THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 589 



the northern prairies. But although they need no shelter from the 

 climate nor help from man in securing their food, they fall an 

 easy prey to the wolves and present the same herding diflEiculties 

 as domestic cattle. 



We need clothing as well as food, wool as well as meat; and 

 for this and several other reasons I would suppose that the ovibos 

 and not the reindeer will a century hence be the chief domestic 

 animal of the northern half of Canada and the northern third of 

 Asia. Of course it is possible to imagine all sorts of difficulties 

 in domestication. The only way to settle such a problem is to 

 try it out, and the prospect of success is so good that the trial is 

 sure to be made.* 



* I hope the reader will not think that I imagine myself to have dealt 

 in this chapter with every serious problem connected with an attempt to 

 domesticate ovibos. This is not a book about the commercial possibilities of 

 the North, except incidentally, and this chapter is frankly a digression from 

 the main theme. But information as full as it can possibly be before the 

 thing is actually tried is now available. 



The winter of 1919 the Honorable Arthur Meighen, then Minister of 

 the Interior but now Prime Minister of Canada, became interested in the 

 possibility of domesticating ovibos and in the other proposals that had been 

 made for utilizing the food-producing resources of northern Canada. At his 

 instance an order-in-council was passed and a commission appointed of 

 three men thoroughly qualified to render a just verdict. Mr. J. S. McLean 

 is manager of the Harris Abattoir Company, one of the largest meat packers 

 of Canada. Mr. J. B. Harkin is Commissioner of Dominion Parks and in 

 that capacity has familiarity with the success under semi-domestication of 

 the various big game animals in the Dominion parks and especially of the 

 large herd of bison at Wainwright. The chairman of the commission, Dr. J. G. 

 Rutherford, is one of the leading animal husbandry men of Canada and has 

 made a study of just the problems that will be involved if an attempt should 

 be made to domesticate ovibos. This commission has gathered evidence from 

 most of the available witnesses. A digest of this evidence has already been 

 submitted to Parliament. It will doubtless soon be printed and will then be 

 available to those who write for it to the Department of Interior, Ottawa. 

 In it we have a body of information which should destroy much of the 

 superstition about the vegetation, and climate of the N'orth and the 

 suitability of the arctic and subarctic lands for the production of meat on a 

 commercial scale, whether they are reindeer, polar cattle, or some other 

 suitable animal. 



