Thirty Millions of These Caribou
letting the wind blow through their whiskers in that northern country,” said the lecturer. “There is absolutely no destructive war on them, and no possibility of their destruction. When the great northland is opened up, it will be for Canadians to decide what is to be done with those animals, and how is that beautiful country to be opened up? Some say that the reindeer will be the medium, but I hold that it will be the yak, which roams through the north of China. This animal is strong and sturdy, can bear the heaviest burdens, and can stand any extreme of climate.”
The Experiment in Alaska.
In view of the suggestions that have been made as to the domestication of the Barren Lands caribou, and recalling the fact that through the agency of Doctor Grenfell of Labrador, Lapland reindeer have been recently (1912) sent out to the Athabaska region as an experiment, the following paragraph from the “Christian Herald” of a recent date is interesting: “It is only a few years since the United States Government, as an experiment which it was hoped would help the Eskimos and Indians of northern Alaska, imported a few score reindeer from Norway, with a number of Lapps skilled in their care. Subsequently other reindeer were brought from the opposite coast of Asia, and although it was known that the particular form of moss or lichen on which these animals live, and which flourishes under the snow, was abundant within the American Arctic circle, the attempt to introduce reindeer was regarded by a majority of our citizens as being quite as wild and visionary as was the purchase of Alaska by Secretary Seward in 1867.
“The few score reindeer have grown to twenty-seven thousand three hundred and twenty five distributed in forty-two herds. More than one-half, or fourteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-three, is owned by natives who before the advent of the reindeer were in a state of the most wretched poverty. Of the remainder three thousand seven hundred and thirty are owned by the United States, four thousand one hundred and ninety-four by missions and four thousand four hundred and seven by Lapps. The total income of the Eskimos from the reindeer industry during the last year reported was twenty-four thousand six hundred and thirty-six dollars.”
Future Supply of Cheese, Meat and Leather.
A newspaper despatch is authority for the statements that the first shipment of reindeer meat has been shipped from Alaska to Seattle, and that the gentleman in charge of the reindeer in Alaska for the United States government says that in a quarter of a century there will be three million beef reindeer in Alaska, and that they will thrive and multiply and fatten on the Arctic vegetation where even a goat could not live. Their flesh, he asserts, is more palatable than either beef or mutton.
In view of the success of this experiment in Alaska it is predicted that in the far north of America, as in the far north of Europe, the reindeer will be the principal domestic animal, supplying the people not only of the northland itself, but of more southerly latitudes, with cheese, and meat, and leather.
The Musk-Ox.
Mr. J. B. Tyrrell is authority for the statement that besides the caribou, musk-oxen (Ovibos moschatus) are the only other large herbivorous animals that live in the open plains of the north, and they scorn the shelter of the forest even in winter, their long shaggy coat of hair furnishing sufficient protection against the severest gales. Mr. Tyrrell in his report of his explorations along Dubawnt and Kazan rivers states that the habitat of the musk-ox seems to be confined to that country north of the portion of Dubawnt river between Dubawnt lake and Hudson bay. None were seen in the course of either of the two expeditions mentioned, but Eskimos met with at the head of Chesterfield inlet had a number of fresh skins. The Eskimos on Kazan river reported to Mr. Tyrrell that there were no musk-oxen in their neighbourhood.