INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 45 



Upon my return to the mouth of the Tanana, August 26. I left the 

 steamer i?oc^' Island, which continued the voyage down the river to 

 St. Michael. While awaiting the arrival of the Sarali, en route from 

 St. Michael to Dawson, I was tlio guest of Maj. Arthur Williams, 

 commanding officer at Fort Gibbon. It is a pleasure to avail myself 

 of this opportuntiy to express my appreciation of the cordial hos- 

 pitality extended to me by Major Williams and the other officers 

 attached to the post. 



During this stay I visited the St. James Mission, of the, Episcopal 

 Church, on the river bank about 3 miles above Fort Gibbon. I 

 regret that I did not meet the Rev. Jules L, Prevost, who is in charge 

 of this mission, but I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with 

 IMi's. Prevost and Miss Mason, who, among other duties, teaches 

 the school. The mission station is an attractive group of buildings 

 on the bluff overlooking the river. The settlement consists of a very 

 tasteful church, school, and residence building for the missionaries, 

 and a neatly built native village of 40 or 50 houses. It is probable 

 that m the near future the Bureau of Education will extend aid to 

 tliis school. 



In the village of Tanana I found an experienced teacher, Miss Emily 

 B. Parke, whom I appointed to organize a school at Rampart, a mining 

 settlement on the Yukon, 50 miles above Tanana. ^Miile I was 

 delayed at Tanana the steamer Susie arrived. Among her passengers 

 were ^Mi*. and Mrs. D. W. Cram, who were on their way to Bettles, 

 on the Koyukuk, at which remote pomt the Bureau of Education 

 is starting a school, and whither during the winter of 1904-5 a herd 

 of reindeer will be driven from the Bering Sea coast, thus forming 

 a new center of the remdeer industry. At Tanana Mr. and Mrs. 

 Cram awaited the arrival of the httle steamer Koyukuk, which would 

 carry them to their destination. They were in good spii'its, and 

 looked forward with enthusiasm to theu- pioneer work in that primi- 

 tive region. 



On September 1 I left my kind hosts at Fort Gibbon and went 

 on board the steamer Sarah for transportation to Dawson. The 

 Rock Island, on which I had made the first part of the river cruise, 

 is one of the older, wood-burning steamers of the Northern Commer- 

 cial Company, and several times a da}^ we had to tie up to the bank 

 a~nd wait while the native crew carried man}' cords of wood from 

 the bank to the steamer to feed the greedy fires with material to 

 speed us on our ^vsly. These stops, however, frequently were inter- 

 esting, affording opportunity to visit fishing camps and summer 

 villages of the natives, or to wander over some flower-carpeted glade 

 or wooded hiUside. The Sarah, one of the largest and best equipped 

 of the river steamers, is furnished with the latest oil-burning machin- 

 ery, and stopped only at a few of the larger settlements just long 

 a. Doc. 61, 58-3 5 



