Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1894-01-13
lTo be continued
STORIES or INTERIOR ALASKA.
A Missionary Tells Wonderfoi Taies OF
Reindeer. the Aurors, and the Colo.

A remarkable story. SAYS the San
| Francisco Examiner, is told by the
Rev. f. G. Wallis. missionary OF the
/ Episcopal church, who arrived here
/ recently from the Porcupine river. in
the British possessions, just over the
| line of Alaska. on the edge of the
Rocky mountains. II is mainly about
the intense cold, tho immense herds Of
reindeer, and the sublime magniiicence
OF the aurora borealis. DR.. Wallis has
| been seven years in the wilds of the
Porcupine river, and for the last eight
cen months his wife has been with him
assisting In teaching the Indians.
III does not appear to be generally
known that there are vast herds of
reindeer in that part of the country.
! DIR. Sheldon Jackson, superintendent
| OF education for Alaska, and Capt.
/ Healy Of the Bear have Tor a couple Of
years been importing reindeer from
! Siberia, and this is the reason for the
supposed scarcity throughout that re-
gion; but the scarcity appears TO be
| towards the southern, southwestern
and northern coasts. In the far inte-
AiOi arc VI tuthl.
They are remarkably numerous
everywhere about my mission near the
mouth Of the Porcupine river" said the
reverend gentleman. "Back towards
the mountains from my house I have
seen great bands of them. and almost
everywhere looked | could see them.
This summer when the ice broke up on
the river | remember seeing six or
seven of them on a cake of ice floating
down, and | saw many others floating
on the ice.
"For much of the time have lived
at the mission. | have subssted al
most exclusively on reindeer meat. Ii
Is very good, and may say it is about
the only kind Of meat You don't get
tired OF think it is better, all things
considered, than beef, and YOU can eat
it longer without its palling on you.
The Indians eat il almost exclusively.
and they are very big and strong.
Some OF them are six feet in height,
and the average is about five feet ten
inches. They are genuine North Amer
lean Indians, and not The AleutS. Es-
quimauX, or a mixture Of the two.
81 keep an Indian hunter. and he
supplies me with all the reindeer meat
want He also brings in grouse,
ducks. bear and other game as need
it. | have learned TO shoot pretty well
myself. as all white men do in that re-
gion. The ducks and grouse. like the
reindeer, are remarkably good eating.
1T is fearfuliy cold there. Last
winter the thermometer was for n week
al Il time down 10 60 deg. and have
seen it 20 even considerably lower. At
no time in the winter. nor during other
winters that have been there. was it
higher than ID deg. This cold is ex-
house / good y diifa dtf'r, ihfuntes ntes
time have awakened in the night and
found the blankets. which were kept
up we'll under the nose. frozen into
cake of ice. Sometimes the intense
cold cakes the blankets for long dis
.ance down.
Meats and everything froze, and
YOU would throw them anywhere with
out thinking. The worst experience
was trying 10 make bread. The yeast
would freeze in spite OF you, often
times even when the greatest care was
exercised. If you stepped ont, every
thing was SO still and so intensely cold
you could hear yourself breathe. 1t
had rustlng sound.
Il discovered queer thing about
the cold, and it was shis: Below 40
degrees YOU didn't notice it any more
than 4J degrees. 1t might 90 10 60
degrees, on even more, but it made so
little difference that you didn't notice
it. 1t was all practically the same to
you.
"The wonders Of the aurora borealis
in that region cannot be told. The
heavens all winter long are lit up with
a golden glow. Indeed, may say the
colors-the sparkles and tlashes-are
so many. constant and varied that no
one can describe them. There is prac-
tically no dav during the year. For
two or three months, up to Dec. Is,
from 9 to 12 O'Clock, there is sort of
dawn, but the rest of the time it is
night. 1t is so clear that you can 90
out and read q newspaper anywhere.
"The 400 or 500 Indians at my mis-
sion are bright, and good progress has
been made in instructing them. Nearly
all of them can read in their own lam
guagc. have translated various re-
ligious and other books, which have
been printed in England, for their use.
They have an entirely different lam
guage from any other Indians. There
are five different languages, for in
stance. from there down TO the mouth
of the Yukon, and no one tribe can un-
derstand the other. The languages
are all as different rs French is from
German"