588 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



primitive weapons can never permanently occupy the same area. 

 In Melville Island we killed entire herds when we needed them. 

 The Eskimos kill entire herds whether they need them or not, and 

 so it has probably been with primitive man since the earliest stone 

 age. We assume that man as a hunter gradually spread north- 

 ward. Then need we assume any other cause for the gradual 

 extinction of the ovibos? It seems to me not, unless it can be defi- 

 nitely shown that they were extinct before the first hunters ar- 

 rived. 



But the very qualities which make it impossible for them to 

 compete with man as an enemy qualify them admirably for becom- 

 ing his ally in the sense of the domestic animals. In tropical and 

 subtropical countries some domestic animals need no help from 

 man except protection against predatory animals. But in the 

 climate of protracted winter they need greater and greater coddling. 

 No blizzard ever blew that inconvenienced the ovibos nor has any 

 one seen proof that they find the cold uncomfortable. Generally 

 they are fattest in winter and if they get poor in the spring, that 

 seems to be connected with their breeding habits rather than with 

 the severity of the weather. They need no barn to shelter them, 

 no hay to feed them, no protection from any enemy except man 

 himself. Possibly their southward extension may be limited by 

 hostile microbes or bacteria, but of that we as yet know nothing. 

 Meanwhile I take it to be certain that part of the approaching 

 development of the North will be their domestication. 



The domestic reindeer * has many attractive qualities. For fif- 

 teen hundred years certainly, and perhaps for millenniums before, it 

 has been the main domestic animal of millions of north Asiatics 

 about whom we Europeans do not know very much. Neither did 

 they know much about us until lately. But the meat of the rein- 

 deer is becoming yearly a more and more important food of the 

 Scandinavians and north Russians, and in Europe it appears in new 

 markets every year. In America the industry is a success in Alaska 

 and a small amount of reindeer meat is sold at luxury prices from 

 Seattle to New York. The reindeer is already with us as a factor 

 in the meat supply. Reindeer can convert into delicious meat the 

 billions of tons of edible vegetation that go to waste yearly on 



* There are many breeds of domestic reindeer and many varieties of wild 

 caribou. But the difference between the smallest domestic reindeer and the 

 largest wild caribou is no more than that between Jersey and Shorthorn cattle. 

 Nor do they appear to differ in food habits or hardiness. Where the wild 

 caribou thrive in spite of wolves, there should the domestic reindeer, protected 

 from wolves by man, thrive even better. 



