THE CAMEL OF THE FROZEN DESERT 



555 



Secretary Lane has said that the im- 

 portation of the reindeer is "the one con- 

 structive thing done by the government 

 for Alaska in nearly half a century." 



When the white man began to hunt the 

 whale, the walrus, and the seal, in the 

 Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean, he became 

 a competitor of the Eskimo. The white 

 man's facilities for bagging this game 

 soon put the Eskimo at a hopeless disad- 

 vantage. Fortunately the government 

 awakened to the necessity of providing 

 these wards with a means of livelihood 

 in lieu of what they had lost. 



Dr. Sheldon Jackson was the pioneer 

 in realizing the possibilities of the rein- 

 deer industry for this purpose. He ap- 

 pealed to Congress, but did not await its 

 action. The first reindeer brought to 

 Alaska were purchased with funds raised 

 by him through private subscription. The 

 government in 1892 appropriated $6,000. 

 the first of a series of annual appropria- 

 tions made to continue the importations. 



Thus it came about that the Bureau of 

 Education first fostered the reindeer in- 

 dustry as a means of vocational educa- 

 tion for 20,000 Eskimos who otherwise 

 would have had to be supported or left 

 to starve. The present need is for a sci- 

 entific study of the animal. The impor- 

 tance of the industry demands it. 



Of late years the industry has been 

 taken up by a number of white men as 

 a private enterprise. No objection to 

 their entering the reindeer field has been 

 raised on the part of government officials, 

 as the development of outside markets 

 for reindeer meat, skins, and by-products 

 will thereby be promoted; but, in order 

 to protect the Eskimo, a rule has been 

 established that female deer may not be 

 purchased from the natives. 



THE MEAT OF THE DEER AND ITS INEANT 

 PACKING INDUSTRY 



A number of Lapps, originally em- 

 ployed by the government to teach the 

 Eskimos the occupation of herding, were 

 permitted to borrow not to exceed 100 

 deer each. In five years they were to re- 

 turn a like number, keeping the increase. 

 From one such loan in 1901 a count of 

 800 was made in 1908. During that year 

 the 800 animals were equally divided into 



two herds, one of which now numbers 

 not less than 10,000. 



The meat of the deer is not "gamy" in 

 flavor. It has been most aptly described 

 as having a flavor between that of beef 

 and mutton. The animal is butchered by 

 modern methods, after which the carcass 

 is frozen with the hide on and shipped to 

 distributing points in the States, princi- 

 pally Seattle and Minneapolis. There it 

 is kept in cold storage until sold for food. 



Female deer are seldom killed. Of the 

 males a certain number are set aside for 

 breeding purposes and the rest are fat- 

 tened as steers. The average life of a 

 deer is about 15 years, but steers are 

 butchered when three years old. 



Alaskan records are not sufficiently 

 complete to show the number of fawns 

 that the average female deer will bear, 

 but it is estimated to be twelve or more. 

 A well-kept herd will more than double 

 itself in three years. 



THE APPEARANCE OE THE REINDEER 



Most reindeer are dark brown in color, 

 but the herds contain some spotted and 

 white animals. White deer formerly 

 were about as common as black sheep, 

 but are becoming more numerous. It 

 was feared that the increasing prevalence 

 of these variations might indicate a weak- 

 ening of the stock, just as the increase in 

 the number of deformed animals is due 

 to inbreeding ; but experts say not. Their 

 theory is that the presence of the distinc- 

 tively colored animals is due to their do- 

 mestication, and that this fact makes for 

 a greater birth rate, because of a process 

 of natural selection by which some of the 

 females will mate only with the white or 

 spotted deer. Returned to a wild state, 

 they would again take on a uniform color. 

 Shortly the experiment is to be tried of 

 introducing caribou" blood into the herds, 

 in the hope that a larger animal will be 

 produced and the breed improved. 



The reindeer has been called the camel 

 of the Far North. It serves as a beast of 

 burden, and is to the nomad of the north 

 what the camel is to the nomad of the 

 southern desert. Like unto its southern 



*See "Wild Animals of Xorth America." 

 published by the National Geographic Society. 



