Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1906-05-04

for 1000 head. He is so gentle that being
domesticated, he will eat out of hand and
follow like a dog. He is so speedy that
Paul du Chaillu tells of travelling $50
pair can haul $50 pounds and can make
IS miles a day through the unbroken
snow. finding their own food, and this
for weeks at a time. The colder 1t is the
better they thrive.
1t is the reindeer that has transformed
the postal facilities of Alaska. There are
now semi-monthly mails to the Yukon
and Nome during the winter, where be-
fore there were none. The longest route
is that to Point Barrow-the most north
ern post Office on the globe. Here are a
whaling station and a mission that for
merly received but one mail a year, and
that sometimes failed. Now reindeer
carry a winter mail over 1900 miles with
out road or trail, the thermometer from
20 to so degrees below zero. to that far
away post on the Arctic ocean.
There have been acts of beneficence-
accomplished through prolonged peril
that deserve a place among the records
Of heroic deeds, which only the presence
of the reindeer have made possible. In.
the autumn of 1897 eight whalers and
275 men were caught in the ice near
Point Barrow, with only three months
provision. It would be at least a year
before the ice released them, and starva-
ton awaited them. No vessel with food
could get within 1000 miles OF them. no-
was there any method of transporting
food overland. But there were herds Of
deer at Cape Nome. Responding to a
call for volunteers, Lieutenants Jarvis
and Berthold and Surgeon Call, of the
navy, made their way by dog sleds to
Cape Nome, to the Congregational mis-
sion. Here they secured 500 deer. and,
aided by w. T. Lopp, the missionary in
charge, and Eskimo herders, made their
way over the unbeaten snow $50 miles
in an Arctic winter, arriving at Point
Barrow, after a journey of three months,
just in time to save the starving men
OF the reindeer 246 were used for food
and the remainder kept to form the nu-
cleus of a herd at Point Barrow to pro-
vide against future emergencies Five
years before this, rescue could not pos
sibly have been effected, and in this case
1t was due entirely to the prophetic eye
which saw what reindeer might be TO the
frozen North.
In 1900 the soldiers employed in build
ing the government telegraph on the
Yukon were imprisoned by the winter
storms. The rations were failing, and
the mules had given out, when word
reached mission station. DR.. Cambria
and an assistant started Immediately with
deer, and the troops, with their camp.
equipage, were brought out in safety.
Thereafter the deer were kept with them,
meanwhile hauling telegraph poles until
TIE WOIh was uOH6
The discovery of gold and the influx
of miners has given a new impetus to
the reindeer industry. The miner must
be fed, and he must be carried long dis
tances prospecting. A dog team required
to go a long distance can only carry its
own supplies. With reindeer team the
miner can haul his own outfit and sup
plies, and the reindeer feeds himself.
The mining interest alone, which in the
beginning was not a factor TO be con-
sidered, has opened an immense field to
the reindeer industry, and helped to insure
a livelihood for the Alaskan natives, who
babe fair so short a time ago TO be a
national charge. The increase Of the deer,
and the ease with which the fawns are
cared for-the herds doubling every three
| years-warrant the conservative esti-
mate that in three decades there will be
| 10, 000, 900 reindeer in Alaska. There are
also those who believe that within that
time reindeer hams and tongues will be
shipped to the United States, helping to
feed our population.