THE LAPLAND REINDEER
While the buffalo is the draught animal of the sultry south and the ox of the more temperate regions, in the freezing north the Reindeer takes their place. Among the many species of deer, some of which, as the moose and elk, are large and strong, this is the only one that has been made to work for man. The people of Lapland could not live without it, and it is also of very much use to the tribes of northern Siberia. We have the same animal in the northern parts of America, where it is called the Caribou, but there it has rarely been tamed and is hunted as game.
The Laplander uses the reindeer as we use the horse and as the Eskimo uses the dog, as a travelling animal. It is strong and swift and can easily draw a weight of two hundred pounds on a sledge. It can travel for a long time at a speed of nine or ten miles an hour.
A rich Laplander is a man who owns a great many reindeer, some of them having herds of two thousand or more. To the men of Lapland, as we are told, "the reindeer serves as a substitute for horse, cow, sheep, and goat." It gives fine milk, is a good traveller, its hair is of use, and its flesh and skin are of much value. Almost every part of the dead animal can be used in some way, so that it serves the Laplander dead or alive.
It is not hard to keep. In the summer it feeds on the shoots of the willow and the birch, and in winter on the reindeer-moss and other snow-covered plants. To get at these it uses both its hoofs and its long, branching antlers in digging through the snow. This is the way in which various hoofed animals keep themselves in the winter, such as the musk-ox of the far north. The horse does the same in such cold countries as Iceland.
Herd of Reindeer Brought from Lapland for the Use of the Indians of Alaska
As I have said, we have a reindeer of our own in the Caribou, but no one has really tamed it and put it to work. Yet it would be useful in the north of Canada, and reindeer have been brought from Lapland to Alaska and Labrador. They seem to do well there and may in time become of much service to the Indians and to white settlers.