The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-08

and no one criticised them in by-gone
times, for their mode of travel was not
tancied by the tourist. Now, however,
the Lapp and his customs can ne
studied at close range and within the
sound of the railroad whistle
1t is a picturesque sight to see the
Laplanders in their encampment with
their deer around them. For a race
living in similarly primitive ways it is
necessary to so to the Klondke, for in
that region the conditions of life and
the structure of the country are very
similar and the region lies in the same
latitude. This fact should be borne in
mind by Americans. for there are fu-
ture possibilities that the Laplanders'
country may prove to be another Klon-
dixie. The Lapps themselves seem to
have very little love for gold. What
they want are the ordinary necessaries
of life and the privilege of being al
lowed to live in their own wild way
far from the iron rail. This does not
deter them, however, from coming
down to the terminus of the new road
to barter the gold ore that they know
those who visit their country on the
iron road love so well, or to make a
bargain to guide a party that pene-
trates to their homes to the spot where
gold can be found.
Whoever accepts the offer of the Lap
lander to be guided to the region CT
finds that the Lapp in his own home is
not at all a bad fellow, albeit some
what dirty and given to herding rather
too much after the fashion that one
has been accustomed to associate
solely with cattle.
The Lapp hutS or tents are generally
about II feet across, not much room,
that, for a man and his wife and chill
dren and servants and dogs and visit
Ors to find a place in, but everyone has
his own special spot in which to sit or
lie down in, and no one invades the
others territory.
A Lapp teaches one to rely solely
upon the easily obtanable. AS the
Arab gets everything from the Nile,
the Lapp gets everything from the
reindeer, and, perhaps, one ought to
add, the birch tree. Even the bones
and sinews of the deer are used. You
see a white mass of these latter hung
in the trees and wonder what good they
are, but they are chewed by the women
until the threads are divided and then
drawn out, and they make most eX-
cellent sewing material, especially for
boots; Lapp boot, doubly sewn and
knotted with this sinew, is entirely
impervious to wet. Alongside the sin
ews, perhaps, hangs a lump of dried
reindeer flesh that cuts into rosewood
like shavings, but has not at all a bad
flavor.
The women folk OF the Lapp are by
no means prepossessing. Their wrinkles
are marvellous deep seams run into
their sallow, tanned faces; but the
young girls are often sprightly, and. in
spite of the Monaghan fiat visage, no.
without a pleasant air, and some Ct the
sad, plaintive little songs they sing
are quantity melodious. The boys are
imps in mischief and in appearance.
The wondrout aptitude of these
primitive people for making the best
use of what is to them Obtainable is
very remarkable. Birch bark hardly
sounds very useful yet out of it they
make shoes, tubs. baskets, plates, all
sorts of things one would not expect to
be made out of the bark of trees.
There is a great Vastness about the
scenery in these districts, solemn,
weird immensely of stretching dark
forests, wide rivers and mountain lakes
that is full of sombre gloom when the
sky is overcast. but the rivers are we'll
worth descending, as you get down be-
yond the Lapp boundaries amidst the
hustling and humping of the pine logs.
Altogether, a journey to Lapland by
the new railroad gives many new ex-
perfence to the American or European
Traveller. T. L. HENRY.