174 REPORT ON THE INTRODUCTION OF 



fattest in the spring. Nowadays, speculators have found it to be a profitable busi- 

 ness trade to go up to Lapland, bny a few hundred tame reindeer, and drive them 

 south over on the mountains, oftentimes as far as what is named the "Fhedaugen" 

 and " Nuniedals" Fields. These reindeer feed themselves exactly as the wild ones 

 do. They rustle for their living by digging up moss in winter time, and eat grass 

 in the summer season. They are distinctly the same kind of animal as the wild 

 reindeer. 



The only good method of handling and herding tame reindeer successfully is to be 

 always steady with them. Follow them up wherever they go or are to be kept. 

 Have some good and well-trained dogs to assist and to chase them back, provided 

 any or all of them want to run away. If thoy do escape, follow them up if you can 

 and urge the dogs on to drive them back speedily. Should it be discovered that the 

 leader or chief among them is of a wild nature, as these leaders are inclined to be, 

 take him away and kill him. When the butchering time comes, take those that are 

 to be butchered so far away from the herd that it can not be noticed what is going 

 on. If this precaution is not taken they are liable to be frightened and to cause dis- 

 turbances that may end in their running away. Another good method is to have 

 the butchering houses in places so far away from the pasture as to prevent the herd 

 from passing by it or give the reindeer any chance to smell blood or see dissevered 

 heads, feet, etc. 



It will be necessary for an outfit of herders and reindeer to have a certain rendez- 

 vous to return to every evening and stay at over night. Keep a place as long as 

 possible, and every evening give salt and milk. 



Never fail to handle the deer carefully, as they will return the kindness. Some 

 reindeer herders have a disposition to use force in breaking them and taming them, 

 whipping and cutting them as though they were pieces of wood, with no pang of 

 remorse. This is certainly all wrong, and any reindeer herder doing so should be 

 discharged immediately. 



The reindeer are fond of music and if a man plays or sings for them, they will 

 stand and listen as children would with a music teacher. 



1 will freely admit that it is not an easy job to make a good reindeer herder. To 

 be such requires study and involves hard labor. 



Please send me a few of your books. 

 Yours, truly, 



II. Knutzon. 



Hon. Shki.don Jackson, 



U. S. General Agent of Education for Alaska, Washington, D. C. 



MOLINK, ILL., March 12, 1SD4. 



Dear Sir: Your favor of the 22d ultimo is received, and confirms what I before 

 have read in the paper that the position of chief herdsman of reindeer in Alaska is 

 engaged. 



If I bail been tendered the position I should with great pleasure have done my 

 duty with certainty of success, having a perfect knowledge of the business of 

 caring for reindeer; and believe that I am adapted to it on several other grounds, 

 being in possession of good health and more than common strength, and 1 am a good 

 hunter of that worst of enemies of the reindeer, the wolf. 



I will with the greatest willingness servo you in telling how the Lapps take caro 

 of their reindeer, as well as about the commercial value of reindeer to them. 



All people who study history know that in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Siberia 

 there dwells, among other nations, a tribe (nomadic) known as Laplanders, wholive 

 in the mountains and own and bring up reindeer, from which they get all their 

 livelihood. Hunting and fishing they also do, but it is more for pleasure and the 

 destruction of the wolf thau as a direct means of living. And not many know that 



