44 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



this season of the year, but its brealiers had no effect on me. Fortu- 

 nately I have never been seasick. After three days we reached Ber 

 gen, Norway, on March 3, and remained tliere one day. I improved 

 this time to call on the United States consul, Mr. Gade, and consulted 

 him in regard to the speediest way of getting to the far north. The 

 consul made some inquiries by telephone, and then advised me to con- 

 tinue my journey in tlie Juno to Trondhjem, whence a fast steamer 

 would depart on the night of the otli. 



We left Bergen in the evening, and after stopping at a couple of places 

 to land passengers and mail, March 4 at noon we were in the harbor of 

 Christiansand, and the captain of t\mJimo informing me that we would 

 not reach Trondhjem before late in the evening, which would give me 

 no time to go to the city to arrange my affairs, I sent a telegram from 

 Christiansand to the American consular agent requesting him to meet 

 me in the harbor on the arrival of the Juno. When the sliip entered the 

 harbor of Trondhjem, about 10 o'clock in the evening, the consular 

 agent met me on board. Tie kindly took my draft and had a part of 

 the money sent to me a week later, when the advices had arrived by 

 mail. The fiict was, I had gained just a week on the mail that left 

 New York at the same time that 1 did. 



This arrangement made it possible for me to continue mj^ journey 

 northward. At midnight I went on board the steamer Vesteraalen, 

 bound for Tromscie. During the most of this trip we had snowstorms, 

 but the steamer made good time, and we anchored in the harbor of 

 Tromsoe on the 7th of March. Hitherto I had i>rogressed even more 

 rapidly than 1 had expected, but this was the rirst day of the Lapp 

 market, 180 miles away. The journey from New York to Tromsoe had 

 been made in fourteen days, the best record ever made, and it will 

 probably not soon be equaled again, but 1 had traveled continuously 

 without interruption. Tromsoe is located at 09° 40' north longitude. 

 Though unwilling, I was obliged to remain there one day, but I employed 

 this time in hunting up more Swedish Lapps, who were there acci- 

 dentally. They gave me but little comfort. They admitted that there 

 were many Swedish Lapps who had lost all their reindeer on account 

 of the hard crust of ice on the snow, which made it impossible for the 

 animals to get their fodder. Many reindeer had perished from hunger. 

 The same was the case at Karasoanda, where many Lapps were suffer- 

 ing, but the Swedish Lapps assured me that it would be useless to try 

 to get them to go to America. That would be asking too much. They 

 would suffer a great deal before they would leave their native heath. 



On March 8 I took a steamer for Hammerfest, where I arrived on the 

 9th. The first thing I had to do there was to borrow^ some money, as 

 the draft I had received in Washington had been left in Trondhjem. 

 I found no trouble in getting what funds I needed, as I was well 

 acquainted in Hammerfest. The cablegram which 1 sent from New 

 York had been duly received, and Messrs. Fedderseu & Nissen had 



