INTRODUCTION OF DOMP:ST10 REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 41 



!• h as (]()<:; food in the winter, will support the tluiftiest of the Yukon 

 natives for many years to come. Each of the crew of stalwart native 

 boys on our steamer received S60 per month during the four montlis 

 of navigation. Several of them expected to secure employment from 

 trading companies and from army posts during the winter also. 



At 1 a. m., August 9, we passed the mouth of the Andreafski River, 

 181 miles from St. Michael. At this station many of the river steam- 

 ers of the Northern Commercial Company go into winter quarters. 

 The small native village at Andreafski does not at present contain a 

 sufficiently large number of children to warrant the establishing of a 

 United States school at that place. 



In a heavy rainstorm, at 2 o'clock on the morning of August 10, 

 we arrived at Ikogmut (Russian Mission). At Ikogmut there is a 

 Russian church, a trader's store, and a native village. A United 

 States school was opened there last October. Here we landed Mr. 

 Redmyer, who during the coming winter will transport a herd of rein- 

 deer from Bethel, on the Kuskokwim, to Copper Center, which is to 

 be a new station for the reindeer industr}^. From Ikogmut Mr. Red- 

 myer will follow the portage between the Yukon and the Kuskokwim, 

 the first step in his long journey through the heart of the Alaskan 

 wilderness. We left the party with their dogs and bales of supplies 

 a forlorn-looking group on the sodden shore, but Mr. Redmyer is an 

 experienced explorer and was not daunted in the least b}^ this some- 

 what inauspicious commencement of the land part of his expedition. 



On the river bank some miles above Russian Mission is a group 

 of desolate cabins going to rack and ruin, a reminder of an unsuc- 

 cessful attempt to carrj^ the United States mail from tliis point to 

 Katmai, on Shelikof Strait, 350 miles distant. Here the contractor 

 with his outfit was landed by the river steamer. The attempt to 

 penetrate the fearfully rough, unexplored country to the southward 

 proved too arduous an undertaking, and after suffering great hard- 

 ship the contractor abandoned his project. 



At Holy Cross Mission (Koserefsky) the results of successful mission 

 work are more apparent than at any other point along the river. 

 Here the Roman Catholic Church has maintained a mission since 

 1886. A range of hills shelters the group of mission buildings. On the 

 level land between the mission buildings and the river are cultivated 

 fields, where the painstaking missionaries and their native assistants 

 have had great success in raising vegetables. Their vegetable garden, 

 under the care of the native boys, in 1902, yielded 500 bushels 

 of potatoes and 600 good solid heads of cabbage. Turnips, ruta- 

 bagas, cress, and other rapidly-maturing vegetables grow in abun- 

 dance. At Koserefsky there is a flourishing boarding school under 

 the charge of the Jesuit Fathers and another for the girls in charge 

 of the Sisters of Samt Ann. The boys are instructed in carpentering, 



