 terior, forested as well as nonforested, is under the 

 jurisdiction of the U. S. Department of the 

 Interior's Bureau of Land Management. 



Forty Million Acres of Commercial 

 Forest Land 



Land not good enough for producing agricul- 

 tural crops, but either producing or capable of 

 producing forest stands having 5 thousand board- 

 feet of timber in trees 11 inches and larger in 

 diameter, is considered as commercial forest land. 

 Forty million acres of such land or an area almost 

 as large as the commercial forest land area of the 

 Lake States extends along the river valleys and 

 lower slopes of these drainages. The sparse or 

 open woodlands, presently considered noncom- 

 mercial, cover almost 80 million acres. The 

 principal forested regions include the following: 

 The Copper River and its many large tributaries, 

 the Matanuska River, the Susitna River and its 

 tributaries, upper Cook Inlet and the Iliamna 

 Lake, Lake Clark and Nushagak River sections, 

 the Kuskokwim, Tanana, and Yukon River 

 regions. It is noteworthy that considerable areas 

 of forest land, much of it commercial, occur north 

 of the Arctic Circle, for example on the Porcupine 

 River and its tributaries, the Chandalar, and the 

 Upper Koyukuk Rivers. Tree growth is known to 

 occur well north of latitude 68° N. on the south 

 slopes of the Brooks Range and as far west as the 

 Niukuk River, near Council, on the Seward Penin- 

 sula. This latter station is the westernmost occur- 

 rence of forest growth on the North American 

 Continent. 



Land other than that forested, comprising some 

 211 million acres or 62 percent of the total, con- 

 sists of 29 percent swamps and tundra, 47 percent 

 barren mountain tops, 11 percent brushlands, 11 

 percent grass, and the balance, a mere 2 percent 

 or 3.9 million acres, is considered to be of possible 

 agricultural value. As no land classification has 

 been completed, there is a diversity of opinion as 

 to the amount that could be called cropland. 



In 1950, according to the Census of Agriculture, 

 there were about 10,000 acres of cropland in farms 

 in the Territory, but only 6,500 acres harvested. 

 Agricultural land is almost nonexistent in the 

 coastal area; hence, most of this cropland lies 

 within the Interior. Of the 40 million acres of 

 commercial forest land 14 million are in areas 

 being used for producing lumber, house logs, and 

 fuelwood. Much of the remaining 26 million acres 



is fairly accessible to rivers or other travel routes, 

 but lies beyond the range of present use. 



According to the estimate in the following tabu- 

 lation, 95 percent of the commercial forest land is 

 in public ownership; that is, it is either vacant, 

 unreserved public domain, or controlled by the 

 Government as a War or Navy Department 

 reservation, a wildlife preserve, national park or 

 monument. 



Commercial forest land area 

 of Interior Alaska, I9SS 



Thousand acres Percent 



Public 37,870 94.7 



Institutions: 



Religious 27 .1 



University and Indian schools 103 .2 



Total 130 .3 



Private: 



Industrial (mining corporations, 



canneries, etc.) 500 1.3 



Farms (includes homesteads) 1,000 2.5 



Small tracts, public service sites, 



homesites, etc 500 1.2 



Total 2, 000 5. 



All ownerships 40,000 100.0 



About 40,000 acres of commercial forest land 

 in public ownership is reserved under authority of 

 the Department of the Interior to provide an 

 assured and stable supply of products for certain 

 settlements. 



Institutional ownership represents less than 1 

 percent of the total. The portion now held by 

 religious institutions stems from original grants 

 to them by the former owners of Alaska — Russia. 



Private ownership of commercial forest land by 

 individuals and corporations amounts to about 5 

 percent of the total. Half of this area is found on 

 farms and homesteads. As shown in the follow- 

 ing tabulation, private land is held primarily in 

 small ownerships, 80 percent of the total being in 

 tracts of 1,000 acres or less. 



Prirate commercial forest land 

 area in Interior Alaska, 195S 



Ownership size class: Thousand acres Percent 



Less than 1 acre 5 0.2 



1-5 acres 20 1.0 



5-100 acres 475 23.8 



100-1,000 acres 1,100 55.0 



More than 1,000 acres 400 20.0 



Total 2,000 100.0 



The Forests Are Chiefly White Spruce 

 and Birch 



Fortunately, after fire, much of the forest land 

 in Alaska returns to commercial tree species unless 

 it has been so severely burned as to prevent re- 

 generation of trees. White spruce and white 

 birch, also natives of northern Maine, the Lake 

 States, and Canada, in their westward extension 





