180 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



pastures adjacent to the .seacoast winter and summer and increased, 

 which had been a doubtful point with him. he bought more. AVhile 

 he himself kept on trading and hunting for seal, etc., his wife and 

 young brother attended to the increasing deer herd. As he was also an 

 exceptionally good and luckj^ hunter, he seldom had to fall back for 

 food on his live stock. So Peter, within a few years, found himself 

 the owner of a nice herd of reindeer. 



His neighbors meanwhile, who at first had ridiculed him, began to 

 envy him. To content them, he proposed to buy deer for them as well. 

 The proposition struck his neighbors as fair. So Peter, collecting 

 their surplus goods, started to carr}- them along with his own on 

 his northern trips. The common herd grew proportionately more 

 (juickly. The joint owners would delegate their young brothers or 

 sons to help to take care of it. Peter, of course, as principal ow ner, 

 as is the fashion among the deermen in the interior, retained the 

 deciding voice in discussions. When the Bear came negotiating for 

 deer, Peter was wide-awake enough to see an opportunity to better 

 himself, and, although some of his associates objected, he took trade 

 goods from her to purchase deer for export. The natives told me 

 that through it he had been able to increase his own herd to (juite an 

 extent. 



In the meantime Peter had fomid imitators. Other deer herds 

 sprang up, owned jointly ])y the natives of the Lorin and Jan Daugar 

 (South head) villages. Small deer owners, too, who had for 3'ears 

 herded their few deer in a laborious and dependent position w' ith big 

 deermen in the interior, took note of the easier existence of the coast 

 owner, and, settling in the communes, added their deer to the com- 

 munal herds, so that by the time w'e landed at St. Lawrence Bay there 

 were in the vicinity four big deer herds, owned jointly in lots from 

 one to one hundred and more by the inhabitants of the neighboring 

 coast villages. Such conmumal deer herds, herded ])v delegated hei'ds- 

 men, we would consider a practical advance in civilization. The big 

 deemien of the near interior had at first objected to this innovation, 

 but the movement had grown too strong l^efore they had quite realized 

 it. To-day thej^ are somewhat inclined to treat the coast owners as 

 being on an equal footing with themselves, and in cases are willing to 

 turn over to them live deer for trade goods. At Whalen there is 

 another large deer herd, in which nearly every inhabitant of that and 

 neighboring villages is said to have stock. 



This was the situation we found when we landed on the coast with a 

 large amount of trade goods to establish an export business of reindeer 

 to Alaska. We found a local traffic in deer which, rightly employed, 

 promised success. We found in the hands of progressive coast natives 

 deer herds which had already increased to numbers virtually bigger 

 than the surrounding pastures could support. 



