tion during the short summer, when Bering Sea and the adjacent arctic coast are free from ice. Mr. John W. Kelly, who has spent years in arctic Alaska and is familiar with the conditions of the country, was appointed agent. Associated with him are Conrad Siem and Mr. A. St. Leger, both of whom have had years of experience with the natives of the Arctic.

A good opportunity offering, Conrad Siem took passage on the whaler Bonanza May 29. Mr. Kelly, with supplies and stock of barter goods, sailed from San Francisco June 9 on the schooner Volant, reaching St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, on July 17, three days after the arrival of Mr. Siem.

When the needs of the reindeer for domestication and transportation are met, early steps should be taken to stock the larger islands of Alaska, especially those in Bering Sea and along the Aleutian group.

In Dr. G. Hartwig's Polar World, page 89, it is stated that "In the year 1770 thirteen reindeer were brought into Iceland from Norway. Ten died on the passage, but the three which survived have multiplied so fast that large herds now (1859) roam over the uninhabited wastes. During the winter, when hunger drives them into the lower districts, they are frequently shot, but no attempts have been made to tame them."

A WINTER TRIP OF 2,000 MILES.

Since the commencement of the herd in 1892 the obstacles that it was predicted would prevent the successful introduction of domestic reindeer into Alaska have either been proved to be groundless or have one by one been met and overcome. Having shown by actual experience that they could be bought, transported, and successfully propagated, it remained to give a practical demonstration of their ability to traverse any part of the country under the most unfavorable circumstances and with a temperature at times lower than experienced by some of the Arctic expeditions.

This was done last winter, in accordance with your directions. At 3 p. m. on the 10th of December, 1896, with the temperature at 15° below zero, Mr. William A. Kjellmann, the superintendent, accompanied by the Lapps Per Aslaksen Rist and Mikkel J. Nakkila, started from the Teller Station with 9 sleds and 17 head of reindeer to demonstrate the capacity of the hardy and swift animal for winter travel in Alaska. Native trails and well-known sections of country were ignored, to show their ability to go anywhere. The course, while traveled by compass, was a zigzag one, in order to better learn the extent and abundance of moss pasturage. Scaling high mountain ranges, shooting down precipitous declivities with tobogganing speed, plodding through valleys filled with deeply drifted snow, laboriously cutting a way through the man-high underbrush of the forest, or steering across the trackless tundra, never before trodden by the foot of white man; gliding over the hard-crusted snow, or wading through slush 2 feet deep on imperfectly frozen rivers unknown to geographers, were the experiences of the trip. The second day of the journey, with the temperature 43° below zero, and over a rough, broken, and pathless country, they made a distance of 60 miles.

After celebrating Christmas with Rev. Mr. Hultberg and the Swedish missionaries on Golovin Bay, December 30 found Mr. Kjellmann's party crossing Norton Sound, an arm of Bering Sea, and getting into a crevasse filled with snow, from which they escaped without much damage.

The next day, keeping on the ice along the coast, hummocks were found so steep that steps had to be cut up and over them to enable the deer to cross.

On New Year's day, coming to a flagstaff projecting from a huge snow bank, they found under it, completely buried in the snow, the comfortable home of the Rev. Mr. Karlsen and the Swedish missionaries at Unalaklik. On the afternoon of January 11 and morning of the 12th, 85 miles were made in twelve hours. The native guides at St. Michael being afraid to undertake a winter trip across the country to Ikogmute, the Russian mission on the Yukon River, and affirming that it could not be done, Mr. Kjellmann started on January 19 without them, traveling by compass.

1

On the 23d, while crossing a barren mountain range, they were overtaken by that dread specter of arctic regions, a Russian poorga. Neither man nor beast could stand against the blast. The reindeer were blown down and the loaded sleds overturned. The men, throwing themselves flat, clung to one another and to mother earth to keep from being blown away. Stones and pieces of crushed ice flew by, darkening the air. A lull coming toward evening, with great difficulty a little coffee was made, after which the storm broke with renewed fury during a night which to the travelers, clinging to the earth with desperation,

1 An arctic blizzard.

seemed endless. The following day a belt of timber was reached and rest and safety secured. January 25 and 26 found them cutting a way for the deer and sleds through a dense forest, from which they finally emerged to wade through snow and water 2 feet deep and the temperature at zero. On the 31st they encountered a succession of driving, blinding snowstorms while crossing the tundra south of the Yukon delta, being reduced to such straits that they were compelled to cut the railing from their sleds for fuel. On February 5 the storm passed away, leaving the temperature at 73° below zero, causing even the reindeer to break loose from their tethers and tramp ceaselessly around the tents for warmth.

Notwithstanding the severe cold the journey was continued, and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon they found shelter and a warm welcome from the Moravian missionaries at Bethel. On the 10th of March, between the Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers, a lake 15 miles wide was crossed.

The struggle for life commenced, however, on the 11th, when they reached the Yukon, and, contrary to information, found no moss for the deer. A push was made up the Yukon to reach, if possible, the Episcopal mission at Anvik. There being no food, the march was kept up all night, plowing their way through loose snow from 2 to 4 feet deep, and on through the 12th with snow falling fast. That afternoon two of the deer fell dead and were left with their sleds where they fell, while the journey continued uninterruptedly through the blinding snow the second night. On the 13th two more deer dropped dead and were abandoned, as the party with desperate energy pushed ahead day and night for food and life. On the 14th another deer fell in his traces. That evening a native hut was reached and the continuous march of four days and three nights without sleep or rest and without food for the deer was over. Trees were cut down by the Lapps that the deer might browse on the black moss that hung from them, while Mr. Kjellmann, suffering with a high fever, was put to bed by the medicine woman, and dosed with tea made from some medicinal bark. On the 17th one of the Lapps, who had been scouring the country, reported moss upon a mountain 60 miles away. The deer were unharnessed and driven to the distant pasturage, while Mr. Kjellmann continued his journey to Anvik on skis. In the hospitable home of Rev. Mr. Chapman he was nursed back to health and strength.

The return journey to the Teller Station was made without any special adventure, except, on the 16th of April, getting into a crack in the ice while crossing Norton Sound and soaking the load with salt water. On the 24th of April the Teller Station was safely reached after a trip of 2,000 miles, the longest ever recorded in any laud as made by the same reindeer.

The result of this trial trip has convinced missionaries, miners, traders, and others residing in northern and central Alaska that domestic reindeer can do for them what they have been doing for centuries in Lapland. That when introduced in sufficient numbers they will supplant dogs, both for traveling and freighting, furnish a rapid means of communication between widely separated communities, and render possible the full and profitable development of the rich mineral interests.

A TRIP UP THE YUKON.

During July and August, through the courtesy of the North American Trading and Transportation Company, I was able to take Mr. William A. Kjellmann and make a trip of 1,600 miles up the Yukon River. This trip was made to secure for you the information you sought with regard to the adaptation of the country for reindeer and the special conditions which will meet the introduction of reindeer freighting. The results of the trip were satisfactory, and I returned more than ever deeply impressed that the great pressing need of the hour is more reindeer and more Lapps.

BRANDING.

As year by year increasing numbers of reindeer are passing into the ownership of the apprentices and missions, and as others are looking forward to ownership in the near future, it is important that rules should be formulated for the regulation and registering of brands that mark such ownership.

ITINERARY.

Leaving Washington on the 1st of June last, I embarked at Seattle on the steamship Portland, of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, on the 12th, reaching Unalaska, Dutch Harbor, on the 21st. Two days were spent at Unalaska visiting the school and attending to school matters.

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At 5.30 a. m. on the 23d our steamship sailed for St. Michael. On the 25th we reached the ice and all day skirted the ice floe, reaching St. Michael at 1 o'clock on the morning of the 27th.

On the 28th the Yukon River steamer Portus B. Weare arrived, having on board a large number of miners with half a million dollars' worth of gold dust from Klondike and the Yukon mines. It was the arrival of this steamer with its treasure on July 17, 1897, at Seattle that aroused the attention of the world.

The 29th was signalized by the arrival of the cutter Bear, Capt. Francis Tuttle in command. The Bear had on its upward trip called at St. Lawrence Island, St. Lawrence Bay, Cape Prince of Wales, and Teller Reindeer Station, bringing favorable reports from the several stations; it also brought to St. Michael Mr. William A. Kjellinan, superintendent of the Reindeer Station, whom I wished to accompany me on a trip upon the Yukon River Valley, that he might investigate the supply of reindeer moss and ascertain the conditions that must be met in the establishment of future reindeer freighting establishments from the provision warehouses on the river back to the interior mines.

On the 3d of July I transferred from the ocean steamship Portland to the river steamer Portus B. Weare, and on the morning of the 5th we left the wharf at St. Michael for the mouth of the Yukon River. Owing to the great quantities of silt brought down in the waters of the Yukon, Bering Sea has so shoaled that ocean steamers at present are unable to reach nearer the mouth of the river than St. Michael, which is 60 miles north of the river, on the coast of Bering Sea.

At 10 o'clock the steamer reached Pastolik, where a stop was made to take on firewood. Half an hour later we entered the north pass of the delta and at 11.30 went aground on the bar, where we lay for twenty-four hours, until lifted off by the tide. Although there was a cold, drizzling rain, a number of the passengers went on shore to hunt geese and ducks, which are plentiful at that season of the year. At high tide, July 6, the steamer again floated, and, taking on wood near Kutlik, we started up the river.

The Yukon is one of the great rivers of the world. Taking its rise in the mountains of the Northwest Territory of Canada, it flows across the entire width of Alaska from east to west, dividing that great Territory into two nearly equal parts. Its delta stretches for 20 miles along the sea and extends 100 miles inland, a distance so great that, standing upon one shore of the delta, the table-lands bordering the other can not be seen. This great delta is comparable to that of the Mississippi River in the accumulated silt of years, which greatly extends the area of the land into the sea, shoaling the navigable waters of the sea to such an extent that ocean vessels bound for St. Michael are compelled, while passing the mouth of the river, to make a detour to the westward. Through its whole course the river, like the Missouri, carries a large amount of sediment in its waters, and the extent of its deposits upon its delta will not be wondered at after the observer has traversed its length and seen a thousand miles of banks undermined and ready to be swept away. Like the McKenzie River of Canada and the Lena of Siberia, which rise in the south and flow northward, the Yukon feels the influence of the warmer temperature of spring first at its source. The ice brought down by the strong freshets of the Upper Yukon is piled upon the firm unbroken ice of the lower stream, with the result of accumulating great masses of ice and water until the weight of the ice and the increased pressure of the gathered waters force out a section of the bank. This process is repeated again and again lower down the river. The breaking up of the ice on the Yukon is one of the grand sights of earth, rivaling in interest the remarkable auroras of the winter months in that northern latitude. Upon such occasions, great masses of ice from 8 to 10 feet thick are hurled with Titanic force into the river banks, gouging out yards of soil and uprooting great trees before their momentum is checked. Thus unceasingly through the centuries this great stream goes on leveling down the hills of central Alaska, picking up the soil and carrying it in solution hundreds of miles to the coast, and it is deposited where the fresh water meets the salt of the sea. The trees thus carried out to sea are nature's provision for the Eskimos on the treeless coast of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, driftwood being their only fuel. This vast delta region of the Yukon is filled with marshes and lakes and is liable to overflows; it is also a breeding ground of innumerable wild geese and other fowl.

The river is navigable for light-draft steamers for 2,000 miles to Fort Selkirk and even beyond that point, with short portages around rapids, while its tributaries-the Anvik, Koyukuk, Tanana. Porcupine, White, Pelly, and other riversare navigable for from 100 to 600 miles.

A middle-aged lady who was following her husband to live in this wilderness was so impressed with the continuous steaming up this great river day and night, week after week for three weeks, without passing a single large town, and only

seeing small Indian settlements, or here and there a fishing camp or trader's post, while the great yellow flood seemed to flow on with but little diminution in volume, that she felt as if she had been on the river for ages, and broke out with the exclamation, “Will it never come to an end; must I continue to go on and on for ever and ever?" and retiring to her stateroom found relief in a good cry.

At 5 a. m. on July 7 the steamer reached the head of the delta, where another supply of firewood was taken on board. Indeed, during the whole trip the steamer seemed to stop about every six hours for wood. The river is lined with white pine, which is cut by the natives and piled up convenient for the steamers. This wood costs from $1 to $6 per cord, and the steamer uses from 25 to 30 cords a day. Leaving the head of the delta, low hills begin to appear along the north bank of the river. For 300 miles farther the river was so wide that in places, standing upon one bank, the other could not be seen.

At 8.30 a. m. we reached Andreafski, 216 miles from St. Michael. where we stopped for wood, and also for mending our boiler pipes, which were leaking badly. At this village were several well-hewn log houses, back of which were a number of graves, the dead being deposited in boxes laid on top of the ground. All central and northern Alaska, including the Yukon Valley, has a frozen subsoil which never thaws out. This has been dug into 30 feet without getting below the frost. On the banks of some of the streams north of the Yukon a stratum of frozen soil has been found over 100 feet thick. Yet to look upon the acres of brilliant wild flowers and of grasses waist high, and miles upon miles of white pine, aspen, and willows, with the thermometer above 100 ̊ in the shade, it is very difficult to realize that one is under the Arctic Circle.

Owing to the difficulty and almost impossibility of digging graves in the frozen ground with rude native implements, the custom universally prevails of depositing the dead in boxes either on the ground or on platforms above the reach of wild animals.

At Andreafski we first met the birch-bark canoe, showing that this village was on the border land between the Eskimos of the coast and the Indians of the Interior, the universal boat of the Eskimos being the skin-covered kiak and that of the Indian the birch-bark canoe. Andreafski has secured some prominence this season as the point to which provision supplies from St. Michael that could not be taken to the mines on the upper courses of the river were landed for winter use, and also to be accessible to the river steamers in the early spring, the ice in the Yukon River breaking sometimes a month in advance of the ice in Bering Sea. This permits the river steamers to load up in the spring and go to the head waters of the river and return down the stream to the coast by the time that ocean steamers can reach St. Michael through the ice of Bering Sea.

The low shoals which were encountered at the ocean side of the delta gradually increase in size as the river is ascended until at the head of the delta they become islands, upon which poplars and willows are found 20 to 30 feet high.

Soon after leaving Andreafski, scattered white pine began to appear. Leaving Andreafski and rounding a bold promontory, we passed the mouth of Andreafski River, a broad stream flowing from the north and passing through a gold-bearing country. Two miners were reported as having been seen on the stream some months working mines.

At 9 a. m. on July 8 we reached Ikogmute, or, as it is more popularly known, the Russian Mission. It has a population of 150 natives, and is 315 miles by way of the river from St. Michael. At this place Father Belkoff, the former priest of the Oriental Greek Church (now an invalid) built one of the best church buildings belonging to that denomination in Alaska. Father Orloff, the present priest, has an excellent garden on the hill slope in the rear of the parsonage. Just above the village, bold and perpendicular rock cliffs save the village from being swept away by the great yellow floods which sweep along their base, or ice gorges which form each spring in its vicinity. Along the entire village front were racks covered with salmon hung up to dry for the winter. The run of salmon this season has proved very large. A year ago the run of fish was correspondingly poor, and as a result last winter there was great scarcity of food among the people. One woman and a boy actually starved to death.

At 2 o'clock in the morning of July 9 the steamer reached Koserefski (410 miles). This is the location of the largest mission of the Roman Catholic Church on the Yukon River. A number of passengers remained up to visit the mission, but upon going to the buildings found everything securely locked, and the teachers so soundly asleep that they were unaware of the presence of the steamer.

After breakfast the steamer reached Anvik (457 miles), where we remained three-quarters of an hour to get wood for the steamer. On shore, chained to posts, were from twelve to fifteen sled dogs belonging to the villagers. These dogs

are found in every settlement and fishing camp in Alaska. They are a cross between the dog and the wolf, receiving but little attention from their owners. When not upon their journey they subsist chiefly by foraging and become adept thieves, so that everything eatable, even their own harness, has to be stored away on platforms above their reach. This has given rise to the custom everywhere prevailing along the Yukon River and in northern and central Alaska of erecting small log houses upon platforms elevated 10 or 12 feet above the ground. These houses are used for storing dried fish and other property that needs to be kept beyond the reach of the dogs. Among other things, these dogs are celebrated for their habit of howling at night. Upon the approach of a stranger some dog will set up a howl, upon which all the dogs within hearing will join in. There may not be over a dozen dogs in the neighborhood, but when they commence to howl a stranger would be sure that there were a hundred, if not a thousand, of them. These dogs are the common carriers of Alaska, dragging sleds in winter and carrying packs in summer. The average load of a dog sled is 125 pounds. The great drawback to their use is the necessity of carrying food for them on long journeys, A team of dogs carrying freight requires a second team of dogs for hauling food for the two teams, and when a journey is required through an unsettled section of the country dogs become unavailable because of the impossibility of carrying sufficient food or procuring fresh supplies for the teams. This difficulty will be overcome when domestic reindeer are introduced into Alaska in sufficient numbers to dispense with the use of dogs. The reindeer will haul heavier loads and cover greater distances than the dogs and require no transportation of food for its own maintenance. When the day's work is done they can be turned out to graze, even in the severest weather of the winter. The reindeer is to the arctic and subarctic regions what the camel is to the oriental and tropical lands.

Anvik is the first of a series of missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The missionaries at this point are the Rev. and Mrs. J. W. Chapman and Miss B. Sabine. Mr. Chapman has, under great difficulties, erected a neat little chapel, a comfortable residence, schoolrooms, and boarding house for the shelter of the Indian children taken into the home. A small sawmill has also been erected in connection with the mission.

From the mouth of the river to its source, through all the vast Yukon Valley with its tributaries-indeed all over central and northern Alaska-mosquitoes abound in July and August in such numbers as to become a veritable plague. The hot sun of summer thawing the frozen ground for a few inches leaves water standing, unable to soak away through the frozen subsoil beneath, converting the whole country into one imense swamp, from which are bred clouds of mosquitoes. They are so great an infliction that some of the teachers declare that the extreme cold of winter (77° below zero) is preferable to the mosquito time in summer, and strong, vigorous men accustomed to hardships have been known to sit down on the ground and cry like children under the torture of mosquitoes. While the river steamers are in motion the passengers are not much troubled with them, but when a landing is made for putting on freight or taking on wood the mosquitoes swarm aboard in quantities, compelling the use of netting for the protection of the head and face and of leather gloves for the hands. Wild animals sometimes die from the effects of their stings.

On Saturday, July 10, while "wooding up," the passengers picked wild currants just turning red. They also found protruding from the bank of the river ice, which was brought on board. We were now at a point where in winter the natives are accustomed to portage across the country to Unalaklik and thence down the coast to St. Michael. From St. Michael by way of the river is 550 miles, across the portage about 150 miles, making a saving in distance of 400 miles.

At midnight we reached Nulato (648 miles). This village is in the neighborhood of the most remote of the early Russian trading posts, which was established by Nalakoff in 1838, after which he and his party returned to St. Michael for the winter. During the winter the buildings were burned by the natives.

In 1841 the post was reestablished and rebuilt by Deravin. In 1851 it was the scene of a massacre, among the victims being Lieutenant Barnard, of the British navy, and a member of Admiral Kollinson's expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. Lieutenant Barnard had been detailed to ascend the Yukon River and ascertain whether the natives could give any tidings of Sir John Franklin's party. Reaching Nulato, he dispatched one of the employees of the fur company and an Indian into the Koyukok Valley for information. The Russian, on his arrival at the native village, fell asleep on his sledge, and in the absence of his servant, who had gone to obtain water, was killed by the natives, the servant himself being afterwards killed. The murderers then gathered a force of about one hundred and started for the Russian post at Nulato. Reaching a settlement of the Nulato