Norwich bulletin., 1921-09-09
Our Successful Reindeer Experiment

nI,l
 The announcement that a shipment of thirty thousand pounds of Alaskan reindeer meat has just been received at San Francisco calls attention, says the Trade Record issued by The Ma tional City Bank of New York. to the remarkable success of our reindeer experiment in Alaska, where the value of the reindeer herds, established a few years ago, is now counted by mil lions of dollars.
 In the early part of our ownership of Alaska, says the Banks statement. the natives were chiefly dependent upon the whale, walrus and seal for their animal food, but with their rapid
 destruction by the white man the sup
 ply of animal food, an absolute es-
 sential in that climate, was greatly l reduced, and the existence of the na- tives thus threatened. This condition was brought to the attention of the public in the United States in the early Nineties by Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who
 had been sent to Alaska by the Gov | ernment to tablish schools among
 the natives, and he conceived the idea of introducing the reindeer, then un- 1 known in Alaska, but proving extreme
 ly useful in Siberia and IApland.
 Personal appeals by Dr. Jackson to 1 the public in the United States result l ed in contributions of S2,146, and six ] teen head of reindeer from Siberia 1 were landed in Alaska in 1891, follow 1 ed by about one hundred and fifty in | later shipments during the year. Con- i gress then made several small con- | tributions, and by 1900 the total num- | Der of reindeer imported into Alaska 1 from Siberia had aggregated about frxra1 hT1r1 l. | suspended and a colony of reindeer
 masters" was brought from Lapland | to instruct the Alaskans in the care | of the twelve hundred animals thus | supplied to them.
 | As a consequence of this establish
 ment of the reindeer industry in i Alaska a quarter century ago, the | number of reindeer now scattered 1 through the territory is about 100000 | and their value between three and ! four million dollars.
 | So literally are the reindeer herds
 now supplying the natives, their own
 CTS, with meats, milk, butter and | cheese, that their owners are now able | to spare large quantities for the white | population of Alaska and limited quan- titles for shipment to the Pacific Coast | cities and thence to the great trade | centers of the country, so that at cer- i tain seasons of the year reindeer
 steaks" may be had in the markets of
 the great cities as far east as the Att | lantic coast.
 l The especial value, adds the Bank
 statement, of this reindeer enterprise | in Alaska was found in the fact that
 1t turned into food form a natural | growth formerly unutilized, and at the
 same time encouraged fixed habita- : tion and a domestication of industry
 on the part of a population formerly
 nor1adic- through it's dependence upon
 the oceans frontage for it's supply of
 animal food. The reindeer, which thrives upon the formerly unutilized mosses and lichens of the Arctic
 Tundra, which he digs from beneath 1 the snow in winter, serves not only as
 a food supply but also a draft and pack animal in transporting mails and
 merchandise, while his skins furnish | clothing and shelter for the natives. | The Alaskan reindeer herds, the des- l cendants of the twelve hundred rein