Vol. XX, No. 4 



WASHINGTON 



April, 1909 



lUr 



T 



'ATDOMAL 

 ®(3MAIPMIl(D 

 A(SAM 



a 



HUNTING THE GREAT BROWN BEAR 



OF ALASKA 



By George Mixter, 2d, of Boston 



With Photographs by the Author 



ON April 8, 1908, my brother, Dr 

 C. G. Mixter, Mr C. R. Cross,. 

 Jr., and I left Seattle for Alaska 

 with but a hazy idea of where we were 

 going or what we would find when we 

 .got there. We knew that there was a 

 place called Portage Bay on the Pacific 

 coast of the Alaska Peninsula, where 

 there was a small empty shack, and that 

 opposite to it, on the Bering Sea coast, 

 ■were Herendeen Bay and Port Moller 

 Bay, on the former of which was a coal 

 mine and a camp where the care-taker 

 lived, in company with three horses ; this 

 was the region where we expected to find 

 the Great Brown Bear of Alaska, the 

 Ursus gyas. 



We hoped — for by this time definite 

 knowledge ended — that we would be able 

 to get to the Coal Camp from Portage 

 Bay, where we were to land, secure the 

 use of the horses, transport our outfit to 

 the other coast, and find some men there 

 who knew the country and would go with 

 us as guides. We had already tele- 

 graphed to Seward, Alaska, a town some 

 400 miles east of Portage Bay, engaging 

 a certain Alfred Lowell, who had. the 

 xeputation of being an excellent hunter 



and a strong packer, but who, of course, 

 knew nothing of the country where we 

 intended to hunt. 



We spent seven days on the steamer 

 Yucatan, following the coast back of 

 Vancouver Island, through Seymour Nar- 

 rows, and then, by the outside passage, 

 straight to Cordova, Alaska, the terminus 

 of the Copper River Railway, which is 

 being built to form an outlet for the rich 

 Copper River region. From here we fol- 

 lowed a coast of extreme grandeur to 

 Valdez and Seward, where we landed on 

 the 15th. Seward, like Cordova, was a 

 railway terminal and grew to a large 

 town, but the Alaska Central Railroad 

 was abandoned after penetrating 56 miles 

 inland, and Seward is now nearly a dead 

 town, with half of its houses deserted. 



We found Alfred, and the next day 

 the four of us started westward on the 

 steamer Dora, a small and unsteady but 

 very seaworthy craft. This part of the 

 journey took us past Kodiak Island, near 

 the middle of which we left the last trees 

 we were to see until our return. To the 

 westward there is nothing larger than 

 alder bushes and scrub willows, which, 

 by the way, will not burn in the open, 



