McCord Colorful Alaskan Rancher
By Warren Holloway
Through Alaska’s roaring
days of gold strikes, the era of
railway promotions and the
present day of development,
Jack McCord, a sourdough with
a friendly mid-western smile
and a broad-brimmed Stetson,
has lived in the heat of them all
since he left his Iowa farm and
entered the Territory in 1906.
Today he is back on the
farm. But not in Iowa.
He holds an Island Empire
where lazy cattle and sheep,
bodies heavy with wool, roam
the roily hillsides. On one of his
two islands, Sitkalidak, which
scrapes the southeastern corner
of Kodiak, his livestock feed on
rich grazing (and, 100,000 acres
encircled by the ocean. A nar
row ribbon of water separates it
from Kodiak’s Three Saints Bay,
the site of the first Russian
colony in America, 1784.
The island is all his for in
1927, when Congress passed the
Alaska Grazing Bill, he was giv
en a 20-year lease to ranch on
Sitkalidak and Chirikof islands,
both old in Alaskan history.
Since then his herds of cattle a
lone have.increased to well over
a thousand head; this, in Alaska,
“The Land of lee and Snow ”
An overlooked feature of the
Territory, despite the fact that
three-fourths of Alaska lies with
in the North Temperate zone
and may be utilized for the
grazing of dairy and cattle herds
or for sheep or hogs, those estab
lishing ranches are receiving
benefits today for their farsight
edness. What is more import
ant, they are giving vital aid to
war-time problems of food and
shipping.
A few dairy herds are scatter
ed in Southwestern and Central
Alaska, but McCord’s Chirikof
cattle ranch claims the distinct
ion of being the “Furthest
North-and-Furthest-West Cat
tle Ranch in America." Of bis
beef and its distribution, the
who, what and where cannot be
told in detail, but those who
have eaten meat from his 6tock
divulge no secret in telling of its
qualities.
McCord left the plough in
Iowa in 1906 to join the gold
seekers of the Yukon. He was
not there many years when he
began to realize promises other
than gold in Alaska. When the
Copper River Railroad was built,
he was among the leaders that
did the feat. Rex Beach’s “Iron
Trail” depicts his role in the
character of Dan Appleton.
Through McCord’s promotion,
four companies, Standard Oil,
General Petroleum, Associated
Oil and Honolulu Consolidated
dispatched geologists north in
1922 to study oil resources. The
project poured millions of dol
lars into Alaska.
There were no ports on the
Alaska Peninsula, the scene o
the drilling, so the black-gold
prospectors made their head
quarters at Kodiak,which un
derwent its first significant in
flux of Americans. It was here
with the party of geologists that
McCord felt ihe beckoning of
the farm.
‘‘While at Kodiak, I visited
the small government farm they
had then on what is now Signal
Hill. The caretaker told me that
every bit of feed the livestock
needed was contained in the
grass It was hard to believe.
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Although a small setup, it look
ed wonderful.” McCord became
interested and talked to a cap
tain of a sailing schooner.
“He described an island, Sit
kalidak, just off Kodiak, with
pastures of tall, naturally rich
grazing grass, ideal as stock
food I was anxious to see it.
I chartered a halibut boat im
mediately and circled and visit
ed the island. No one lived there.
It looked to be even better cat
tle country than I had im
agined.”
Schooled on the farm when a
lad, McCord had not forgotten
the training. He visualized an
island ranch on Sitkalidak
where the ocean could do the
herding: where cattle could sip
salt water when they needed
salt. For medicine there is kelp
and seaweed; for drinking water,
cool lakes; for feed, rich native
grasses.
l wanted to settle r.gnt tnen
and there,” he continued, “but
to homestead the island would
have been impossible ’’
So McCord later went to
Washington, where, as the rep
resentative of Alaska’s Chamb
er of Commerce, he instigated
the Alaska Grazing Bill of 1927,
permitting ranchers to lease
government land for livestock
grazing. President Coolidge sent
him on a special trip from
Kodiak through the Aleutians to
Attu to report the agricultural
conditions of the region. In rec
ognition of MeCord’s services,
Coolidge presented him with the
pen he used to sign the bill.
The same year McCord leased
Sitkalidak and Chirikof, the lat
ter located approximately 100
miles southwest of Kodiak is
land. He farms blue fox and cat
tle on Chirikof, while on Sitka
hdak he raises cattle and sheep.
Deputy U S. Marshal Paul
Herring left on a recent boat
with Basil Davis, 18, Ouzinkie,
who was recently committed to
Morningside sanitarium, Port
laud, Oregon.
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