If the moss is poor the deer may feed for six hours, at the end of which time they are driven back to the vicinity of the camp and allowed to remain there until the next feeding time, while the ease-loving servants of the government sleep or whittle fine old ivory into curios to be traded off on the ships for the tobacco which Uncle Sam overlooked in ordering the shiploads of supplies which annually find their way to the reindeer camps of Alaska.
True, there is other work to be done. Every spring along comes fawning season, and the deer herders have to stand watch day and night by turns. Now and then the long, wild note of the Arctic wolf is heard through the midwinter gloom and a constant watch must be kept by well-armed men. The repeating rifle made wolves so scarce, however, that dogs are by far the greatest source of danger.
It seems utterly impossible to train the malamoot dog to herd deer. At sight of a deer the tamest malamoot becomes as uncontrollable as though he had never known human restraint and were once more a plain wolf.
Besides guarding the herd occasionally from these dangers, there are sled deer to be trained, and every June there is a kind of round-up, when the young fawns are marked, along with all deer that have changed owners during the year. In the ear of each government deer a little aluminum button is riveted securely, but all private owners and herders have a mark which must be registered with the local superintendent and also at Washington. This mark is made by cutting the ear.
So far the native in the Far North has made almost no use of the wonderfully rich milk of the reindeer. This milk, which is as white as the Arctic snows, is at least ninety per cent. cream. In fact, it is practically all a rich, snow-white, sugary cream. It is the most nourishing milk in the world, but the government has so far supplied the camps with condensed milk, and the herders have preferred opening cans to milking deer.
Unlike the Laplander, the Eskimo does not make a pet of his favorite deer. When he wants to milk her she is lassoed and thrown down. When her legs are carefully tied with walrus skin strings and her horns are safely held by some stout friend, the process of milking begins. When the last drop is extracted the highly indignant animal is unlashed and allowed to get up and go about her business.
Sometimes a horn is knocked off or a leg broken before the struggling reindeer understands that she is to be milked and not branded or butchered. Under the circumstances the dairying feature of Arctic life is not very prominent, and the milkmaid’s song is not welcomed by the wise little animals that have undergone the torture of one milking.
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