Through Arctic Lapland

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

But, at the same time, it is not advisable to let the mosquito-plague torment the beasts too much, and this is why the summer herding is done on the high ground, where these pests are fewer. Still even there they sometimes abound; and, when they grow very bad, the mountain Lapps will (for a treat) light fires to windward of their herd, and let them revel in the sanctuary of smoke. Fancy semi-wild deer, even through the custom of ages, accepting a diet of smoke!

The domesticated reindeer of Arctic Lapland varies much in bigness, according to the age and the breed; but, taking the average, they are smaller than the wild deer of the high fjeld in Southern Norway, and smaller than the domestic reindeer of Siberia. Still they are of no puny size, and a fine red stag of the Scottish Highlands would find many equals in girth and shoulder height amongst the Arctic herds. But the Scotchman would tower above the rest by reason of his carriage of the head and antlers.

There is nothing majestic about a reindeer’s deportment. He is usually cow-hocked. His great splay-feet, with their two lateral hoofs, are excellent, it is true, for getting grip on snow surfaces, but architecturally they are far from beautiful. And the carriage of the head is distinctly bad; whether standing still or on the move, they have their ears on a level with the withers, and the hairy nose stuck out in front.

Amongst all the deer tribes of other lands the females are hornless, but the reindeer, whether she is wild or whether she is domesticated, sports antlers of orthodox shape. They are slightly smaller than her husband’s, but, like his, they begin to appear within a few weeks of birth, which, seeing that most deer do not show a trace of horn till they are at least nine months old, is an abnormally early development. The lady’s head-gear, too, although it is slimmer and has less points than monsieur’s, is worn all through the winter, and is not got rid of till the troubles of maternity begin in the spring. And here she shows her superiority, for the bull reindeer has always cast his antlers by the end of November. This trifling fact is usually overlooked by those artists who at Christmas-time draw such pleasing pictures of impossible Lapps careering in toy-shop sledges towards a genuinely London-made aurora borealis. It seems a pity to cast comparison on so many pretty drawings, but let us be accurate sometimes, even if we have to forego an artistic effect.

The sledge-deer is not a natural product, but the outcome of severe training. It takes three winters of hard breaking-in before he could sell with the warranty of “Quiet to drive in single harness: has dragged a lady.” He is not a picturesque animal when he is on the move, with a sledge behind him jolting along at the end of its long, hide trace. He gets over the ground quickly, it is true, but he leaves all possible grace out of the performance. His gait is a series of long, striding slides, which make one think he is eternally on the point of coming down, and predict for him wrung withers, sprung hocks, and a necessity for embrocation on every muscle of his body. He overreaches at every step, and rattles his great splay hoofs against one another like some one playing castanets. But, if not over-pressed, he can get over enormous distances at an eight- to ten-mile-an-hour speed (according to the ground), in front of a 200-lb. load, in the worst of Arctic weather, and on a miraculously small supply of forage; and he possesses climbing powers which would put even a Spanish contrabandista’s mule to the blush.

But the nomad Lapp of this district does not exist merely as a breeder of draught animals, and not two per cent of his flock ever feel the chafe of trace or collar. He is a purveyor of meat: he breeds, rears, and tends his deer for the one sole purpose that in due time they may be driven down to a market, and there be exchanged for the luxuries of life and a balance of current coin. He needs sugar, green coffee-beans, and Russian leaf-tobacco, and the fjeld produces none of these things; but in the places where the reindeer can be sold, there they may be bought from traders.

And at the same time he uses the herd in a measure to support his own life. The thick syrupy milk—almost as dense as the condensed Swiss milk one gets in tins elsewhere—makes part of his daily meal. We came across it not unfrequently. It is carried in grimy bladders, and, after the custom of the country, is usually rather sour. At meal-times it is poured into a large bowl of birch-root, which the host holds between his knees. There is one spoon, a shallow affair of bone, which is handed from one to another, and it is always considered polite to lick the spoon quite clean before passing it on. The milk itself, either by reason of its surroundings, or because it is made that way, has a telling flavour of ancient turpentine, which clings in the memory. But I do not think that reindeer milk eaten à la laponne will ever be introduced as a delicacy by English gourmets.

Farther westward in Lapland, the ownership of the deer is different. Every Finn farmer must have his six to eighteen deer for winter traffic, and as the country is more thickly settled there, a great many deer are required. In the summer these are handed over to some Lapp, who will graze them and return them when the snow comes again in good condition for the heavy work. The Lapp gets a fee for his trouble, and takes as a perquisite any increase which may occur whilst the beasts are under his charge. He runs all the deer entrusted to him in this way together in one big herd, and separates them (if so be he should forget the individuals) by their respective ear-markings, which are registered property.

The niceties of scientific breeding are beyond the crude wit of this meat farmer of Arctic Lapland, and though he occasionally does a swap, weight for weight, and age for age, to bring new blood from a distant herd into his own, and so prevent continuous in-breeding, this is about the utmost extent of his efforts. He accepts the new-born calves as they appear, and does his best to keep them in fettle and get them fit for market in the smallest possible time. In summer he drives them through the forests of Arctic willow and birch, where they may browse on the young shoots or eat the crisp moss underfoot. And for the benefit of those that have not seen the performance, I may say it is a quaint sight to watch a solemn reindeer reared up on his hind legs, with his great splay fore-hoofs against a birch trunk, trying to grab the tender foliage which dangles so temptingly just above his hairy muzzle. His one regret, then, is that Nature has not given him wings. But in winter the mountain Lapp herds his deer where the snow blanket is thinnest, so that they may most easily delve down to the moss beneath.

It is a curious sight, also, to see a reindeer-herd feeding in the gloom of the Arctic night, when a six-foot layer of snow intervenes between the glowering sky and its food. Each deer digs for itself a pit, hoeing the white mass with its prominent brow-tines, and scratching out the powdery snow with its forefeet, after the manner of a fox terrier delving for rabbits; so that when it is grazing on the succulent moss below it is quite out of sight from the snow surface above. The deer does not enlarge the floor of this pit to any great extent, and it does not understand the art of making a trench. When one patch of the moss is eaten bare, it clambers to the surface again and makes another pit.