The Quiet World_ Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 - Douglas Brinkley [77]
On his Alaska Expedition from 1905 to 1908, Sheldon collected specimens of the caribou (Rangifer tarandus), Alaska moose (Alces alces), white sheep (Ovis dalli), snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), and lemming (Lemmus trimucronatus yukonensis) for the U.S. Biological Survey and U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian Institution), both in Washington, D.C. Camping among the dwarf fireweed along the Savage River in Denali, he performed taxidermy on the skins and preserved the skulls of four different subspecies of meadow mouse, catching the rodents with little homemade traps. A wonderfully precise sketcher, Sheldon also drew vivid illustrations of the wildlife he procured, a time-honored tradition of the Boone and Crockett Club. Regularly Dr. Merriam wrote Sheldon glowing letters about the value of his adventures in the far north to the world of biological conservation. “While his personal interest centered chiefly in the larger game animals, Sheldon nevertheless appreciated the importance of collecting the smaller mammals and took the trouble to trap, prepare, and label large numbers of mice, lemmings, shrews, and other small species, all of which he presented to the Biological Survey for permanent deposit in our National Museum,” a grateful Dr. Merriam recalled of Sheldon in an introduction to The Wilderness of Denali. “These specimens have been of inestimable help to naturalists engaged in defining and mapping the ranges of the smaller mammals and besides have brought to light a number of species previously unknown. And it should be borne in mind that while the major part of his field work was done in Alaska and Yukon Territory, he also made important collections and field notes in British Columbia, Arizona, and northern Mexico.”32
Perhaps Sheldon’s greatest pieces of writing, in hindsight, were his flawless essays on Hinchinbrook and Montague islands (published as chapters in The Wilderness of the North Pacific Coast Islands). Both large barrier islands are located between the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound. They are what Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island are to Cape Cod, but thicker with wildlife. What interested Sheldon about these islets were the vast families of brown bears. (Along Alaska’s coastal waters they were called brown bears; those living in the interior were grizzlies.) As the Japanese Zen poet Basho- had written, “To learn about the pine, go to the pine. To learn about bamboo, go to the bamboo.” To learn about brown bears, Sheldon regularly visited these offshore islands of Prince William Sound. There was a profusion of bears on the islands around every puddle and bend. Sheldon was determined to accurately count their distribution numbers; accurate data would be the first step toward saving the bears.33
“No sight in the American Wilderness is so suggestive of its wild charms than that of the huge bear meandering on the mountain-side, or walking on the river-bank, or threading the deep forest,” Sheldon wrote. “He who still retains his love for wild nature, though accustomed to the sight of wild animals, and surfeited in some degree with the killing of them, feels a lack in the wilderness—perhaps the loss of its very essence—when, tramping about in it, he knows that the bear, that former denizen of its depths, is there no more—exterminated forever.”34
What amazed Sheldon most about the Alaskan brown bear was its massive head, which, incongruously, had inconspicuous ears and tiny eyes. In the East, zoologists thought of Alaska’s bears as having fur of a single color. But Sheldon found that these bears varied