INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 85 



aiul full of gTatitude. We tliouglit best not to play Santa Clans and 

 cany the presents to the honses with the reindeer. From the account 

 you will see that no more was used for these Christinas presents than 

 heretofore has been paid to the police, and I think the station was more 

 benefited by the results of this distribntiou, since we gained the good 

 will, not of four policemen, but of th.e whole community. 



Mrs. T. L. Brevig and ^Irs, Kjellmann made, under the circumstances, 

 a very nice Christmas tree, which was visited both by the children and 

 grown people. Some presents were given to the children, while all 

 received bread and butter and some taffy. 



Through you I take the liberty of requesting the friends of missions 

 who send presents to Alaska to send useful things, as, for instance, 

 small tools, of which these people are very poorly supplied. A box of 

 toy tools will do more good, make the Eskimos more happy, and con- 

 tribute more to civilizing them than one thousand picture cards, no 

 matter how beautiful or costly they may be. A few tools for soldering 

 and some tin and acid would be very useful, as the people here use tin 

 cooking utensils almost exclusively. 



We have had no traffic at all in liquor. The Eskimos are too ])oor in 

 this vicinity to buy ready-made whisky, and if they now ami then have 

 a little sirup and sugar these things taste too nice in the mouth of the 

 Eskimo to be changed into liquor. 



Of other illegal traffic, there has been some, partly in the immediate 

 vicinity of the station, but it has mostly been confined to primers. 

 Traveling agents have sold a considerable quantity of these and have 

 thereby given great pleasure to the Eskimos in the neighboring villages. 



We have made quite a number of skees in the course of the winter, 

 and after a little practice the Eskimos seemed to prefer these to their 

 snowshoes, but it takes a little time to learn how to use the skees, 

 which will be found exceedingly useful in these regions. The appren- 

 tices had many a fall, but many of them have made sufficient jirogress 

 to be able to make good use of them. The introduction of skees among 

 the Eskimos must be regarded as a very important step for their 

 advancement. We had abundant evidence of this, and only a few days 

 after the first pair of skees had been finished a large number of boys 

 came from the neighboring villages to practice on skees made by them- 

 vselves in imitation of ours. 



By adopting our skees the boots of the Laps also had to be adopted — 

 that is to say, there had to be a hook put on at the toe to keep the foot in 

 the skees. Our apprentices used the Lap boots the whole winter, and 

 the Eskimos became very much attached to the scjuare Lap caps. The 

 Eskimos have also begun imitating the Laps in greasing the leather 

 instead of using the skins as taken from the animals. Tanning of the 

 leather and skins, and the Lap fishing tackle, have also been adopted, 

 and thus the Eskimos have made considerable progress. 



I shall now present a few observations and recommendations. There 

 will bo a great many of them, but 1 will state them briefly. 



