Introduction of Domestic Reindeer Into Alaska
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M * Vice-President Stevenson. Mrs. Stevenson. Governor and Mrs. Sheakley. Teachers and Pupils, Presbyterian Mission School, Sitka, Alaska. 54th Congress, SENATE. f Document 1st Session. \ No. 111. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. REPO R T ON WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, MY SHELDON JACKSON, GENERAL AGENT OF EDUCATION IN ALASKA. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1896. CONTENTS. Page. Action of the Senate of the United States. 5 Letter of the Secretary of the Interior to the President of the Senate. 7 Report of Dr. Sheldon Jackson, United States general agent of education in Alaska, to the Commissioner of Education, on the introduction of domestic reindeer i nto A1 aska for 1895. 9 Private benefactions. 11 Appropriations of Congress. 13 Importation of Lapps. 14 Distribution of reindeer. 15 Possibilities of the future. 16 Effect upon the development of Alaska. 16 Disbursements. 18 APPENDIXES. Report of William Hamilton on the itinerary of 1895. 21 Annual report of William A. Kjellmann. 42 Trip to Lapland. 43 Arrival at Teller Reindeer Station. 54 Statistics of the herd.. 55 Fining a reindeer thief. 57 Breaking in deer. 60 The birth of fawns. 61 Milking. 63 Eskimo dogs. 63 Herders and apprentices. 65 Rations. 72 Reindeer dogs. 73 Harness. 75 The Lapps. 77 Sealing. 78 Fishing. 79 Eskimo herd. 80 Sickness. 82 School. 82 Buildings. 83 Police. 84 Christmas. 85 Skees. 85 Physician. 88 Fuel. 89 Annual report of W. T. Lopp, Cape Prince of Wales, herd... 91 Letter of J. C. Widstead to Dr. Sheldon Jackson. 93 Letter of Dr. Sheldon Jackson to Hon. W. T. Harris, LL. D. 95 Log book of Teller Reindeer Station for 1894-95.*. 97 Report on meteorology. 127 Action of National Educational Association. 131 Action of Lake Mohonk Indian Conference... 131 Action of Conference of Board of Indian Commissioners and others. 131 3 ILLUSTRATIONS. Race page. Arctic sunset. 78 Baptist mission pupils, Wood Island. 26 Coe, Rev. and Mrs. C. P., and Miss L. Goodchild. 26 East Cape Village, Siberia. 84 Gambell, Mr. and Mrs. V. C. 32 Hanna, Rev. and Mrs. Thomas. 32 Juneau public school. 22 Lapps, Teller Reindeer Station. 64 Lopp, W. T., in winter costume. 92 Myer, W. H. (brig), wrecked. 36 Native Thlinget family, Juneau. 20 Presbyterian mission pupils, Juneau... 24 A corner of the Sitka Industrial School. 18 Reindeer: Hobbling..... 102 Lassoing . 110 Loading on shipboard. 14 Milking... 62 Skinning. 58 Traveling. 74 Roman Catholic mission, Koserefski. 40 Roman Catholic mission pupils, Koserefski. 38 Siberians, reindeer men, Peter and Kimok. 34 Siberi ans, reindeer men, St. Lawrence Bay ... 12 Thlinget house, interior carving.. 16 Vice-president and Sitka school children. Frontispiece. 4 ACTION OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. In the Senate of the United States, February 5,1896. Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to transmit to the Senate the report of Dr. Sheldon Jackson upon “The introduc¬ tion of domestic reindeer into the District of Alaska for 1895.” Wm. E. Cox, Secretary. 5 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL Department of the Interior, Washington, February 7, 1896. Sir: I am in receipt of Senate resolution of the 5th instant— That the Secretary of the Interior be directed to transmit to the Senate the report of Dr. Sheldon Jackson upon “The introduction of domestic reindeer into the District of Alaska for 1895.” In response thereto I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of the report indicated in the foregoing resolution. Very respectfully, Hoke Smith, Secretary. The President of the Senate. 7 owners.; INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. unii^et Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Alaska Division, Washington, D. 0., December 31, 1895. Sir : When in the year 1890 I visited arctic Alaska for the purpose of establishing schools, I found the Eskimo population slowly dying off with starvation. For ages they and their fathers had secured a com¬ fortable living from the products of the sea, principally the whale, the walrus, and the seal. The supplies of the sea had been supplemented by the fish and aquatic birds of their rivers and the caribou or wild reindeer that roamed in large herds over the inland tundra. The supply of these in years past was abundant and furnished ample food for all the people. But fifty years ago American whalers, having largely exhausted the supply in other waters, found their way into the North Pacific Ocean. Then commenced for that section the slaughter and destruction of whales that went steadily forward at the rate of hundreds and thousands annually, until they were killed off or driven out of the Pacific Ocean. They were then followed into Bering Sea, and the slaughter went on. The whales took refuge among the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean, and thither the whalers followed. In this relentless hunt the remnant have been driven still farther into the inac¬ cessible regions around the North Pole, and are no longer within reach of the natives. As the great herds of buffalo that once roamed the Western prairies have been exterminated for their pelts, so the whales have been sacri¬ ficed for the fat that incased their bodies and the bone that hung in their mouths. With the destruction of the whale one large source of food supply for the natives has been cut off. Another large supply was derived from the walrus, which once swarmed in great numbers in those northern seas. But commerce wanted more ivory, and the whalers turned their attention to the wal¬ rus, destroying thousands annually for the sake of their tusks. Where a few years ago they were so numerous that their bellowings were beard above the roar of the waves and grinding and crashing of the icefields, last year I cruised for weeks seeing but few. The walrus, as a source of food supply, is already very scarce. The sea lions, once so common in Bering Sea, are now becoming so few in number that it is with difficulty that the natives procure a suf¬ ficient number of skins to cover their boats, and the flesh of the walrus, on account of its rarity, has become a luxury. 9 10 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. In the past the natives, with tireless industry, caught and cured, for use in their long winters, great quantities of fish, but American can¬ neries have already come to some of their streams, and will soon be found on all of them, both carrying the food out of the country and, by their wasteful methods, destroying the future supply. Five million cans of salmon annually shipped away from Alaska—and the business still in its infancy—means starvation to the native races in the near future. With the advent of improved breech-loading firearms th$ wild rein¬ deer are both being killed off and frightened away to the remote and more inaccessible regions of the interior, and another source of food * supply is diminishing. Thus the support of the people is largely gone, and the process of slow starvation and extermination has commenced along the whole arctic coast of Alaska. To establish schools among a starving people would be of little serv¬ ice; hence education, civilization, and humanity alike called for relief. The sea could not be restocked with whale as a stream can be restocked with fish. To feed the population at Government expense would pau¬ perize and in the end as certainly destroy them. Some other method had to be devised. This was suggested by the wild nomad tribes on the Siberian side of Bering Straits. They had an unfailing food sup¬ ply in their large herds of domestic reindeer. Why not introduce the domestic reindeer on the American side and thus provide a new and adequate food supply? To do this will give the Eskimo as permanent a food supply as the cattle of the Western plains and sheep of New Mexico and Arizona do the inhabitants of those sections. It will do more than preserve life—it will preserve the self-respect of the people and advance them in the scale of civilization. It will change them from hunters to herders. It will also utilize the hundreds of thousands of square miles of moss- covered tundra of arctic and subarctic Alaska and make those now useless and barren wastes conducive to the wealth and prosperity of the United States. A moderate computation, based upon the statistics of Lapland, where similar climatic and other conditions exist, shows northern and central Alaska capable of supporting over 9,000,000 head of reindeer. To reclaim and make valuable vast areas of land otherwise worthless; to introduce large, permanent, and wealth-producing industries where none previously existed; to take a barbarian people on the verge of starvation and lift them up to a comfortable self-support and civiliza¬ tion is certainly a work of national importance. Returning to Washington on November 12, 1890, I addressed to the Commissioner of Education a preliminary report of the season’s work, emphasizing the destitute condition of the Alaskan Eskimo and rec¬ ommending the introduction of the domestic reindeer of Siberia. On the 5th of December following, this report was transmitted by you to the Secretary of the Interior for his information, and on the 15th INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 11 transmitted to tlie Senate by Hon. George Chandler, Acting Secretary of the Interior. On the following day it was referred by the Senate to the Committee on Education and Labor. On the 19th of December Hon. Louis E. McComas, of Maryland, introduced into the House of Representatives a joint resolution (H. Res.