64 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



with this problem that he could not help but give it hi.s immediate 

 attention. He l)egan to collect all po.ssil)le informatioii in regard to 

 the animals and concerning Alaska as being fit ground for their cul- 

 tivation. The Bureau of Education, under its Commissioner, Dr. 

 William T. Harris, has wisely determined to try to give these Eski- 

 mos an industrial education in the art of rearing these animals. 

 Such knowledge will make for their salvation for the life that now is. 

 It w'as hard to prevail upon Congress to make an appropriation to 

 start such an enterprise. ISIoney was raised bj^ an appeal through 

 the public press, and a trial was made. Thoughtful men in both 

 Houses of Congress pondered over this question, and the more they 

 did so the more it met with their approbation. It Avas through 

 them that the Government made its first appropriation. Very few 

 persons have really kept posted in this matter, but many have not 

 hesitated to ridicide it and have steadily endeavored to bring it into 

 disrepute. Even editors of some of our newspapers have been revil- 

 ing its chief promoter and speak of the enterprise as a "fad." This 

 may have been brought about in part by the failure to carry supplies 

 to the Klondike in the winter of 1897-98. The purchase of several 

 hundred of these animals in Norway and Lapland and their shipment 

 across the Atlantic and the continent, and by steamship again from 

 Seattle to Haines Mission, and the dying of a large percentage of them 

 at that point, and all the subsequent evils, had nothing whatever to do 

 with the problem of the introduction of domestic reindeer into west- 

 ern and northern Alaska for the use of the Eskimos. When editors 

 and writers raise the crv of "failure*" and "fad" the}' simph" show 

 that they are not acquainted with the facts, or, if they are, that they 

 are prejudiced and arc not willing to stick to the truth. 



At the very time that the cry of starvation was raised in the news- 

 papers concerning the miners on the Klondike another cry went up 

 that a hirge number of whalers at Point Barrow were caught in the 

 ice and unless they got relief many would star\e to death before 

 spring. Accordingly the revenue cutter Bear was outfitted and sent 

 oft" to give relief. She landed a party of three oflicers — Lieutenants 

 Jarvis and Berthoti' and Dr. Call. Under conditions that try men's 

 souls they made their way from the spot where they were landed at 

 Cape Vancouver, a long distance south of the Yukon River, around 

 the margin of the coast, till they came to the missionary reindeer 

 station at Port Clarence. Here Mr. W. T. Lopp and the native 

 Eskimo, Antisarlook, at the earnest entreaty of Lieutenant Jarvis, 

 turned over their herds of reindeer to him, amounting in all to 437 

 animals, and the natives not only parted with their animals, but volun- 

 teered to go with Lieutenant Jarvis to drive them to Point Barrow. 

 After several fearful weeks they reached that station and gave imme- 

 diate relief to those hungry men and kept them alive until the ice 



