324 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 
A serious menace to the industry in Alaska is the preva- 
lence of the reindeer warble-fly. This is of particular im- 
portance on account of the damage that it causes to the 
hides and its consequent effect on the development of a 
market for reindeer leather. This insect is also a serious 
pest in northern Europe and Siberia, and affects a large 
proportion of the native barren-ground caribou in northern 
Canada. 
THE USE OF REINDEER IN CANADA 
Although a vast area of subarctic Canada affords as suit- 
able range for reindeer as the areas in northern Europe and 
Asia, where they have been utilized by man for centuries, 
and reindeer were introduced into Alaska in 1892, their in- 
troduction into Canada is of comparatively recent date. 
The first and, up to the present, the only attempt to intro- 
duce these animals into Canada was made by Doctor Wil- 
fred T. Grenfell in connection with his famous mission in 
Labrador to deep-sea fishermen, which includes within its 
scope the welfare of the natives of the Labrador coast. 
During his many years of medical-mission work on the 
coast of north Newfoundland and Labrador he discovered 
that one out of every three deaths on the coast was due to 
tuberculosis, and that one out of every three native babies 
died before reaching the age of one year. Diseases due to 
malnutrition were rife among these people. ‘There were no 
milk-producing animals, and milk was the great need on the 
coast. The keeping of sheep, goats, or cattle was out of the 
question, and this caused Doctor Grenfell to turn his atten- 
tion to the possibility of introducing and using reindeer, 
which had been successfully introduced into Alaska. In the 
introduction to his account* of this work Doctor Grenfell 
gives an excellent account of the economic value of the rein- 
*“T abrador, the Country and the People,’ by Wilfred T. Grenfell and others 
(“Reindeer for Labrador,” pp. 251-271), 1909. 
