ALASKA. 
37 
Hyda fashion their buoyant and graceful canoes, both large and small, from 
spruce logs, and split from them also the huge planks used in the construction of 
their houses. The lumber manufactured from the Sitka spruce is much less 
durable than the yellow cedar, very knotty, and consequently not adapted for 
shipbuilding. 
3. Hemlock [Abies mertensiana). —Though this tree generally exceeds the 
spruce in size, it is of rare occurrence, much less valuable as timber, but well 
adapted for fuel. 
Balsam fir ( Abies canadensis). —This tree is found only in small, scattered 
bodies, and is of little value as timber, but the natives use its bark for tanning 
and for other purposes. 
5. Scrub pine ( Pinus contorta). —The scrub pine is found throughout the 
interior of Alaska in small, scattered bodies up to the highest latitudes, but it is 
of no value as timber. 
Thus it will be seen that the forests of Alaska are altogether coniferous, as the 
small bodies of birch and the alder and willow thickets on the lower Yukon and 
Kuskokwim rivers can scarcely be considered to come under this head. Aside 
from the yellow cedar, which is rare, the timber wealth of Alaska consists of the 
Sitka spruce, which is not only abundant and large (trees of from 3 to 4 feet in 
diameter being quite common in southeastern Alaska and Prince William Sound), 
but also generally accessible. 
To give even an approximate estimate of the area of timbered lands in Alaska 
is at present impossible, in view of our incomplete knowledge of the extent of 
mountain ranges, which, though falling within the timber limits, must be deducted 
from the superficial area of forest covering. 
A* few small sawmills of exceedingly limited capacity have been erected at 
various points in southeastern Alaska, to supply the local demand of trading 
posts and mining camps, but finished building lumber is still largely imported even 
into this heavily timbered region. In all western Alaska, but one small sawmill 
is known to exist, which is on Wood Island, St. Paul Harbor, Kadiak. This 
mill was first set up to supply sawdust for packing ice, but since the collapse of 
that industry, its operations have been spasmodic and not worth mentioning. 
Lumber from Puget Sound and British Columbian mills is shipped to nearly 
all ports in western Alaska for the use of whites and half-breeds, while the 
natives in their more remote settlements obtain planks and boards by the very 
laborious process of splitting logs with iron or ivory wedges. On the treeless 
isles of the Shumagin and Aleutian groups, as well as in the southern settlements 
of the Alaska peninsula, even firewood is imported from more favored sections 
of the Territory and commands high prices. 
The driftwood washed upon the shores of Bering Sea and the Arctic is of 
very little value as building material and can not be worked into lumber. 
