132 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 
investment for their earnings, and usually take deer in preference to 
cash for services, when an opportunity is offered. The Government does 
not sell deer, this is done by natives and missions alone. The various 
missions are furnished a herd of one hundred deer on loan for a period 
of five years by the government. At the end of this time the original 
number must be returned. The mission keeps the increase of fawns, 
which amount to several hundred, derived from the Government loan. 
The Moravian mission of Bethel has one of the largest herds, nearly 
three thousand. Other missions having over one thousand deer, all 
in Arctic Alaska, north of the Yukon, are located at Colovin, Kotzebue, 
Shishmerof, and Cape Wales. At point Barrow, latitude 71°25’, the 
most northern point on the American continent, there is a herd of 
300. The total population here is about 400, men, women and children. 
One native, “Takpuk,” is considered the richest man of that region as 
he owns a herd of 137 reindeer. The missions support and educate a 
number of young apprentice herders. 
The native herders also take on apprentices and award them six 
deer a year in payment for their services. The Laplanders take a loan 
of deer for five years from the Government and give their services as 
instructors for that period. At the end of five years the Lapp returns 
the 100 deer and becomes an independent herder himself with the 
large imcrease of reindeer he has obtained from the herd. The Lapp 
herders are not interested in the extension of the reindeer among the 
natives. Some of the largest owners of deer are Lapps, some half 
dozen of these men having accumulated herds of from five to nearly 
eight hundred. 
In introducing the reindeer as a means to promote the industrial 
life and to provide a permanent livelihood for the Eskimo, it has been 
found necessary by the Government to put the young natives through a 
course of training. Those who get their deer directly from the Gov- 
ernment serve an apprenticeship of five years. There are several hun- 
dred of these at present. They are bound by a written contract, the 
strict terms of which they cannot violate without peril of losing their 
annual allotment of reindeer and suffering discharge from the service. 
This caring for, training, and breeding the deer is an education in it- 
self, and the best which the Government could give to the young natives. 
With careful training the Eskimo boys make excellent herders. They 
readily learn how to take care of the reindeer, to throw the lasso, to 
harness and drive the deer, and to watch the fawns. Siberian herders 
were first imported to teach them; but of late the more intelligent and 
efficient Laplanders, who have learned by centuries of experience the 
breeding of reindeer, were secured. The Eskimo boys take quickly to 
