58 INTKODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



will not be undertaken at once. It would seem at first, however, that 

 a trunk line might be warranted along the Upper Yukon, connecting at 

 Skagwa3% and extended after a ^ear or two to the mouth of the Xanana 

 or the Middle Yukon, and tinally to St. ]Michael. But the protection 

 and repair of a telegraph through many hundreds of miles of roadless 

 country makes it so expensive that all the business done in those regions 

 would not pay for the outlay. Only when there are permanent settle- 

 ments, one in a hundred miles on an average, all the way from southeast 

 Alaska, through central Alaska, to St. Michael at the mouth of the 

 Yukon, may we expect even a telegraph connecting the extreme north- 

 west with the southeast and the States; for a route from an}^ of the 

 ports on the coast from the Copper River, Prince William Sound, or. 

 Cooks Inlet, would have from 500 to 1,000 miles to reach the Middle 

 Yukon at the mouth, of the Xanana, and the mountainous character of 

 the country would make a telegraph too expensive for the compara- 

 tively small volume of business of the northwest to support. Oxen 

 and horses, even mules, can not make freight lines possible through 

 these distances. Dog teams, much used already, have to freight their 

 sledges with food for long journeys. Carrying 125 pounds freight, 

 and needing li pounds of dried iish for a daj^'s ration, a dog would eat 

 up all his freight in traveling three weeks. 



Xhe natives of northern Si))eria, as well as northern Sweden and 

 Russia, have herds of reindeer, which furnish them food and clothing, 

 and transportation. Oxen and horses need grass, but grass is not found 

 in Alaska except for a few weeks in favored places. Reindeer moss 

 grows on all places where trees do not grow, and in enormous quanti- 

 ties, so that there is a food supply for ten uiillions of reindeer in Alaska 

 as a wdiole. Xhe reindeer is the natural mediator between the arctic 

 soil and the support of man. With herds of reindeer a constant sup- 

 ply of food and clothing of the best sort and rapid transportation of 

 passengers and freight will be in the possession of the dwellers in 

 northern and western Alaska. 



The supply of reindeer moss for food. — Conceive all Alaska as one 

 vast rock. Xhe forces of nature — the sun, the rains, the frosts, the 

 vital power of the seeds of the moss and of hardy trees — all these ele- 

 ments work on the rock to subdue it for vegetation. On the coast 

 near the ocean, where the winds are laden with moisture, as well as in 

 the river valleys, the first beginnings of vegetation appeared. Xhe 

 rock was eaten into by the moss plant. After the moss had flourished 

 for untold ages it had created a hunuis or soil in which the seeds of 

 other plants could take root. Xhe moss epoch, then, was followed by 

 the tree epoch. When the trees grew in the river valleys and on the 

 coast regions the moss could not any longer flourish. But by this time 

 the moss had conquered the rock regions far up the mountain sides 



