GENERAL INFORMATION REGARDING THE TERRITORY

OF ALASKA.

INTRODUCTION.

This circular has been prepared in order to make available in compact form the more important facts regarding the Territory of Alaska. The Department of the Interior is unable to give information regarding business conditions other than that contained in this circular, and it is impossible for the department to give prospective settlers advice regarding the portion of the Territory offering them the best opportunities. Persons contemplating settling in Alaska should read this circular carefully in order to obtain knowledge of the general conditions in the Territory. It should be borne in mind that pioneer conditions prevail in the greater portion of Alaska. As many erroneous statements have gained circulation regarding the Territory, prospective settlers should when practicable verify all statements by consulting the Government reports, which are generally available at the libraries in the larger cities. The Government does not pay for the transportation of settlers to Alaska, nor does it advance money for this purpose.

A list of United States Geological Survey publications on Alaska may be obtained by addressing the Director, United States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. A price list of miscellaneous Government publications may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. The annual report of the governor of Alaska, which contains a review of the progress of the Territory during the year, may be obtained free from the Secretary of the Interior as long as the supply lasts.

The local administration of Territorial matters is under the direction of the governor of Alaska, whose office is at Juneau.

Correspondence should in all cases be addressed to the office or officer mentioned in the circular.

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HISTORICAL SKETCH.

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Alaska derives its name from an English corruption of the native word ́Al-ay-ek-sa,” probably meaning “The great land” or 'Mainland." The region now known as Alaska was first visited by the Russian officers Bering and Chirikov in 1741. Russian traders and trappers soon entered the country and through their activity other nations became interested in this region. Spanish expeditions in 1774 and 1775 visited the southeastern shore and in 1778 the English explorer, Capt. James Cook, made extensive surveys of the coast for the British Government. The first settlement was made by the Russians at Three Saints on Kodiak Island in 1784, and in 1804 the RussianAmerican Co. founded Sitka, making it the seat of government in 1805.

In 1799 the trade and regulation of the Russian possessions in America were given over to the Russian-American Co. for a term of 20 years, which was afterwards twice renewed for similar periods.

In 1821 Russia attempted by ukase to exclude foreign navigators from Bering Sea and the Pacific coast of her possessions, which caused a controversy with the United States and Great Britain. The question was settled by a treaty 5

with the United States in 1824 and one with Great Britain in 1825, by which an attempt was made to fix permanently the boundaries of the Russian possessions in America.

In March, 1867, Alaska was purchased by the United States for the sum of $7,200,000 in gold, and in October of the same year the formal transfer was made at Sitka. From 1867 to 1877 Alaska was governed by the War Department, although the customs were from the beginning collected by the Treasury Department, and with the latter the control rested from 1877 until the passage of the act of 1884. This act extended over Alaska the laws of the State of Oregon so far as they were applicable, created a judicial district and a land district, put in force the mining laws of the United States, and gave the country an administrative system.

The influx of settlers after the discovery of gold in the Klondike, Yukon Territory, in 1896 rendered more adequate laws necessary. In 1899 and 1900 Congress made provisions for a code of civil and criminal law, and in 1903 passed a homestead act. In the meantime a serious boundary dispute had arisen between the United States and Canada regarding the interpretation of the treaty of 1825. This was settled in 1903 by an agreement whereby the seacoast of Canada extended no farther north than 54° 40'.

By the act of May 7, 1906, Alaska was given power to elect a Delegate to Congress. The act of August 24, 1912, provided for the creation of a Territorial legislature.

GEOGRAPHY.1

Alaska in its greatest extent is included between the meridians of 130° west longitude and 173° east longitude and between the parallels of 51° and 72° north latitude. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean; on the west by the Arctic Ocean, Bering Strait, and Bering Sea; on the south and southwest by the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean; and on the east by the Yukon Territory and British Columbia. The eastern boundary from the Arctic Ocean to the neighborhood of Mount St. Elias is the one hundred and forty-first meridian; thence southeastward to Portland Canal it is irregular and can not be described in general terms, except that it runs approximately parallel to the irregular shore line and about 30 miles therefrom.

Alaska is in approximately the same latitude as the Scandinavian Peninsula; Point Barrow, its northernmost point, is in about the same latitude as North Cape; Dixon Entrance, which marks its southern boundary, is nearly on the same parallel as Copenhagen; St. Elias is in the latitude of Christiania and St. Petersburg; and Sitka is in the latitude of Edinburgh. The longitude of the western terminal of the Aleutian Islands is almost identical with that of the New Hebrides Islands and is the same as that of New Zealand, and Cape Prince of Wales, the most westerly point of the mainland, is nearly as far west as the Samoan Islands. Thus a person traveling from New York to Attu Island, the westernmost of the Aleutian chain, on reaching San Francisco will have accomplished less than half the journey from east to west.

The area of Alaska is about 590,884 square miles, one-fifth that of the United States. The popular conception of the size of Alaska is based on maps of North America, which always distort it. The map on page 7, which shows Alaska superimposed on a map of the United States of the same scale, demonstrates that the distance from the easternmost to the westernmost point in Alaska is equal

1 Reprinted with slight changes from Geography and Geology of Alaska, by Alfred H. Brooks Professional Paper No. 45, U. S. Geological Survey. This publication may be consulted at the principal libraries.

The main mass of Alaska is nearly rectangular and is carved out from the continent by the Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea on the north and the Gulf of Alaska on the south. An extension to the southeast is furnished by the so-called

to the distance from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the latitude of Los Angeles and that its northernmost and southernmost points are nearly as far apart as the Mexican and the Canadian boundaries of the United States.

panhandle of southeastern Alaska, and to the southwest by the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands.

Alaska has three peninsulas of considerable size. The Alaska Peninsula stretches to the southwest and with the archipelagoes beyond-the Aleutian Islands belonging to Alaska and the Commander Islands belonging to Russiaforms a broken barrier between Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Kenai Peninsula, which is much smaller than the Alaska Peninsula and lies farther east, is separated from the mainland by Cook Inlet on the west and Prince William Sound on the east, with Kodiak and the adjacent islands forming an extension to the southwest. The Seward Peninsula, whose extremity marks the westernmost point of the continent, extends from the central part of Alaska and is bounded on the north by Kotzebue Sound and the Arctic Ocean and on the south by Norton Sound and Bering Sea. The Seward Peninsula and the Chuckchee Peninsula of Siberia, which are separated by Bering Strait, 60 miles in width, divide Bering Sea from the Arctic Ocean.

Around the Gulf of Alaska the Pacific coast line forms a deep reentering angle, the eastern leg of which borders the panhandle of the Territory, usually called southeastern Alaska, while the western leg is the shore line of the Alaska Peninsula. The axes of the dominant mountain ranges also undergo a marked change in direction, parallel to this crescentlike bend of the southern coast line. This bend is, indeed, the topographical record of an important structural feature. The main topographic features of Alaska are similar to those of the western United States. The highlands of Alaska, like those of the United States and Canada, are in general parallel to the coast line, and the four topographic provinces of the United States are fairly well defined throughout western Canada and continue into Alaska. Along the Pacific coast of Alaska and British Columbia is a mountainous belt 50 to 200 miles in width which is the westernmost of the four provinces, and may be designated the "Pacific Mountain system." It properly includes the mountainous Alexander Archipelago and Aleutian Islands, as well as a number of other island groups. While this region is in the main rugged and mountainous, its ranges are distinct and often separated by broad valleys or indentations of the coast line, forming in several cases large basins, like that of the Copper River. Except for a section of the inner slope which drains into the Yukon and Kuskokwim, its waters reach the Pacific through streams flowing transverse to the axis of the mountains. East and north of the Pacific Mountains is the Central Plateau region, corresponding in a broad way with the Central Plateau of the western United States and Canada. The term "plateau" can be assigned to only a portion of this province, and even that is not a plateau in a strict sense. For the most part this region is a gently rolling upland, in which the rivers have trenched broad channels, and which is of low relief compared with the adjacent mountain ranges. The interstream areas are the remnants of a former plateau surface, which has been dissected by erosion, and whose rolling surface slopes gently to the north and west. The continuity of this plateau is broken by a number of mountains and mountain groups which rise above the general level, but these are of much less extent and relief than the similar features of the plateau region of the western United States and Canada. This belt is drained largely by the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers into Bering Sea and includes a number of lowland areas of considerable extent. Among these the flats of the middle Yukon and upper Kuskokwim and the lowlands which extend along Bering Sea adjacent to the deltas of the Kuskokwim and Yukon are notable.

East and north of the plateau province a broad cordillera forms the third of the geographic divisions, and is the northern extension of the Rocky Moun