DOMESTICATED REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



in there on its way north and found the natives so reduc 



that they were killing- and eating their dogs. Oapt. lit 



started a subscription among the officers of the ship a 



quickly made up for the purchase of food, and the Bear liinia-u,... 



steamed for St. Michaels and returned in a few days with the relief so 



generously donated. 



I now come to a subject that I wish it were possible to pass over 

 with only a passing reference, but I feel that it deserves to be even 

 more fully discussed than perhaps would be proper in my report. I 

 refer to the poverty of the natives. 



On the 31st of March the last page in our log book was reached, and 

 a new one had to be taken for the balance of the year's record. Before 

 reaching the bottom of the page the following was written : "This book 

 contains a record of affairs at this station of just nine months. Had 

 we opened the record with the subject that was most prominently 

 brought to our notice, it would have been the deplorably poor condi- 

 tion of the natives. Had we recorded every day the subject that was 

 most prominently brought to our attention, it would have been their 

 continual and harassing poverty, made doubly severe by the rigors of 

 an Arctic winter. The same subject is an appropriate close of our 

 record at the end of this book, only doubly emphasized. On account 

 of the limited supply of our stores, we have had to ignore many 

 appeals that have been made to us for food, and we look forward to the 

 advent of the short summer with many hopes that it will come earlier 

 than usual, for the sake of these poor people. To-night I detected a 

 little boy in the act of stealing a biscuit in our house, and it was a 

 struggle when I reprimanded him. I would rather have given him the 

 box, for, poor soul, his hunger craved it." 



The natural food of these people in winter is the seal, whale meat, 

 and dried fish. In the summer months it is prepared by trying out the 

 seal, and that season they catch fish for winter use. 



In another part of this report it is shown that no deer or other fresh 

 meat is now obtained for food, which, a few yifars ago, was so plentiful. 

 Occasionally a grouse or ptarmigan is caught, and sometimes an owl in 

 winter, but they are scarce, and the only other fresh meat to be had is 

 the rabbit, and in this particular section they are by no means plentiful. 



By the middle of the winter the supply of seal meat and oil put up 

 in the summer is exhausted and the men must then venture out on the 

 treacherous ice to open water for seals, sometimes sleeping there for 

 several nights and subsisting entirely on dried or frozen fish. Often 

 they have their trouble for their pains and return home empty handed. 



The women and children, in order to get food sufficient to sustain life, 

 stand on the ice in the bay and fish through holes cut through the ice 

 3 and 4 feet deep. The fish will weigh but a few ounces each, and unless 

 unusually good luck is met with, one person can catch scarcely enough 

 in one day to supply two or three persons. Occasionally they vary it 



