The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1912-01-06

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door life, and the steady eye of or
! used to looking across great distance
came to Washington with such sma
fuss that it was more than a week be
fore the reporters were aware of hi
presence at all. He is w. T. LopI
head of the governments school sys
TEN for Esquimaux, and a man VIII
has spent most Of mis- life since 1885,
in Alaska, seldom coming out" as h
calls a trip down to the states.
Lopp was a Hoosier schoolmastel
when the government sent him and
another young man up to Cape Prince
of Wales on Behring strait, to start
an Esquimaux school. He expected
to remain but two years.
When he went up he and his partner
were the only white men living in all
of northern Alaska. They went alone
into a district where the natives were
SO dreaded that whalers would not
put into port even for haven in a
storm
gold rushes go past him, he himself
got the gold fever only once, he has
travelled up and down and criscross
Alaska on foot, mushing with dogs, or
driving reindeer, from PIT. Barrow,
northernmost pinnacle of the con-
tinent, down to the Alaska peninsula
in the warm Japan stream, and east
ward to the Canadian boundary.
Before white men came he has
known what is to be driving exhaust
ed dogs in the bitter cold of interior
Alaska with the food dwindling; he has
been in an Esquimaux hunting boat
scuttled by the tusks of an Infatuated
walrus; he has fearlessly carried law
into rough, lawless winter whaling sta
lions in the Arctic Ocean; he has faced
death in a score of FORMS. But of all
these he will say nothing. He pre-
fers to talk about the governments
Alaskan reindeer herd, of which he
was the creator, and is the present adj
head.
1--WE got the idea of importing rein
deer from Siberia that first year we
were at Cape Prince of Wales" he |
said. "The country then had a bad rep |
utation. But after we had learned a |
little more of the Esquimaux language |
we discovered that most of the troub-
lie between the EsquImaux and the
whites resulted from Ill treatment of
the natives. We found them kindly,
good natured people, with more native
intelligence than Indians have, and
eager to learn the white mans ways.
Their chief faults were drunkenness
and tendency to steal whatever they
could.
I'VE had some trouble with them at
irst, but we insisted on having our
way. When they saw we were abso-
utely just and fair with them, their at
itude changed. We taught them that
stealing and drinking were wrong, and |
hey listened to us. Today it would
re hard to find a more honest people +
han the Esquimaux living from Cape
'rlnce of Wales northward, and drunk
nness is almost unknown. Also
hey are the most advanced of the !,
1squimaux in carrying out our teach
ngs of cleanliness and hygiene
THAT first winter we learned that :,
he Esquimaux wanted to own rein
eer, but that the revenue officers
you'd not permit the Importation
ome of the natives even owned rein
eer in the Siberian herds across the
traits. And it seemed shame that
hey were forbidden to bring their +
roperty across from Asia, so near that
lie Siberian heights could be seen over
lie water on clear days.
1--WE appealed to Washington for
to import reindeer But
her government agents had preceded =
5 in this request. Before we had .
reply from our letter that summer a y
venue cutter put into port with a q
lipment of reindeer on board We ;,
ere overjoyed to know that the pro- E,
bition of the law had been removed,
I'd set about getting more. h.
"In 1892 came the first large i'm q,
rtation. We brought in 1900 that ..
ar, and from these grew the present r.
I'd, scattered throughout Alaska and Of
mbering over $4,000.
The reindeer policy was gradually in
olved. We impress upon the Lapps or
d Esquimaux that the reindeer are III
,lusively their property and care
r instance, they are not allowed to
female reindeer to white men, so
It the brood animals are to be per- ne