The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1916-09-14
Alaska And The Paper Famine
By FREDERIC J. HASKlN

I territory we have these very conditions
duplicated on larger scale. There is
the same juxtaposition OF water power,
timber, and deep fords running far in
land where steamers can load at the
mill itself. The Alaskan forests are
exceedingly dense and luxurant. The
rainfall is very heavy-twice as great
as that of the eastern United States
and the result is a prodigal luxurlance
of vegetation hard to reconcile with
the popular idea of Alaska. The for
rests are checked with deep under
brush, carpeted with moss, and SO
Swallowed by the roof of spruce and
hemlock foliage that the light is half
twilight at noon.
Through this forest runs many
streams, falling many hundreds of feet
in the course of a comparatively few
miles, with speed of water and result
ing power. The American Canadian
boundary runs along the crest of the
coast range-its location was so defined
by the treaty of purchase from Russia
and from that crest to the very edge
of the sea the earth Is clothed with
trees.
The coast line is very irregular, firing
ed with islands, indented by deep mar
row channels. The largest steamers
can penetrate far up many of the
fiords. Everywhere is the timber.
There are $4,000 miles of timbered
shore line on the Tongas National
Forest alone
The Forest Service has recently
made the best estimates possible with
available facilities of the resources of
the two Alaskan National forests. The
reconnaissance TO date is admittedly in
complete-we do not know exactly how
rich we are in timber-but on the basis
of what has been done, it is estimated
that the Alaskan forests would yield
700 million feet of timber annually on
the basis of increase alone-that is,
without decreasing the forest appreci-
ably at first, and not at all after the
first year. In other terms, it is esti-
mated that after supplying local de-
mands for saw timber, paper mills with
capacity of 5000 tons per day-and
1900 tons is six million pounds-could
be fed from the natural yearly increase,
without depicting the real supply. And
that is good deal of paper, when you
come to consider it.
The natural query is, since Alaska
offers such attractive fields for a paper
mill, why aren't there any up there?
Capital usually doesn't wait to be ask
ed three times before Selling a chance
to earn good interests or investment.
Alaska is not producing paper for
several reasons. In the first place, she
Is pretty remote. Transportation IS
just beginning to be put en- an efficient
and reliable basis; it is only in the last
few years that the extent and value of
the forests has been realized. Under
normal conditions, before the war, the
result of foreign competition, high
freights. and the prevailing price of
paper was such that Alaska as a paper
producer was on the wrong side of the
coast line. But conditions are chang
ing.
For the moment of course. a pulp
mill in Alaska would be one of the
most profitable bits of property you
could choose to ask for. AS one put
it, it would be ''as good as a license to
rob banks" With guarantee of con-
tlnuance of present conditions, capital
would run to Alaska to build pulp mills.
What obviously deters it, is the fear
that after the war prices will drop until
the Alaskan investment would prove
Improbable.
But things may not be the same after
the war as they were before. Even if
the price goes back all the way to the
old level which is by no means sure in
view of increasing demand there is the
increasing efficiency of steamer service
to Alaska to be considered. which
promises that the peninsula can compete
with western Canada and Norway I'M
der any conditions. Then too, if the
Oriental market for paper develops as
it is expected to develop, Alaska is the
best and nearest place for the Orient to
draw its pulp from. When China used
one-tenth as much paper per capita as
the average European country, she will
be calling for 1000, 600 tons a year.
The Forest Service has begun to re-
ceive inquiries from various interested
parties about the purchase of stumpage
in Alaskan forests. Sooner or later
Alaska will be one of the worlds great
sources of paper. So long as we own
the Alaskan National forests, we will
be able to go on printing our papers and
our books, though Norway and Canada
both stop shipping US wood. We have
not yet stopped taking our profit on the
investment of seven million dollars