Reindeer to Eskimos

In the last century the childlike Eskimos of Alaska, fascinated by the white man's guns, began shooting walrus and caribou with more enthusiasm than discretion. That, plus annual fluctuations in the whale catch, caused recurrent famine years. So in 1892, a notable famine year, a Presbyterian missionary named Sheldon Jackson, backed by Quaker funds, undertook an experiment in practical ecology, which is the science that relates living organisms to their environment. Reindeer were imported from Siberia into Alaska for the Eskimos' benefit. Unlike its close relative the caribou of Alaska, the Siberian reindeer is easily domesticated. It was figured that the little brown men could use the hides (much warmer than wool) for clothing, the flesh for food, sell their surpluses to help things along.

In the first decade 1,280 animals were imported. Finding good forage--mosses, lichens, shrubs, summer blueberries, ground willow--the herds eventually increased to over a million. Then they began to dwindle. Wolves, which developed a finicky taste for reindeer tongues, took a heavy toll. Some reindeer wandered off to join the wild caribou. White herders had encroached on the field. One big firm, the Lomen brothers, built slaughterhouses and railway loading platforms, began shipping choice reindeer steaks and reindeer dog food to the States. Discouraged by this high-powered competition, the Eskimos began to lose much of their interest in herding reindeer.

Some time ago Congress decided that Eskimos should have a reindeer monopoly in Alaska, that no white person should own any. It provided for Government purchase of the white-owned animals (estimated at 200,000), appropriated enough money to buy them up at $3 to $8 a head to be given to the little brown men. The census and buying job was turned over to big, beaming, bespectacled Charles Gilbert Burdick, a Forest Service inspector in Juneau. Last December Burdick, an assistant and a pilot started out in an airplane, equipped with skis for landing, covered 20,000 miles. The Lomen brothers, who had found the reindeer industry no gold mine, were glad to sell out. On the few others who refused, Burdick slapped condemnation proceedings. He ingratiated himself with the Eskimos by dealing out not only reindeer but great quantities of bubble gum. The Government will collect the herds he purchased in reindeer corrals built by the Eskimo CCC, will lend reindeer to Eskimos for breeding, or in cases of destitution, for meat and clothing.

Last week Charles Burdick had finished his job, was flying home to report to his boss, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. And the Eskimo population around Nome was working hard to fill an order for 800 reindeer skinparkas (at $30 apiece) for the U. S. Army.

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