FOOD FOR ESKIMOS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20560, 10 May 1930, Page 11

FOOD FOR ESKIMOS.

BIG REINDEER HERD.

AM AMBITIOUS SCHEME.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] VANCOUVER. April 2.

Persistently attacking the problem of the Eskimos' dwindling food and cloth-* ing supplies—due to the uncertain migration of the caribou—the Government of Canada has made considerable progress with an ambitious scheme to place herds of reindeer, hithorto confined to Western Alaska, at strategic breeding points right across the Arctic to Hudson Bay. One of these herds, in charge of two Danes, assisted by five Lapp herders and many Eskimo drivers, has already reached the basin of the Colville River in Northern Alaska, where it will remain during the coming summer, resuming the movement in October.

The introduction of the high-powered [ rifle among the natives and the competij tion for furs has tended to deplete seriv | ously the numbers of fur-bearing and! other game animals in the Far North. Surveys completed by the Porsild Brothers for the Government in tho Mackenzie Delta and round Great Bear Lake hav« shown that the limitless northern plaint are eminently suited to reindeer grazing and will support vast herds. The tiek began at Kotzebue Sound, am} winter corrals were built for the firs! round-up. Snowstorms retarded the worl of gathering the herds, and at one tim« 10,000 deer, being driven toward thi enclosures, were scattered by a blizzard, and it took eight days and much ai} reconnaissance to get them all in. Thi animals wero eventually culled—eighj doea to a buck—and u substantial surplus was jidded, to assist in transporta tion, furnish food on the trek and replace losses in stampedes. Fifty sleds, drawn by reindeer, carried tho equipment. As the great drove com menced it presented material for a ro markable photograph from the lop o:i February Mountain. Strung away almos'i to tho eastern horizon, the herd moveci off leisurely, grazing as it went, crossing the Endicott Range,' which was first conqumed by air by Sir Hubert Wilkins on his initial dash V> Uie .Pole from Point Bartow i*j the summer of 1926. The herd will remain in the Colville Basin during the fawning season, which occurs this month, and turn northward toward the coast when the fawns are big enough to travel. It is expected to reac.ii the Mackenzie early in 1931. Mr R. T. Porsild, whose equipment includes a recmmaissance plane, will journey by air to the mouth of tho Mackenzie from Colville to make arrangements for corrals, huts and other structures, returning at the end of summer to wntinue in charge of the movement.