Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1916-12-15

great game. So keen Is the apprecia-
ton of this danger that Assistant Sec
rotary Mather is being backed in his
efforts to get the required legislation
by the American Game Protective as
sociation, the Camp Fire Club Of
America and the Boone and Crockett
club.
Is Paradise of the Hunter.
BelmOre Browne, the explorer and
hunter, who has spent three years on
Mount Mckinley, has, in behalf of the
department and of the committee on
conservation of forests and wild life Of
the Camp Fire club, issued an appeal
for the establishment of the park in
which he says:
'Here can still be seen the wild herds
protected from man by the rugged
ness of the country. Giant moose still
stalk through the timber line valleys,
herds of caribou move easily across
the moss-cOvered hills, bands of white
big-hOrn sheep are on the mountain
sides, while at any time the powerful
form Of the grizzly bear may give the
crOwning touch to the wildness Of
the picture. But while the Mount Nc
Kinley region is the fOuntainhead
from which come the herds Of game
that supply the huge expanse Of south
central Alaska, that fOuntainhead Is
menaced. Civilization is closing in, and
already sledloads Of dead animals from
the mountain country have reached
Fairbanks market. Unless a refuge is
set aside in which the animals that
remain can breed and rear their young
unmolested they will soon follow. the
buffalo. 49,.
scenic supremacy Of Mount Mckinley
and the conservation Of its game are
not, singly or together, sufficient JUS
tificatiOn for this park project (Which
they are, of cOurse), and we still have
a third reason, sufficient in itself,
which justifies Mckinley and all the
other national parks of the country.
These great reservations cannot be dis
missed as merely recreatiOnal or SEN
timental, esthetic or educational. They
are all that, but, most important of
all, they are economic. They consti-
tute a great business asset, as such
hitherto overlooked entirely by the
country.
Switzerland lives on her scenery.
She has developed it scientifically into
business. She maintains tourist agen-
cies and expensive publicity opera
tiOns in every fOr cign country from
which profitable income may be de-
rived. She entertains the world. A
few years ago Canada went into this
same scenery business, combining
American imagination and enterprise
with British thOroughness. She adver-
tised extensively and wisely, and today
Switzerland and Canada share the
scenic reputation of the world, also
the profits. The Alps and Lake Louise
are their rival assets.
How the Government Acvertises.
"But the assets of the United States
for this same sort of enterprise are
the best in the world. The difficulty in
the necessary propaganda or educa-
tional work, or whatever you want to
call it, is that this cOuntry's stock in
trade is of such magnitude and such
rare quality that If you even attempt
to describe it adequately people won't
believe you.
$50 the government sticks to the
barest facts, tells the world that in its
Glacier park more than sixty glaciers,
coming from cliffs thousands of feet
high, feed hundreds Of lakes, in one of
which the icepergs last all summer.
And we let it go at that, not a single
adjective, and it Is the same way
throughout the list Of the eight ma
tiOnal parks Of the first order. But
that may be the best way. Why should
the United States try to embellish the
fact that in its Sequoia national park
there are a million or more sequoia
trees, 1900 Of which are more than ten
feet In diameter and some of them
more than SO feet? If I were not in
the government service I might simply
say some trees
'In the park in the Alaska range,
when congress turns it over to this de-
partment, the people Of the United
States will have the top notch of the
scenery Of the world in. their own
keeping for all time. Mount Mckinley
itself is more than 10000 feet high.
There are greater heights in the Hima-
layas, it is true. but they are not domi-
mating because Of the high average
level of all about them. Mckinley. on
the contrary, is so isolated in its mag
nitude, SO much greater than the rest
of the range, that it presents the spec
tacle Of a sheer rise of 1900 feet.
Furthermore. 1t is accessible, or soon
will be. The Himalayas are not"