REINDEER FOR LABRADOR.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 229, 20 June 1908, Page 9

REINDEER FOR LABRADOR.

"With a clear oye to the welfare of tho Eskimo natives and settlers in Labrador and the material advancement of that inhospitable region, Dr. Grenfcll, the' strenuous Superintendent of the Labrador Medical Mission, is on the eve of bringing his longchorishod project—the acclimatisation of reindeer in that country—to its initial practical issue," writes Mr. J. Johnston in the "World's \York." "The s.s. Anita, which left Bugten, Altenfjord, on December 14, 1907, carrying four Lapland families, threo hundred <loer, and eight dogs, reached Newfoundland shores early in January, 1908. On the sth of that month the Norwegian steamer appeared off the coast with every one of the reindeer in excellent condition, in spite of a tempestuous voyago of twenty-two days. The next morning they were landed on the ice of tho littlo! harbour Cremeliore, two and a half miles from St. Anthony's, and almost immediately began peacefully feeding on tho spruce buds of the low scrub, or penetrating beneath tho coating of ice to roach the moss on the hill-Bides.and barrens near the shore. Of course, tho entire experiment is'a somewhat hazardous one, liable to many difficulties, inasmuch as tha so-called tame reindeer of Lapland are really only half-domesticated, retaining not a few features of their original wild condition.'For example, they neither feed nor drink like ordinary domesticated animals. Of this a curious illustration occurred on board ship, where it was necessary to construct an imitation waterfall in order to induce them to drink. If Dr. Grenfell succeeds he will be deservedly as a kind of minor providence amid the interminable solitudes of Labrador... There seemed to Dr. Grenfell no prospect of convening the mosses of the immenso area into tho milk and cream that he so much desired on behalf of tho children, until at last he became acquainted with tho unique success cf Dr. Sheldon Jackson's philanthropic movement, viz.; tho in-' traduction of the domesticated Siberian reindeer into Alaska." The twelve' hundred deer originally imported into that region number, at the present day, upwards of fifteen thousand head, thus safeguarding tho poor Alaskan nomad population against future wants.