482 



Canadian Forestry Journal, April, ipi6. 



Forty reindeer were brought by 

 the Government from Dr. Grenfell's 

 herds in Newfoundland, and were 

 taken across Canada to Fort Smith, 

 up in the Mackenzie River country. 

 There they were placed in a reserved 

 area and left to make themselves at 

 home in new surroundings. It was 

 hoped that they would take kindly 

 to the change, and for a time they 

 seemed to do so ; but something 

 over a year ago it was reported that 

 of the forty animals all but three 

 had died or escaped. The Macken- 

 zie country did not suit the New- 

 foundland deer, and the attempted 

 colonization proved a comparative 

 failure. 



There are still manv deer in the 

 North, however, and though the 

 native deer of those wilderness parts 

 are far less tractable for domesticat- 

 ing than the reindeer of Labrador or 

 Alaska, they have in a few cases, at 

 least, submitted to the taming pro- 

 cess — in proof of which is the ac- 

 companying picture of a deer team 

 that a persevering halfbreed in the 

 Athabasca country has trained to 

 harness. 



Success in Alaska. 



The reindeer has been a pronounc- 

 ed success in Alaska, where there 

 are now some fifty thousand des- 

 cendants of the fifteen or twenty ani- 

 mals originally imported from Si- 

 beria. As a beast of burden the rein- 

 deer is far more satisfactory than 

 dogs, and it finds its own living, 

 feeding the year round on the moss 

 and lichens of the Alaskan plains. 

 Its powers of endurance are remark- 

 able. Two hundred pounds, besides 

 the sled, is a normal load for one 

 animal on a long journey. A few 

 winters ago a Government official 

 travelled four months with reindeer 

 teams, covering two thousand miles 

 of barren country, in which the deer 

 lived entirely on moss that they dug 

 from under the snow. 



At another time a relief expedi- 

 tion was sent to the Arctic coast, 

 where some whalers were ice-bound, 



with three hundred reindeer, which 

 were driven eight hundred miles 

 with the temperature from twenty 

 to fifty degrees below zero. The 

 animals, which were intended for 

 food for the imprisoned whalers, 

 reached the end of the long journey 

 in good condition, having foraged 

 for their own food along the way. 



The United States mails have 

 also been carried along the Behring 

 Sea coast, for several winters, by 

 strong reindeer teams, and more 

 satisfactorily than the Canadian 

 mails in our own North-land have 

 been carried by dog-teams. 



Good for Meat Supply. 



Another benefit that has followed 

 the introduction of domesticated 

 reindeer in Alaska has been the in- 

 crease it has made in the meat-sup- 

 ply. Reindeer meat is not only the 

 staple diet of the Alaskan natives 

 but is already being shipped in 

 small quantities to such markets as 

 Seattle, and is finding its way to 

 good American dinner tables. It is 

 l)elieved that, as the herds of rein- 

 deer increase, the mossy grazing 

 grounds of Alaska will become a 

 great meat-producing region for the 

 Western States market. 



The Canadian North has possi- 

 bilities of exactly the same kind. It, 

 too, can produce meat, and may 

 some day be a valuable source of 

 supply for our own market. The 

 great sub-Arctic prairies are cover- 

 ed for hundreds of miles with rich 

 grass, and in such abundant pastur- 

 age there is feeding for countless 

 droves of cattle-kind. A suggestion 

 has even been made that beef cattle 

 should be taken into the North, as 

 soon as the railroads make it possi- 

 ble, and turned out to feed upon the 

 wide grass-covered plains of the 

 Mackenzie and Athabasca terri- 

 tories ; but at any rate those plains 

 are the natural feeding-ground of 

 meat-producers of almost equal val- 

 ue, the roving herds of deer and 

 caribou. One of these days we shall 

 perhaps be bringing down deer meat 



