232 POLAR PROBLEMS 



chops and steaks. But there would be no newness about the ovibos, 

 unless each steak were labeled, for its meat is identical with beef in 

 flavor, texture, color, and odor.^^ 



Both reindeer and ovibos have valuable hides. The chief use for 

 reindeer hides will doubtless be as furs for aviators and for everyday 

 wear in cold winter climates ; with the ovibos the hide will be used for 

 leather and the wool for the weaving of cloth. Reindeer milk is now 

 used by certain nomads but has not been much used in Alaska and will 

 probably not be used under commercial domestication because it is 

 small in quantity, although agreeable in taste. However, reindeer 

 milk differs from cow's milk in flavor, but ovibos milk is like cow's 

 milk except that it is richer or more creamy. The ovibos gives three 

 or four times as much milk as the reindeer, and it is therefore possible, 

 although unlikely, that it will become a dairy animal. 



It is reasonably certain that any attempt to domesticate the 

 ovibos, if made with average common sense, would succeed. But it 

 would cost from $100,000 to $200,000 to do it in a practicable way, and 

 this money is ver}^ difficult to secure. It cannot be had from govern- 

 ments, for they are largely influenced by farm opinion. The farmers 

 feel that they are getting too little money for their domestic meats 

 now and that it would be to their disadvantage to encourage more 

 competition. They are alread}^ jealous of the reindeer; they would 

 have more cause for jealousy against the ovibos. 



But if, wishing to be both truthful and conciliatory, you say to 

 the farmer, or the politician controlled by farm opinion, that ovibos 

 meat would not come on the markets in appreciable quantities for 

 forty or fifty years (it being slow work to develop an animal from the 

 first few head domesticated to the millions that are required for a 

 world commodity), you immediately step beyond their range of vision, 

 for not many can take any interest in a thing that is going to happen 

 fifty years from now when they are either dead or old. Similarly 

 with the capitalist, who is usually vain enough to want credit for a 

 thing accomplished during his lifetime, or else so "practical" that he 

 wants immediate results. Furthermore, capitalists are like sheep 

 (or like the rest of humanity) : they all follow one another around. 

 Many capitalists have already built schools, and therefore many 

 others want to; but no animal has been domesticated during historic 

 times, so it will probably be difficult to find a capitalist of originality 

 enough to do it. Since there is no known precedent he would, for one 

 thing, fear to seem eccentric. 



Let us hope, nevertheless, that some philanthropist or someone 

 who merely wants to do a remarkable thing will give Si 00,000 to add 



'* For discussion of this and many other points not fully developed here, see "New Land: Four 

 Years in the Arctic Regions" by Otto Sverdrup (2 vols., London, 1904), Vol. i, pp. 35 and 48. Also 

 see index of "The Friendly Arctic" and Chapter 6, "The Northward Course of Empire," especially 

 pp. 142 ff. 



