WELVE years ago Dr Sheldon

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Jackson brought his first herd of 16 reindeer across Bering Strait from Siberia and started his reindeer colony at Unalaska, off the bleak coast of Alaska. Many then smiled at the experiment and declared his plan for stocking the great barrens of northwestern Alaska with thousands of the animals which for centuries had been indispensable to the natives of Lapland and Siberia was impracticable and wasteful of time and good money. But the experiment prospered from the very first. Other reindeer, numbering nearly 1,000 in all, during the succeeding years were brought over from Siberia. Today there are nearly 6,000 head in the various herds distributed along the Alaskan coast from Point Barrow to Bethel. The existence of the 20,000 natives of northwestern Alaska, as well as the success of the miners who are beginning to throng into the interior of the territory in the far north, are dependent upon these domestic reindeer; their clothing, their food, their transportation, their utensils, and their shelter are all furnished them by the reindeer.

The reindeer enterprise is no longer an experiment although still in its in

fancy. There are 400,000 square miles of barren tundra in Alaska where no horse, cow, sheep, or goat can find pasture; but everywhere on this vast expanse of frozen land the reindeer can find the long, fibrous, white moss which is his food. There is plenty of room for 10,000,000 of these hardy animals. The time is coming when Alaska will have great reindeer ranches like the great cattle ranches of the southwest, and they will be no less profitable.

The story of the inception and growth of the reindeer enterprise in Alaska is very interesting and is not generally known. During an extended trip of inspection of the missionary stations and government schools in Alaska in the summer of 1890*, Dr Sheldon Jackson was impressed with the fact that the natives in arctic and subarctic Alaska were rapidly losing the sources of their food supply. Each year the whales were going farther and farther north, beyond the reach of the natives who had

*Dr Sheldon Jackson first visited Alaska in 1877, in the interest of schools and missions. He made a second trip in 1879. Other visits followed, and since his appointment as General Agent of Education in Alaska in 1885 he has made annual visits to the territory.

no steamships in which to pursue them; the walrus, which formerly had been seen in herds of thousands, were disappearing; the seals were becoming exterminated, and in winter the Eskimo had to tramp 15 to 20 miles out on the ice before he could catch one. The modern hunter, with his steam launches and rapid-fire guns, had found the whales, walrus, and seals such easy prey that he was ruthlessly destroying them. Also the wild caribou, that the native had easily captured before, had been frightened away and was rarely seen.

Not only was the Eskimo losing his food, but what in an arctic climate is no less important, his clothing as well. The whalebone, the ivory tusks of the walrus, the seal skin, and the oil had given him means of barter with the Siberian traders across the Strait, from whom he obtained reindeer skins to keep him warm in winter.

Dr Jackson saw that unless something was done at once the United States would have to choose between feeding the 20,000 and more natives or letting them starve to death. The latter course was impossible; the former rather expensive, as supplies would have to be carried some 3,000 miles from Seattle. The more enterprising Siberian, living on the opposite side of the Strait under practically the same conditions of arctic cold, got along very nicely, as he had great herds of domestic reindeer to fall back upon when game was scarce. same moss which covered so many thousands of miles of the plains of arctic Siberia was seen everywhere in Alaska. The tame reindeer of Siberia was practically the same animal as the wild caribou of Alaska, changed by being domesticated for centuries. Could not the Eskimo be made self-supporting by giving him reindeer herds of his own?

The

On his return to the United States, during the winter of 1891, Dr Sheldon Jackson, in his annual report to Congress, asked for an appropriation to provide the money for importing a few deer. Congress was not convinced of the wisdom of such action, but several private persons were so interested that they placed $2,000 at Dr Jackson's disposal to begin the experiment; the first deer were brought over that year. It was not long, however, before the government realized the importance of the

*Congressional appropriations for the introduction into Alaska of domestic reindeer from Siberia are as follows:

movement, and in 1894 appropriated the sum of $6,000 to continue the work. Later the appropriation was increased, and during the last several years has amounted to $25,000 annually.*

The Siberians were at first unwilling to part with any of their reindeer. They were superstitious and above all afraid of competition and loss of trade across the strait. Capt. M. A. Healy, who was commissioned to purchase the deer in 1891, was obliged to sail from village to village for 1,500 miles along the Si

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head; the formulation of plans and their execution is entrusted to Dr Sheldon Jackson, general agent of education in Alaska. Harris, in his annual reports to Congress, has vigorously urged the importance of the work, and to him credit is due for a large share of its success. Capt. M. A. Healy and the many officers of the revenue cutter service, whose vessels have year after year carried the agents of the bureau back and forth and brought the reindeer from Siberia without charge, have also contributed to the success of the reindeer enterprise.