NEW INDUSTRY.
HERDS OF REINDEER. Forty years ago, Dr. Sheldon, acting for the United States Government, brought a small herd of reindeer and a few Lapp herders to Alaska. The animals there now number a million. The Government of Canada has a herd, which has been on the hoof for two years, travelling overland from Alaska to the Mackenzie delta, in charge of two Greenland Danes, the Porslid brothers. It will arrive there next fall. The reindeer is a domestic cousin to the caribou. Unlike him, he can be controlled. There is no natural order or sequence about the movements or migration of the caribou. Vast herds, without leaders or organisation, wander indiscriminately across the Arctic tundra, from Hudson Bay to Alaska and back again. The Government, determined to provide an adequate food and clothing supply for the Eskimo, is transplating the reindeer. Ralph Lomen, pioneer of the industry in Alaska, says there is room in the Northern tundra of Canada for 12,000,000 reindeer. Reindeer meat, nourishing as beef, tender as lamb, is now a regular article of diet in the hotels and restaurants of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Carcases dress about 1501 b, and have a value, with by-products, of about £6. The skins provide the Eskimos with clothing and are converted by United States manufacturers into gloves, moccasins, and other leather goods. Knife handles and novelties are made from the horns. The hair, extremely buoyant, makes excellent filling for life belts. The reindeer is also a dairy purposes animal. There are some in Labrador, and Sir Richard Grenfell says: “The fresh milk of the does has supplied us with what is a real vital necessity, and one obtainable in Labrador in no other way, while the excellent and easily-made cheeses afford a means of storing nutriment in a palatable and assimilable form without any outlay for a preserving plant.”
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/THD19310410.2.6
Bibliographic details
Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18848, 10 April 1931, Page 2
Word Count
312NEW INDUSTRY. Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18848, 10 April 1931, Page 2
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Timaru Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.