REINDEER AND MUSK-OX 



to drive a herd of deer from Ola over to the Kamchatka coast, where 

 they could be embarked much more readily than at Ola, and later in 

 the season. 



_ "When I was in Alaska there was no prejudice among the white men 

 against reindeer meat. Everybody was glad to get it. It had never 

 occurred to me that anybody would dislike reindeer meat until I heard 

 Captain Baylis say so the other day. But that appears to be on all fours 

 Avith the fact that some people do not like chicken and some do not like 

 fish. In fact, Captain Baylis mentioned that he never ate wild duck 

 for he does not care for the taste. 



"In Siberia, along the post roads we had reindeer meat for food 

 when we wanted it, and had time enough to get it, but when you are 

 travelling rapidly in Siberia you carry as little food as possible, and make 

 It as light as possible. It is the custom in Siberia in preparing for a long 

 trip to cook up meat and make a thick, heavy soup. The soup is then 

 strained and frozen in cakes about the size of a brick. The meat remain- 

 ing is rolled in small balls, about the size of a hickory nut, and then 

 rolled in dough, which gives you something about the size of a walnut. 

 This is also frozen, and all you need when travelling is a sack full of these 

 frozen meat balls and another sack full of soup bricks and some tea. 

 That can be stored away anywhere on the sled, and it is always handy. 

 In having these things prepared at the various towns there was no deer 

 meat available, so most of it was beef, but as we got to the coast we had 

 deer meat at Okhotsk and at Ola. I was, of course, glad to get it. That 

 was the cleverest way of travelling I ever saw. 



"I am very fond of reindeer meat. I have always looked upon rein- 

 deer meat as a luxury, possibly because I don't often get it. But the 

 flavour of reindeer meat is very good, particularly when it is fresh. 

 Personally, I don't like venison of any kind, and when I speak of venison 

 I mean meat which is a bit strong. It has never struck me that reindeer 

 meat was venison. I have eaten reindeer meat which was on the order 

 of "venison," but that was because it was old, and I ate it only from 

 necessity. In other words, I have always considered venison as so much 

 spoiled meat, just the same as if beef were treated the same way. Rein- 

 deer tongues I think are particularly fine, dried and smoked. I have 

 eaten reindeer meat in the summer and in the winter, both in Alaska and 

 Siberia, and I have never noticed any difference. I liked it at all times, 

 particularly if it is young deer. 



"If the reindeer industry comes to be a paying one in Alaska, white 

 men will want to go into it on the same basis as cattle raising in Montana 

 and I should think it would be a very attractive proposition. That 

 country in the past supported tremendous herds of caribou, according 

 to the annals of the early explorers, and, therefore, it can support as 

 many herds of domestic caribou at the present time. 



"I think it is only in the northern part of Alaska that the climate is 

 worse than in the Dakotas in the winter time. Certainly it can't be a 

 very dreadful country, when you can pick huckleberries a hundred 

 miles north of the Arctic circle, and cut lettuce three times in the season 

 a hundred miles south of the circle. 



"I should put the old timers in Alaska in two or three classes. Most 

 of them were there because they like it; some of them went there origin- 

 ally because they thought they could make a better living than they 



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