St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 1/Nature and Science/Reindeer

Reindeer in Alaska

The herding and breeding of domesticated reindeer, introduced as an experiment a number of years ago from a small herd imported by the Government from Siberia, have now become the most prominent feature of the industrial education of many thousands of the natives of arctic Alaska. The means of living, formerly obtained by hunting and fishing, have been greatly lessened by the destruction of the fish by canneries, and of the fur-bearing animals and game by white trappers. The reindeer industry is therefore an important part of life in many Eskimo villages. The total number of reindeer in Alaska is now over thirty-three thousand; of these the natives themselves own sixty per cent., or more than twenty thousand, and are always anxious to obtain more, preferring deer rather than cash for their services. The Government does not sell reindeer. This is done entirely by natives and the missions. It has been found necessary by the Government to put the young native Eskimo through a course of training, and those who get their deer directly from the Government have to serve as reindeer apprentices for four years. With careful training they make good herders. They are taught how to care for the reindeer, to harness and drive them, to throw the lasso, and
Riding a reindeer. to protect the fawns from the attacks of wolves and dogs. At the end of their apprenticeship, the herders have about fifty deer, which, with the

Sometimes the young people in Alaska ride reindeers to school for amusement.

A herd of reindeer at home.

yearly increase, provides a good income for the future. Well-trained sled-deer have been used to carry the United States mail from Barrow to Kotzebue, a distance of six hundred and fifty miles. This is the most northern mail-route in this country, and the most perilous and desolate mail-trip in the world. The average speed is from forty to fifty miles per day.

At Barrow, “the jumping-off place” of the American continent, there is a herd of more than seven hundred deer. Here about one hundred and twenty Eskimo boys and girls attend the Government school. They are the most northern school children in the world. Some of the boys get up at three or four o'clock in the morning and walk five miles to the open water to capture a seal for their mother, but they always get back in time for school at nine o’clock. Occasionally the young people ride reindeer for amusement, but it is not a customary method of travel in Alaska, as it is in Siberia.