5() INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



At the Government reindeer station a number of apprentices have 

 been selected and rewards for intelligent and persevering industry 

 offered. They were to receive two reindeer for the lirst year's appren- 

 ticeship; at the end of the second year five more. By this it was hoped 

 gradually to develop the sense of individual ownership of property. 



Siberian 2>urchaxlng station. — Since 1891 the importation of reindeer 

 from Siberia had been confined to the five or six weeks of midsummer, 

 when Bering Sea and the adjacent shores of Arctic Alaska and Siberia 

 are comparatively free from ice, the average annual importation being 

 134. In order, if possil^le, to procure deer in larger numbers, with 

 the permission of the Russian Government and with the approval of 

 the Secretary of the Interior, a purchasing party, consisting of Mr. 

 John W. Kelly and two assistants, was stationed at St. Lawrence Bay, 

 a short distance below the Arctic Circle, on the Siberian coast. Dur- 

 ing August and September several hundred deer were purchased and 

 herded in the vicinity of the station, where they would be in readiness 

 for shipment to Alaska during the following summer. This success 

 encouraged the hope that a practicalile method of obtaining deer in 

 large numbers had l)een found. It appears, however, from the state- 

 ments of the purchasing agents, that during the winter jealousies and 

 feuds liroke out among the barbarous tribes in the vicinity of the 

 station. In the unsettled state of affairs which ensued further trading 

 for reindeer on the part of the white men was impossible. In July, 

 1898, feeling that their lives were in danger, Mr. Kelly and his two 

 assistants took refuge on a whaling vessel that chanced to enter the 

 bay, abandoned the station, and returned to San Francisco. When 

 Dr. Sheldon Jackson reached the station, in August, he was able to 

 trace and secure onl}^ 166 of the deer that had ])een bought, which, 

 although a larger number than the average annual importation hith- 

 erto, did not equal the number confidently expected. It was not 

 thought advisa])le to continue the experiment further; the station was 

 closed, all movable propert}^ being taken to the Teller station, Port 

 Clarence, Alaska. * * * 



The extensive territor}^ of Alaska consists of two regions, the 

 southeast one accessible at all times of the year bj^ weekly mails and 

 ordinary modes of travel, and the other and vaster portion, including 

 northwest Alaska, practically inaccessible for more than one mail a 

 year and one visit by sail or steam vessels. The United States 

 Treasury sends a stout steamship bound for the Arctic in the late 

 spring or early summer. It arrives at Unalaska at the east end of the 

 Aleutian chain of islands and passes through the gateway into the 

 Bering Sea, cautiou.'?ly watching the ice floes which for many weeks 

 prevent the near approach to any of the ports. 



There are missionary stations and small settlements on both sides of 

 the mouth of the Yukon, north and south, and manv more in the 



