Reindeer used for bringing supplie s to the herders' camps.

ALASKA, THE WORLD'S MEAT

T

SHOP

By Emil Edward Hurja

and Nome, for several years past, have advertised regularly in the newspapers, offering reindeer meat to miners.

O SEE millions of reindeer feeding on the tundra of Central and Northern Alaska, to see trains and shiploads of reindeer carcasses moving southward to the Puget Sound ports, thence to be Juicy distributed to the people of the West, to see the people clamoring for the cheaper reindeer meat in preference to the high-priced cuts of beef, all will be common sights within another five years. That is the opinion of those Alaskans who have studied the question of meat supply and are conversant with the reindeer industry in the North, as it has been carried on for the past decade.

The history of reindeer in Alaska is not much more than twenty years old. Reindeer were first introduced in Alaska to provide a means of subsistence for starving Eskimos along the western coast of the territory. With their aid, the government has brought the Eskimo from squalidness to comparative cleanliness, and has enabled that Northern race to build up wonderfully. The industry of reindeer breeding promises to increase henceforth as it has during the past ten years-by leaps and bounds.

Already, instead of simply keeping the Eskimos and natives supplied with food, reindeer furnish the principal diet of miners and prospectors in certain of the mining camps of Alaska. The meat is nutritious and palatable, and many men prefer it to the beef, mutton and pork which, by necessity, must be kept in cold storage for a long time in Alaska. Merchants in Iditarod

Appetizing
Fresh-Killed

REINDEER MEAT

In prime condition

the

Tender

By the Carcass, Side, Cut or Pound
-in any amount to suit our patrons.
See display in our show windows.
White-Meat Grouse, Ptarmigan, Gray-
ling and White Fish.
CROWLEY & PORTER
The House of Quality
Iditarod
Flat City
(From Iditarod, Alaska, Pioneer)

What is true of Alaska will hold true with the rest of the outside world. Alaska's vast inland empire, at least that part which is not available for agriculture and the raising of cattle, sheep and hogs, is due to become utilized for the propagation of reindeer.

To Dr. Sheldon Jackson, missionary, Alaska owes the start of the reindeer industry. In 1891, when making a trip through the northwestern part of the territory, he found a great deal of poverty among the Eskimos. As soon as he reached the States, he asked Congress to make an appropriation for the purchase of reindeer from Siberians, with a view towards encouraging the Alaska natives to raise them for food. In the fall of that year, sixteen reindeer were brought over from Siberia. They were ob

Herds of reindeer in Alaska, grazing under the care of a herder.

tained only after a great deal of difficulty because the Siberian natives had no desire to sell their reindeer. They were willing to trade a limited number, however, and by this means, after Captain M. A. Healy had sailed for a distance of 1,500 miles from village to village, enough were bartered to insure the nucleus of a herd. Reindeer moss was taken on board ship, and all but a few of the reindeer stood the trip to Alaska well.

Slowly the reindeer increased, and the supervision of the government helped the natives to secure small herds for themselves. It was not until 1909, however, that the beginning of the period of full utilization of the reindoor owned by the government started. The natives derived the direct benefit from the domesticated animals of the Arctic.

The work of Dr. Jackson has been taken up and continued by other government officials, all capable and efficient. Particularly active in the work has been W. T. Lopp, with the Bureau of Education, who still is connected actively with the uplift of the Eskimo, and thus, incidentally, the furthering of the reindeer industry.

Dr. Jackson was scoffed at for suggesting such a thing as utilizing Alaska for any purpose such as raising rein

deer. "Was not the country but a mass of ice and snow, devoid of anything nourishing? Was it not known as 'Seward's folly,' a useless area?" Dr. Jackson was impractical, they said. Only a few had faith in his work.

Some interesting suggestions were made to him at this time by outsiders concerning a suitable substitute for reindeer in the North. One person who had traveled believed that to domesticate the Thibetian ox, the yak or the grunting ox would help to relieve the starving Eskimos more so than would the reindeer.

From sixteen reindeer in 1891, the animals have increased in almost inconceivable numbers. Despite death through disease and slaughter, there were, by the end of 1912, a total of 38,000 reindeer in Alaska.

Reindeer in spring; in the dim background other herds are grazing.