The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-05-10

to twenty days for the trip.
When the caravan halts the deer Are
turned out to pasture, untethered and al
lowed to wander as they will The driver
| uses switch to touch up the slothful,
but some of the old deer do not seem
to mind a switch any more than 1oes
an army mule"
The herders at cape Prince of Wales,
Alaska, earned last winter $500 in gold
for freighting with their reindeer TO the
mining camps. The der were worked in
| double trace harness like horses, and
hauled on sIeds $50 pounds each.
The reindeer can travel at night as well
as in the daylight, and thus during the
long Arctiv night when dogs are iEeid-
cient transportation is always possible
with a reindeer team.
The reindeer make good packers in
summer. One hundred and fifty pounds
is fair load. They also can be ridden
in the saddle.
In the Tunguse country the natives use
their deer in summer we would mule
or horse. II IS no uncommon sight to
see Tunguse trotting along the shore
deerback.
The vast majority of American peo-
pertinent in Alaska proved a failure long
ago, simply because of the widely ad-
vertised unsuccessful attempt in 1898 Of
bringing deer from Lapland. Only once
have reindeer been brought from Europe
for Alaska, and that attempt was I'M
successful, not because the reindeer could
not live live in their new home, but be-
cause of the wretched transportation
given them from Seattle 10 their Alaskan
destination.
The original motive in bringing the
reindeer to Alaska pas purely philantro-
photo give the native a permanent
food supply. Since then the discovery
Of large and valuable gold deposits upon
the unnavigated streams of Arctic and
subarctic Alaska has made the reindeer
a necessity for the white man as we'll
as for the Eskimo. a dog team on long
journey will make on an average of from
fifteen to twenty miles a day, and in
some sections cannot make the trip at
all. because they cannot carry with them
a sufficient supply of food for the dogs.
and can procure none In the country
through which they travel. A reindeer
with two hundred pounds on the sled
can travel up and down the mountains
and over the plains without a road or
trail from one end of Alaska TO the other,
living on the moss found in the country
where he travels.
Without a reindeer prospecting is i'm
possible at distance from the base of
supplies. The prospector can go only as
far as the one hundred pounds of pro-
visions, blankets and tools will last. and
then he mfust return. With ten head of
reindeer. which he can manage single
handed, packing 100 pounds each, making
half ton of supplies. he can be gone for
months penetrating regions hundreds of
miles distant
Even IL no more reindeer are imported
from Siberia, if the present rate of in
crease continues, doubling every three
years-and there is no reason why it
should not-within less than twenty five
years there Will be at least 1000. coo do
nestle reindeer in Alaska. This is
conservative estimate and allows for the
deer that die from natural causes and for
the many that will be slaughtered for
food In thirty-five years the number
may reach nearly slO,OO0Oo0 head and
Alaska viii be shipping each year to the
United States anywhere from 100000 TO
I 900, 600 reindeer careasses and thousands
of tons of delicious hams and tongues. AT
no distant day, ii may be safely predict
ed, long reindeer trains from Arctic and
suharctic Alaska will roll into Seattle
and our most Western cities, like the
great cattle trains that now every hour
thunder into the yards of Chicago. Be
fore the end of the present century Alas
ka will be helping to feed the 2Oo,OO0,OOO
men and women who will then be living
within the present borders of the United
States.-New York Herald.