The plan is to charter a steam-whaler, the Thrasher, which is now at San Francisco, and send her with provisions and clothing to Port Clarence, which you will find marked just below Cape Prince of Wales, the most easterly point of our continent, which bounds the Bering Straits on the American side.
If it is impossible to get so far north as this, it is proposed to put in at Norton Sound, on which St. Michaels is situated, the port which has come into so much prominence lately through the discovery of gold on the Klondike.
Whichever of these points can be reached, it is purposed to send the provisions across Alaska to Point Barrow by reindeer.
There is a reindeer station at Point Clarence, and so it would be better to reach this spot if possible; but the captain of the revenue-cutter Bear, which cruises in Alaskan waters, says that there is too much ice already for it to be possible to reach either Port Clarence or St. Michaels.
The reindeer will, however, be used when other means of travelling are impossible, and they will bring the supplies to the imprisoned whalers.
There are at present eleven hundred head of deer in Alaska, all in a healthy and thriving condition.
Last December, the superintendent of the reindeer station at Port Clarence thought he would try and see just how useful these beasts could be made, and whether it would be possible, by their aid, to establish communication between Arctic Alaska and civilization.
He took with him nine sleds, seventeen reindeer, and two Lapp teamsters.
Reindeer Team.
From Photograph Taken in Alaska.