68 
Voi„. VII 
In Alaska’s Rain Belt 
BY WriiRED H. OSGOOD 
A LASKA and California naturally suggest contrast, particularly in respect to 
climate. Yet Alaska, in its various parts, like California, furnishes a great 
variety of weather. Each has its regions of comparative heat, cold, aridity, 
and humidity. California, however, goes to extremes in the matter of heat and 
aridity, while Alaska takes the palm for cold and humidity. 
From the collector’s standpoint, aridity and humidity are more important con- 
siderations than heat and cold. One who has worked in both humid and arid 
regions can scarcely refrain from drawing comparisons. Both have their attrac- 
tive features and in point of interest each has many claims, but on the practical 
side the arid or semi-arid region commends itself preeminently. Collectors who 
work in central and southern California, for example, seem to have things their 
own way. They are in a paradise for camping and collecting. They sleep under 
the stars every night and travel where they will. To be sure they must look for 
water occasionally, but usually they know where to find it. Birds are easily se- 
cured and nests easily found. After a successful morning, the happy collector sits 
him down anywhere that suits his fancy and prepares his specimens. These, 
once prepared, soon dry and maybe packed away safely. 
In the humid region, the collector must travel largely by water; his entire 
outfit must be enclosed in waterproofing, his guns, ammunition, and photographic 
material requiring special care. He always pitches a tent at night and goes to 
sleep on his rubber blanket to the music of the rain pattering on the canvas. In 
the morning he crawls out in the wet and after much trouble starts a smouldering 
fire. His clothes are soaked much of the time; and his specimens are wet and be- 
draggled before he begins work on them, and when prepared, however nicely, soon 
become mushy, moldy caricatures requiring constant care for weeks after they are 
collected. 
This is not a recital of personal troubles, though I have experienced them all 
many times; it is merely the natural comparison that comes to mind when one 
undertakes to write for a California journal an account of collecting in the humid 
coast belt of x\laska. 
In the spring of 1903, while waiting for the opening of navigation on the 
Yukon, I made a short trip to Prince of Wales Island. This is one of the south- 
ernmost of the group known on maps as the Alexander Archipelago and with the 
exception of Kodiak, is the largest of the many islands scattered so thickly along 
Alaska’s coast. It is in the heart of the rain belt, and, as I had been there before, 
I knew what to expect. When the sun shines it is one of the most beautiful re- 
gions in the world, but so rarely does this occur that it becomes an event and the 
clear air and bright light seem like food and drink. The great humidity is accom- 
panied by a comparative evenness of temperature throughout the year. Conse- 
quently vegetation is luxuriant. The magnificent forests are chiefly of coniferous 
trees, often festooned with mosses and lichens and rising from tangles of shrubs. 
The rank growths can scarcely be duplicated outside the tropics and are so difficult 
to penetrate that even the Indians seldom attempt to go far from the coast. 
My most pleasant ornithological experiences on Prince of Wales Island were 
crowded into two days late in May, when I went by canoe to the head of Twelve 
Mile Arm, a continuation of Kasaan Bay, which is the most important indenta- 
tion on the east coast of the island. Leaving the small mining settlement of Hollis 
