REPORT OF REINDEER HERD AT CAPE PRINCE OF WALES. 



By AV. T. Lopp, Misdonary. 



Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, 



August 21, 1899. 



Dear Sir: We .submit herewith the report for the year ending June 

 80, 1899. 



We received, per Frederick Larsen, August, 1898, about 167 deer. 

 Of this number 10 were so crippled, diseased, or aged that they died 

 during the early jDart of the winter. One died from accidental inju- 

 ries, leaving about 156 deer in the herd. Being composed of new deer 

 and several motherless fawns from the Port Clarence herd, they were 

 veiy difficult to herd. 



Eighty-two fawns were born in the spring. Two were stillborn and 

 one died from injuries received from one of our dogs, leaving 79 

 living. 



It was rather discouraging to begin the winter with but 1 sled deer 

 and but few steers for breaking and none for butchering. Our herders 

 had looked forward to this, the beginning of the sixth year, as the time 

 when they would become real deermen, i. e., they would have a suffi- 

 cient immber of steers for sled" and meat. 



The herd was kept ii3 mih^s east of the cape, their base of supplies. 

 As soon as the snow fell they began breaking, and in a few weeks had 

 some deer sufficiently trained to haul all their supplies. When the 

 supply of steers had been exhausted, they broke the bulls and male 

 fawns. They now have 15 trained to harness. 



The news of the big ' ' find " at Cape Nome reached us December 1. 

 Being midway ])etween the "strike" and a thousand discouraged 

 miners on Kotzebue Sound, Ave had a splendid opportunity to take 

 contracts for hauling supplies to the mines. But with so few sled 

 deer, all of them new, no extra hauling coidd be inidertaken. Some 

 of the stronger of these prospectors spent two weary months dragging 

 their own sleds to Nome; others paid $10 per head for inferior dogs 

 along the route and complained that a dog could haul but little more 

 than his own food. The amount of supplies hauled by some of those 

 who went by the Buckland River route was so limited that the miners 

 were compelled to eat their dogs while crossing the divide. Miners 

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