LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
Stu,—My attention has been called to an interesting article, called "Reindeer for Klondike," which appeared in the Spectator of January 22nd. It would seem from recent reports that the United States Government has renounced its inten- tion of sending relief to the Klondike emigrants, and is disposing of the material collected, which includes over five hundred reindeer. But it is surely a pity to do this. No one who has had practical experience of the qualities of the rein- deer can fail to realise how extremely useful these animals would prove in such a region ; and my object in writing is to emphasise before it is too late the advantage to the miners themselves of securing these rejected teams. Without feeling sure that your remark on the Norwegian formula, "a good rein- deer will travel a hundred miles a day over frozen snow," is not overstated, there can be no question that once these deer were got to the front they would afford a cheap and most effective means of transport. Though I have not been actually at Klondike, I think I know the character of the region, and that reindeer would there be quite at home ; cer- tainly the lichen which supports the cariboo is all a reindeer asks.
I do not share the objections to reindeer which I am told have been raised by Mr. Carl Hagenbeck in favour of the camel, The very nature of the reindeer's food—dry and compressible "moss "—renders it particularly easy to pack, and, as is well known, reindeer can for a time be "trained off" on to dried chopped grass and are very fond of fish. One has but to turn to the pages of Nordenskiold's Spitsbergen journey to see how successfully food can be carried. Nordenskiold's deer were so little affected by their food and confinement that on the first opportunity they stampeded like wild ones, and were lost. (This was simply due to carelessness.)
The Norwegian reindeer is a very poor thing beside the larger Russian form, and, as I have driven these for weeks on end, I do kuow what they can do. Those whom the question may interest will find a very full account of the Russian reindeer's ways, management, and power of endurance in "Ice-bound on Kolguev," a book I wrote about two years ago, when I was fresh from their country. The reindeer is always associated in English thought with winter and snow. But in the summer they are, in an open and trackless district, at least as usefuL Five Russian reindeer, harnessed abreast, will pull a sleigh con- taining two persons, or their equivalent weight, at a trot over grass, moss, and swamp even in the hot days of summer. They are exceedingly easy to drive, and one man seated on the leading sleigh can without trouble convoy a train of six sleighs, each team being hitched to the back of the sleigh in front. lam speaking also of the Samoyed type of sleigh on high runners; a Lapp sleigh is comparatively useless.
The centre of the Samoyed reindeer life is the village of
A.skino, on the Pechora. It has not, I believe, been visited by any of soy countrymen (except by the half-dead members of a shipwrecked crew many years ago), but I have described it some- what carefully in a little book which will shortly be published called "A Northern Highway of the Tsar." From this village Samoyed reindeer could easily be brought to Mezen, on the White Sea, and shipped thence in June, when the ice breaks up. Or, if required earlier, could be driven across the White Sea, by way of the Solovetskii Islands, or round its base, past Kandalak and Kern, and finally shipped from -Pardo. Then they would go by sea to Halifax or to Fort Churchill, on the Hudson Bay, and so to the Canadian Pacific Railway, or even to Klondike by the north. They could be obtained far more cheaply than the Norwegian deer. I went very carefully into this question with the Russian traders, in view of a possible Samoyed Exhibition in London. One hundred reindeer could be purchased and brought to Mezen for 1,000 roubles (10 roubles apiece is their price)= £100; and each Samoyed driver (who would insist on bringing his wife and dogs with him—the women are as clever with the deer as the men) would want a clear present of 300 roubles. It can be done any day with the help and goodwill of the Russian Government, and I should like to see the experiment tried.—I am, Sir, &c., AUBYN TREVOR-BATTYE.
2 Whitehall Gardens, Westminster, March 7th.
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