The Ketchikan miner., 1907-05-18
NORTHLAND GROWS OTHER
 THINGS BESIDES ICICLES,
Especial Correspondence, I

Special Correspondence,
 Seattle May l5, 1907, How many persons know that Alaska and Yukon grow two thousand different speci- mems of flora?
 That is a little hard. Try this one.
 How many persons know much about the Northland, except that it is a land of cold and gold?
 That one is easier. The anwser is :: Very few.
 But after the summer of 1909 when the Alaska Y ukon-P Pacific Exposition at Seattle is over there will be a large percentage of the people of the world enlightened on the subject. The primary purpose of the great western worlds fair now in course of preparation is to exploit the wonders, opportunities and resources of the little known domain in the north western portion of North America. And in doing this it will demon- strate that Alaska and Yukon can grow other things besides icicles.
 Already has a exhibit of the flora of the Northland been collected that will be revelation to the whole world, to the layman and botanist alike. This collection. the largest, finest and most complete of northern flora that has ever been assembled, is the work of man who never opened Il book on botany, and who has been guided solely by the quickness and correctness of his eye and the consciousness of his memory. Gus tave Gervais, a prospector of White horse, starting in the summer of 1905 and continuing last summer received fifteen hundred and forty specimens of Alaska's wild growths, fifty of whit h had never before been known to grow in the north. He says there are five hundred more and, that he will get these this coming summer.
 And all this in spite of the fact that leading botanists have decarled that the number of varying examples of the vegetable kingdom near the Arctic circle was not more than five hundred at most
 Gustave Gervais who is now in Seattle, was born in Quebec some forty odd years ago. In 1897 he was carried north with the gold rush, but dropped off at Whitehorse where he found indications which, so he shrewdly judged, would develop later into values as great as anything in the glittering Eldorado four hundred and eighty miles further down the river So he built his cabin and settled in the Copper Belt by the head waters of the Yukon. While Gervais has not made any vast fortune he has comfortable stake and has justified his early judgment. Also like SC many old prospectors he has missed by very narrow margin, one or two chances of big fortune.
 It was only two years ago that Gervais took up his present fad-the collection of specimens of all the growths of the vegetable kingdom trips he carries it carefully back tc his cabin, and mounts it. x . There are in all some two thousand different specimens of natural flora in Yukon and Alaska, according tc this collection. Owing to unique with specimen on his prospecting native to Yukon and Alaska. Gervais is not an educated botanis', but he has love for the flowers, grasses, trees and wild shrubs that grow ir profusion, and whenever he meets state of affairs, however, it will take some time to obtain the five hundred odd that Gervais still lacks. There are many seeds that lie dormant in Yukon for years and only appear when some peculiar condition arises A particularly dry Spring, an extr; wet spring, warm spring a we summer late autumn all these con- ditions may bring and, develop iron the ground seeds whose presence art
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