CHAPTER XIV
Moving Camp.—Another Great Blizzard.—A Remarkable Sight.—Deer Getting their Food by Digging the Snow.—How Reindeer are Butchered.
THE next day after our conversation about reindeer Pehr Wasara said to me: "We are going to move away our camp and take our reindeer to a new pasture," an expression that struck me as somewhat singular, as the country lay under snow to the depth of five or six feet. "Some of us are going to fetch the draught animals, and I will be back in a short time." With these words he left with some of his people.
They returned with a fine lot of trained reindeer.
In the mean time there had been a great commotion in the camp; everybody was busy; the tent had been packed in two bundles; its frame made three packages; the frozen reindeer milk, all the provisions, meat, garments, robes, skins,—in a word, everything they had was loaded on different sleighs and secured.
The babies were carefully fixed in their queer-looking cradles, and made quite safe against blustering winds.
Everything being ready, the reindeer were harnessed and we started. Soon after, we came to the herd which had been bunched by the Lapps, the dogs keeping them together. Then we began our march.
The herd moved in advance, in a body. Men, women and children on their skees moved after them with great rapidity, with their dogs to help them in the work of keeping the herd together. They all shouted and urged the dogs to look out, but this required, I thought, no urging, for the dogs were on the alert and knew what to do. In the rear were three Lapps with their dogs driving the reindeer forward; the dogs barked behind the heels of the animals, and once in a while would bite the legs of those that did not move fast enough.
The women worked just as hard as the men, and those who had babies carried them in their cradles, slung on their backs, and went as fast on their skees as if they had been free from burdens. The babies were evidently very comfortable, for they were very quiet.
It was a fine sight to see the herd of over three thousand reindeer on the move over the vast plain of snow. After two hours we arrived at the place of our encampment.