INTRODUCTION OK DOMERTIO REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 125 



secured, and Mr. Lopp volunteered to drive them to Point Barrow, 

 a distance of 800 miles. They were to be used for food to succor 

 the 300 whalemen who had been frozen in at that point without 

 sufhcient provisions. The hardships of this trip through a barren, 

 unpeopled country, with the temperature from 20° to 50° F. below 

 zero, and blizzards raging much of the time, can be better imagined 

 than described. The undertaking was a success. That the deer 

 could be driven through such a country in large number, find their 

 own food, arrive safely at the destination, and there drop a large 

 number of healthy fawns is evidence of the value of the reindeer 

 to people who live in the Arctics. Dogs nuist carry their food with 

 them; reindeer scrape the snow away and feed on the moss thev 

 find underneath. Numerous other tests have been made, though 

 less severe. Reindeer have been employed to carry the mail for 

 several winters between the settlements scattered along Bering Sea. 

 In short, it has been proved to the satisfaction of every fau-minded 

 person who has taken the trouble to post himself on the subject that 

 reindeer are an unqualified success, both as a means of transporta- 

 tion and as a source of supplies for most of the necessities of life 

 in that region. 



TUNGUSE DEER. 



In that portion of northeastern Siberia which is contiguous to the 

 Sea of Okhotsk lives a tribe known as the "Tunguse ])eople.'' Rein- 

 deer l^reeding appears to be their main industry, and their deer are 

 of a much larger type than those found either in Lapland or Kam- 

 chatka. To introduce a stock of these deer in Alaska Lieut. E. P. 

 Bertholf , of the Revenue-Cutter Service — the same gentleman who had 

 accompanied Lieutenant Jarvis on the expedition to Point Barrow — 

 was sent to Siberia in the spring of 1901. He traveled from New 

 York to St. Petersburg and 6,000 miles across Russia and Siberia 

 to his destination. It was an eventful and interesting trip. A few 

 quotations from his report to Doctor Jackson, published in the lat- 

 ter's report for 1901, will serve to give an idea ol the kind of deer 

 he was after and the way the natives use them : 



These Tungiise deer were big fellows * * * anj {[jpy stuck to tlieii' work steadily. 

 Notwithstanding the difBculties, we made excellent time; and by 2 p. m. we had gone 

 some 12 miles, including 7 miles of road breaking. Here we came upon a tea caravan 

 of 40 sleds and 100 dT'cr that had been stalled for three days by the storm. * * * Tijp 

 deer in this part of the countrj' are very much donusficattd and tame, and when th<y are 

 allowed to feed the drivers never tether them, but turn them loose to wander as they will. 

 When ready for a start one man rounds the deer up and drives th( ni to camp, whei-e the 

 rest surround them and inclose the herd with a long liide line, which is stretched along 

 between the men. The animals stand very (juietly while some of tiie drivers pick up the 

 halter hnes that have been trailing in the snow, and the deer are then led to the different 

 sleds and harnessed. I never saw an occasion on our whole route when it was necessary 

 to lasso a deer. When traveling the driver uses a switch with which to touch up a lazy 

 deer. 



S. Doc. tjl, 58-3 10 



