

I. REINDEER AND SNOW-CAMELS 



THE place still held by animals in the practical life of 

 to-day is well shown by the efforts of the Governments 

 of Canada and the United States to supply transport 

 to Klondike during the spring of 1898. To reach 

 an ice-beleaguered goldfield in the north-western corner 

 of Arctic America, the Governments of two great 

 nations, Canada and the United States, were sending 

 agents to fetch half-wild reindeer, and Lapps, their 

 half-wild owners, from the north-eastern corner of 

 Arctic Europe. This astonishing adventure was under- 

 taken, first, because the reindeer are the only draught 

 animals which can find food on the journey to 

 Klondike, and secondly, because in the race against time 

 there was not an hour to spare in organizing un- 

 trained herds. Broken reindeer, with their own Lapp 

 owners and drivers, had to be procured, or the ex- 

 pedition would have been too late to start from 

 Dyea in March, when the Arctic days are lengthening. 

 Meantime, the Canadian Government, at its wits' end to 



1 i 



