Soils in two adjacent forest stands in interior Alaska, one birch (Betula papyrifera) and the other black spruce (Picea mariana), were sampled in 2-cm increments to a depth of 50 cm. The soils had developed from the same parent material and were similar in slope and aspect. The soil had a thicker organic surface layer and was underlain by permafrost under spruce, but none was found under birch. Although the mass of the organic layer under spruce was twice that under birch, only the amount of K in that layer, and not N, P, or Ca, differed between the two sites. There were no differences in concentrations of NO3, Ca, and K extractable with N NaCl between the spruce and the birch soils; NH4 and PO4 were significantly different. Because of low bulk density in the ice-rich permafrost under spruce, the total amount of extractable nutrients in the mineral soil was lower under spruce than under birch. More of the potentially unavailable nutrients N, P, and K were immobilized in the organic layers than in permafrost under the spruce.