FOREST AND STREAM 
171 
THE MT. M'KINLEY NATIONAL PARK 
A MONUMENT TO THE PERSEVERANCE OF TWO 
MEN AND TWO FAMOUS OUTDOOR ORGANIZATIONS 
T HE winter of 1907-08 Charles Sheldon 
spent alone on the shoulders of Mt. 
McKinley in Alaska. He went up 
there in the fall with a dog team and a 
helper, and built himself a cabin close to 
timber line. Then, sending back his man 
and his dogs to a situation where life was 
easier, he remained there to devote him¬ 
self to the observation of the animal life 
of the region. 
To an outdoor man whose constitution 
was so robust as to be able to bear some 
cold and much hard work, and whose tem¬ 
perament was such that he did not require 
the companionship of his fellows, a winter 
spent on the shoulders of Mt. McKinley 
was full of joy. Game was enormously 
abundant, and the observation of the ani¬ 
mals of an Arctic winter furnished a never- 
failing source of interest. 
Alaska long remained the only untouched 
game region belonging to the United States, 
)ut of late years the term untouched can 
io longer be applied to it. At the same 
:ime, there are still vast areas there which 
have never been hunted, and until within 
a very few years one of these was the 
Mt. McKinley region. 
T HE idea of a great game refuge in 
Alaska occurred to Mr. Sheldon years 
ago, and he often discussed the sub¬ 
ject with men of tastes like his- As time 
went on the project took shape in his mind, 
and at the annual meeting of the Boone 
and Crockett Club early in 1916, Mr. Shel¬ 
don, as chairman of the club’s game preser¬ 
vation committee, was authorized to act 
for the club in the effort to get such a 
refuge set aside in the form of a national 
park. Much interest in Alaska had re¬ 
cently been aroused, and the Government 
had taken steps to build a railroad running 
north up the Susitna River and then cross¬ 
ing a divide and running down the Nenana 
River. 
On behalf of the Boone and Crockett 
Club Mr. Sheldon went to Washington and 
presented his plan to the authorities of the 
Interior Department. This covered the set¬ 
ting aside of a national park whose south¬ 
erly line should pass south and east of 
Mts. McKinley and Foraker, and include 
the great Muldrow Glacier, as well as the 
foothills about the heads of the Toklat 
Rivers. The park as laid out by Mr. Shel- 
lon, and as afterwards surveyed by the 
United States Geological Survey forces, is 
roughly a parallelogram running northeast 
and southwest, with Mt. Russell at its 
southwesterly corner, the parallelogram be¬ 
ing bent sharply to the north not far from 
the parallel of 63 deg. 30 min. north lati¬ 
tude. Its area is about 2,200 square miles. 
B Y an odd coincidence, only a short time 
after Mr. Sheldon had brought his 
plan to the attention of the Interior 
Department, Mr. Belmore Brown, repre¬ 
senting the Campfire Club, presented him¬ 
self in Washington to advocate a some¬ 
what similar plan; similar in the sense that 
it contemplated a great game refuge in 
Alaska. The representatives of the Boone 
and Crockett Club and of the Campfire 
Club at once got together, called in as 
helpers officials of the American Game 
Protective and Propagation Association, 
and finally arranged to put the whole mat¬ 
ter in the hands of the president of the 
association, John B- Burnham, who had so 
efficiently handled the Federal migratory 
bird law. 
When the matter was presented to Hon. 
James Wickersham, delegate from Alaska, 
he at once saw the advantage to the terri¬ 
tory of setting aside such an area, which, 
upon the completion of the Government 
railway, would become accessible to the 
tourists of the world and could hardly fail 
to attract many visitors to Alaska. In the 
spring of 1916, therefore, Mr. Wickersham 
introduced in Congress a bill setting aside 
the Mt. McKinley National Park, and de¬ 
fining its boundaries. The bill suffered the 
usual discouragements and delays of meas¬ 
ures that have no particular politics in them, 
and was still further handicapped by the 
unfortunate conditions brought about by 
the war in Europe. Hearings were had 
at Washington, at which various persons 
familiar with the subject set forth before 
a sub-committee of the public lands com¬ 
mittee of the House the importance of es¬ 
tablishing such a park now—before it was 
too late. 
M R. McCLINTIC, the chairman of this 
sub-committee, was much interested 
in the proposition. He gave the mat¬ 
ter careful and impartial consideration, and 
at length favorably reported the bill to the 
House. Meantime, the bill had passed the 
Senate. Through the efforts of Mr. Mc- 
Clintic and Mr. Wickersham it was brought 
to a vote in the House, though not in the 
precise form in which it had passed the 
Senate. However, Senator Pittman, of Ne¬ 
vada, succeeded in having it again brought 
to a vote in the Senate, and the differences 
between the two bills were reconciled. The 
bill was signed by the President on Feb¬ 
ruary 26, and is now law- 
The region covered by this new national 
park includes the highest mountain in 
North America, and is one of marvelous 
beauty. It has towering peaks, deep can¬ 
yons, mighty glaciers, great rivers, and an> 
abundant fauna. The northern portion of 
the park, about the heads of the Toklat 
Rivers, is a favorite range for white moun¬ 
tain sheep and caribou, while further to the 
westward on the northern slopes moose 
abound, and bears are numerous. All the 
fur-bearers of the north are found in the- 
country, and beaver are extremely plenti¬ 
ful. Mr. Stephen R. Capps, of the Geo¬ 
logical Survey, who recently wrote a paper 
on the proposed park for the National Geo¬ 
graphic Magazine, is most enthusiastic 
about the abundance of wild animals there. 
In one day lqje counted no less than 1,500- 
caribou, and he took a photograph which 
shows a group of some hundreds of these 
animals gathered together on a gravel-bar, 
where the strong winds tend to keep the 
mosquitoes from them. 
Many of those interested in Alaska and 
in this splendid park would have been glad 
if the name given it might have been that 
used by the Indians for the great mountain 
which stands guard over it. The name 
Denali National Park seems to have far 
more character, as it has far more sim¬ 
plicity, than even the name of a great 
President of the United States. 
American sportsmen and nature-lovers 
are to be congratulated on the passage of 
this bill, and especially on the fact that a 
considerable number of competent men 
were found who were able so to present 
this matter to Congress as to arouse the 
enthusiasm of the legislators and to carry 
the matter to a successful issue. 
One of Alaska’s Great Glaciers. 
