[CHAPTER IX
MT. MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK]
IN 1916 a bill was presented in Congress to establish in Alaska the Mt. McKinley National Park. All lovers of the country hoped that the legislation necessary to create this park would not be long in coming. The Alaskan Range (sometimes called the Alaskan Alps), of which Mt. McKinley is the culminating peak, has no rival in scenic grandeur. The snow line is about seven thousand feet. But Mt. McKinley rises twenty thousand three hundred feet, and for the upper thirteen thousand the mountain is clad in glaciers and perpetual snows.
The region of the proposed park offered a last chance for the United States Government to preserve untouched by civilization a great primeval section in its natural beauty. Many parts of Alaska are famous for big game. But for mountain sheep, caribou and moose ranging over wide areas this section is unsurpassed. I have often seen three hundred sheep in a ten mile journey! And more caribou than I ever dreamed of existing! At one time a party of us estimated with the naked eye more than a thousand within half a mile of us and many more straggling off in the distance.
I have made no mention of the mosquitos which abound in Alaska, but so many writers have that perhaps it is not necessary to elaborate upon the subject. It is sufficient to say that here one gives them respectful attention! Many a wanderer has met his death in the early days because he was unprepared to fight them off as he plunged through the swamps and the wilderness. This "respectful attention" is shared by the animals, especially the caribou, which migrate from place to place, avoiding the plains where the mosquitos abound. Sometimes they remain high up in the rugged mountain ridges. Sometimes they even climb the glaciers. One often sees them in huge droves. They do not stay long in any one locality except in the Taklat basin and in the vicinity of Muldrow Glacier. Here they remain during the summer and rear their young.
On February twenty-sixth, 1917, the bill became a law and the Mt. McKinley National Park was created. The long dimension of the park follows the general course of the Alaskan Range from Mt. Russell to Muldrow Glacier, the Park including all the main range from its northwest face to and beyond the summit. East of the glacier the range widens to the north and consists of a number of parallel mountain ridges separated by broad, open basins.
Moose are plentiful in certain parts of the new park but are not so commonly seen as sheep and caribou. They cling to the timbered areas for two reasons. First, because they feed upon the willow and birch twigs and leaves and the roots of water plants. Second, by nature the moose is a cautious, wary animal. He is less likely to permit familiarity than the caribou and remains where he is inconspicuous. The best hunting grounds for moose are not within the park but in the lowlands just north of the Alaskan Range.
Bears,—black, brown and grizzly—are here, as they are in many other parts of Alaska also. Foxes are plentiful. Lynx abound, as do the mink, marten and ermine, to a limited extent. The marshy lowlands, in addition to being the abode of the moose, are likewise the paradise of the beaver. Many a night have I lain in my tent and heard the whack-whack of their tails on the surface of the water and the splash when they went in to swim.
There is no point on which Alaska is more in need of wise and careful legislation than in regard to the game. Game will not last long unless protected. Already the market hunter is in the field. True, there are game laws in Alaska, but I have been reminded more than once of the mother who said of her naughty little daughter, "She has manners—but they're bad!"
The game laws are not strictly enforced and many a sled load of wild meat finds its way into the towns in winter. Fairbanks is the destination of most of it. It is a matter of personal knowledge that from fifteen hundred to two thousand sheep have been taken into this town each winter for the last three years. And if this is being done now, what will be the result when the new government railroad is completed to within fifteen miles of the park? There is but one answer. The game will disappear rapidly. Forebodings on this point have been quieted to a certain extent, however, so far as the game in the park itself is concerned. The law, while it grants miners and prospectors permission to kill what they need for food, stipulates expressly that "in no case shall animals or birds be killed in said park for sale, or removal, or wantonly."