The fur is finer and the skins are lighter. More than thirty years ago sixteen reindeer were brought across Bering Strait from Siberia to establish the first reindeer colony at Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands. That experiment was not successful and it was some years later before a real start was made. The Government began to import them in i892 and continued for ten years, being stopped by Russia's prohibition of further exportation of the animals. In 1902 nine herds had been established and the Government owned some two thousand deer worth about fifty-six thousand dollars.
Today there are one hundred and fifty thousand reindeer in native hands.
The cost to the United States Government of introducing reindeer into Alaska was three hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. All told, only twelve hundred and eighty head were imported. Besides the more than two hundred thousand there now, approximately a hundred thousand have been killed for food or for shipment to the States. As it is estimated that the total increase from the original reindeer herds has been worth six million dollars, the original investment of the Government has increased about two thousand per cent. The industry of reindeer raising has been developed through a system of apprenticeship.