Evening star., 1935-03-27
BY ANDREW BAHR,
Az Told to Max Miller.


EDMONDTON, Alberta, March ~
(NAN.A).-My boys and may have
been frost-Aitten and bruised. snow
blinded at times and starved. but the
reindeer herd at last has just been
delivered and that's the main thing,
mister.
It's long way from the West Coast
Of Alaska to Canada, you know, and
it's three times longer when you're
trying to keep 5000 reindeer together,
and I would say that. for every deer
in the herd, we travelled a mile, count
ing the many times the deer were
stampeded by wolves and we had to
back-track.
The time mighty near had to give
up was the time I mighty near died.
1t seemed all over, 1t did. was in the
middle Of a fiat ice country. a hum
dred miles across, that had no mark
ings. The blizzard had hid the moon
and it was as dark as II there were
no moon, and my Eskimo boys and I
had separated to find some OF the
deer II we could, but We couldn't, and
we had been up on our feet for so
hours straight with the temperature
so or so below and blowing right
through US.
Guide Lost, Too.
I had hired an Eskimo guide of the
locality, but he was lost, too, he was,
but he wouldn't say so.
How much farther?" I asked him.
Three hours" he said
We were trying to find an island
which had some provisions on it, and
after We tramped in the dark four
more hours, asked him again: How
much farther?"
Three hours he said.
I'm not youngster no more, you
know. I'm past 60, and when my
face and wrists began to lose all
feeling, and when my legs stopped
moving through the snow the way
they should, I said to myself: We'll,
Andrew Bahr. it's all over, isn't it?"
I yelled through the wind to the
guide: How much farther?'
Three hours" he said. This was
all he knew and that 3 hours was
stretched into Is before we stumbled
onto the place, meaning Is hours
added to the previous so when driv-
ing herd.
Christmas, 1929, when we started
the drive to Canada from Elephant
Point, Kotzebue Sound-that's way
on the other edge Of Alaska, you
know-the experts figured we either
would get the 5000 reindeer to Can
ada in two years or would not get
them there at all. Well, she's been
good five years and some, mister.
And of the original herd which
started out, I can't say how many
finished. Fawns were born each
Spring, and those which lived had
more fawns, so I would say much of
the 2,370 deer we delivered were not
those We started out with.
Wolves and Ice Toll.
off with the wild caribou, and once,
in q blizzard, a lot of head got
stranded on big piece Of ice which
broke off and carried them out into
the Arctic Sea to be drowned, and
there was a sad sight to see, let me
tell you, but all of us were fighting
for our own lives at the moment, so
the best we could do was watch
them 60.
Whenever We could we avoided
wild caribou country, for, in their
way. these caribou can deplete a herd
quicker than wolves can. There was
no telling when a herd Of wild carl
lou might come out of nowhere at
full speed smack into our own herd.
get mixed up and take our reindeer
of at gallop with them. My Eskimo
herders would then have to go out
and try to get them back again,
which meant a matter of many days.
But, in one of the worst Winters
of all, even the caribou for some rea-
son cleared out. 1t was too tough a
Winter even for them at this spot
and that time. The wolves had been
living off the caribou somewhat, and
now, with the caribou gone, the
wolves closed in on our deer, and
what a mess that was! They took
from $50 to 200 animals that Winter,
I'd say. But 1t was the way they
scared the deer which was the worst.
Attack in Small Bands.
The wolves usually would wait un-
til blizzard was on before making
an attack. They were not in large
bands, but ran in punches of from
4 to IL mostly, and, when the snow
was so thick we couldn't see anything.
it was just then that they would
close in. The herd would take fright
and scatter SO that we would have to
spend the next two or three days try
ing to round them up. Sometimes
they would run 30 or 40 miles. and,
when we did find them, they would be
so exhausted we could not travel