REINDEER ON TREK

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 82, 16 October 1928, Page 9

REINDEER ON TREK

ALASKA TO HUDSON BAY MAINSTAY OF INDIANS -, (From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, 22na August. Twelve thousand reindeor are on the march from the territory of the Dominion Rcindeor Company in Alaska to now feeding grounds on Hudson Bay. Their trek will take them across the continout in sub-Archie latitudes. The Canadian Pacific ltailway considers that eighttcen months will bo required for the transfer of the herd, which is moving j eastward at about ton miles a day. The trek 'will be suspended during the 1929 breeding season. The herd which is making this long trip was established thirty years ago with 1240. head of foundation stock acquired from among the descendants of the Siberian reindeer brought to Alaska by Lapps for the United States Government as a moans of providing food and property for the then demoralised natives, whose natural sources of meet and skins had been depleted by commercial hunters, and whbse habits had been sadly impaired by contract with adventurers. The experiment was eminently successful. Native Alaskans readily took to reindeor culture, and the herds owned by them have been the mainstay of their lives. The present move is a development of recent steps to introduce reindeer meat in the great consuming markets of the east. Aeroplanes are being used to "spot" stragj glers from the vast herd and to relay ! I notification of tlioir movements.