CHAPTER V 



REINDEER -STALKING 



THE wild reindeer of Norway have provided in the 

 past most excellent stalking for British sportsmen. 

 The high open fjelds on which they range, and their 

 wary, wandering habits, combine to make the sport of 

 hunting them in a high degree scientific as well as 

 arduous. Scientific, because the game can and should 

 be spied at a distance, and the method of the approach 

 carefully thought out beforehand, and then put into 

 execution on the exact lines of Scotch open-forest 

 stalking. Under these conditions the chances and un- 

 certainty inherent in woodland hunting are largely 

 absent. There is no thick cover to conceal the exact 

 whereabouts of the game, which is often first seen 

 miles away on snow-glacier or bare rocky hillside. 



The sport is also arduous, for it involves long walks 

 and climbs on the high rocky fjelds of Norway, miles 

 from any habitation ; and the hunter must be content 

 to sleep in a mountain saster, or in some stalking hut 

 or tent erected for the purpose. 



The past quarter of a century has witnessed some 

 changes in the habitat and numbers of the wild rein- 

 deer of Scandinavia. When I first visited Norway, 

 in the ' seventies,' there were no tame reindeer, to 



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