St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 4/Alaskan Journey

by Cornelia Hickman

An Alaskan Journey with Reindeer

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By Cornelia Hickman

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One evening in early February, Oosilik, our faithful Eskimo, knocked on the door of the cabin as we were drawn up in a close circle around the log fire in the big living-room of the officers’ quarters, discussing the probability of our having to remain at St. Michael, Alaska, another month.

Oosilik gave a loud rap, and lifting the latch, he forced open the frozen door so that his furry head, bristling with icicles, appeared at the opening, and as he wedged himself in by inches, he snorted and puffed like a walrus under the harpoon, and continued to wriggle until his fat, round body had squeezed through the narrow opening and he stood before us in the firelight.

When every eye was upon him, Oosilik smiled with satisfaction and rubbed his sides with both hands. Then he told us, in his choppy, grunting way, his bit of news, which was this: that the two drivers with the pulks, or sleds, that we had anxiously expected for the last two weeks, had arrived, and that we were to start on the following morning at sunrise for Port Clarence. We questioned Oosilik about the reindeer and the condition of the pulks after their long journey, but he would tell us nothing, and to all our questions he had the same reply: a knowing twinkle in his small black eyes, and a toss of the head.

The next morning we hurned out of our bearskin beds to dress for the ride behind the reindeer, with the thermometer at forty degrees below zero, and the sun pale as a glass bead in the white sky. To protect ourselves from the bitter cold, we chose our warmest clothing, which was made from reindeer hide with the fur side in. We drew on seal waterproof boots. Our mittens were of the heaviest reindeer fur, and to protect our necks and shoulders, as well as our heads, we put on a “parki.” This is a hood attached to the fur coat, which is slipped on over the other garments and is belted in at the waist by a strong leather belt.

When we were ready for the long ride across the snow and ice, and filed out of the cabin door to take our places in the pulks, we looked like the contestants in a sack-race on their way to the track. In less than ten seconds we had jumped into our places in the sleds as the restless reindeer bounded by the knoll on which we stood, It taxed our agility to spring from the ground and light upon the seats of the sleds as they whirled past us.

Untamed and wholly unreliable beasts are these reindeer. One never feels a moment’s security when once he is seated in a pulk behind their flying legs, listening to the clattering of their hoofs on the hard snow, Ten miles an hour was the average speed that we made the first day, and that was quite rapid enough for us, we declared, when we considered the unbroken trail we had followed, and the dangers we narrowly escaped in spite of the precautions that, the guides had taken to insure us a safe journey.

“Uncle Ben was the name of the reindeer that drew our pulk.”

Over the voiceless wilds of the snow-covered mountains, and toiling through the depths of treacherous ravines that more than once threatened to bury us alive, we were hauled up to safe ground by the struggling reindeer.

On one mountain-slope the deer scented a lichen-bed, and they promptly turned aside and with their front hoofs began to paw and scrape away the snow that covered it; and they would not go on until they had filled themselves with the lichen, while we sat helpless in the sleds and watched them browse until their sides swelled. Each reindeer was drawing about two hundred and fifty pounds, and that was a fair load with the snow as deep as it was.

Their obstinate scorn of everything but their appetite for the moss recalls to me, as I. write, Mr. F. Marion Crawford's account of how the Lapland reindeer sometimes break into an uncontrollable stampede for the Arctic Ocean. it is found in his story, “A Cigarette Maker's Romance,” and reads as follows:

In the distant northern plains, a hundred miles from the sea, in the midst of the Laplanders’ village, a young reindeer raises his broad muzzle to the north wind and stares at the limitless distance while a roan may count a hundred. He grows restless from that moment, but he is yet alone. The next day,a dozen of the herd look up from the cropping of the moss, snuffing the breeze. Then the Lapps nod to one another, and the camp grows daily more unquiet. At times the whole herd of young

A herd of Reindeer in Lapland.

deer stand at gaze, as it were, breathing hard through wide nostrils, then jostling each other and stamping the soft ground. They grow unruly, and it is hard to harness them in the light sledge. As the days pass, the Lapps watch them more and more closely, well knowing what will happen sooner or later. And then at last, in the northern twilight, the great herd begins to move. The impulse is simultaneous, irresistible; their heads are all turned in one direction. They move slowly at first, biting still, here and there, at the hunches of rich moss. Presently the slow step becomes a trot, they crowd closely together, while the Lapps hasten to gather up their last unpacked possessions, their cooking-utensils, and their wooden gods. The great herd break together from a trot to a gallop, from a gallop ta a breakneck race; the distant thunder of their united tread reaches the camp during a few minutes, and they are gone to drink of the polar sea. The Lapps follow after them, dragging painfully their laden sledges in the broad track left by the thousands of galloping beasts. A day’s journey, and they are yet far from the sea, and the trail is yet broad. On the second day it grows narrower, and there are stains of blood to be seen; far on the distant plain before them their sharp eyes distinguish in the direct line a dark, motionless object—another, and then another. The race has grown more desperate and more wild as the stampede neared the sea. The weaker reindeer have been thrown down and trampled to death by their stronger fellows. A thousand sharp hoofs have crushed and cut through hide and flesh and bone. Ever swifter and more terrible in their motion, the ruthless herd has raced onward, careless of the slain, careless of food, careless of any drink but the sharp salt water ahead of them. And when, at last, the Laplanders reach the shore, their deer are once more quietly grazing, once more tame and docile, once more ready to drag the sledge whithersoever they are guided. Once in his life the reindeer must taste of the sea in one long, satisfying draught; and if he is hindered he perishes. Neither man nor beast dare stand between him and the ocean in the hundred miles of his arrow-like path.^[1]

“Uncle Ben” was the name of the reindeer that drew our pulk. He was a big, raw-boned deer with enormous horns. His coat was almost white and was thick and soft. His legs were long and powerful, and the sinews were plainly visible with every stride that he took. His hoofs were divided very high, so that when he placed his foot on the ground the hoof spread wide, and when he raised it, a snapping noise was heard which was caused by the parts of the hoof closing together.

By the end of the day the thermometer had fallen to sixty degrees below zero, and we were beginning to feel cramped and stiff from constant sitting, and were on the lookout for the cache, or store-house, where we expected to spend the night. The cache had a long cabin attached, and we were to sleep there. We had traveled fifty miles over one of the roughest trails in Alaska, and had brought with us a good supply of beans, bacon, flour, and hard bread, as one can never tell for how many days a storm or accident may prolong his journey.

The cache was on the brow of a hill, and Amalik, one of our drivers, was the first to see it in the fading light. The practised eye of these Northmen can pick out a dog or a goat on a remote mountain-top, so that when Amalik cried out the good news, no one doubted him, and we gladly followed his pulk as it turned from the trail and led the way across the intervening gulches to the cache, where we were sure of a night’s shelter from the Arctic cold.

The interior of the cache was indeed cheerless, but each one of us lighted one of the oil-lamps, in which seal-oil is burned, that were ranged round the room, and sat down on the walrus-skins, which we drew up over our shoulders, and placed the half-warm lamps between our feet. There were mats of dried grass, and deerskin blankets which were to be used for coverlets when we lay down on the floor to sleep. Soon Amalik and Oosilik came in from securing the reindeer and began to cook our supper. They were as slow as slow could be, but we knew better than to try to hurry them, or to show the least impatience.

Resting after a hard day’s journey.

Every second while we watched their deliberate motions and the frequent bickerings that interrupted the preparation of the longed-for meal seemed an hour to us, but at last supper was ready, and we ate ravenously of the plain fare that was set before us. Amalik and Oosilik kept up a constant procession around us with frying-pan in one hand and steaming coffee-pot in the other.

The long ride and the intense cold made us sleep soundly and late, and we awakened the following morning to find that we were having a terrible snow-storm, which the eye could not penetrate, so thick and fast fell the snow-flakes, that looked like a sheet caught up by a whirlwind. This was a bitter disappointment to us, for no living soul would dare venture forth into a storm such as this one, which was likely to last for days. And it did. Amalik and Qosilik, after one glance out at the blinding snow, curled themselves up in a corner of the room, and slept the entire four days except when stirred up to cook our meals and to look after the deer.

We were forced to wait three days after it had stopped snowing for a crust to form so that we could travel again. It was with many misgivings that we began the last half of the journey, since the snow was now very deep and the danger of our sinking into drifts was great. To add to our general feeling of fear, the reindeer behaved very badly and were exceedingly unruly. The wind had moderated somewhat, but it was still intensely cold.

We had traveled half the day without any serious mishap and were beginning to forget our fears at starting out, when we sped merrily down a mountain-side, singing and halloaing at the top of our voices, and ran into a gulch and stuck there. The songs stopped in our throats, and we sprang to our feet to sink waist deep in the drifts that had entrapped us.

Every movement of our bodies sank us deeper in the snow-drifts, and the infuriated reindeer, finding themselves caught mm the banked-up snow almost to their haunches, turned upon us and would have pawed us to death but for the forethought of Qosilik, who, seeing our danger, sprang forward, and hoisting the overturned pulks in his strong arms, brought them down over our heads and shoulders and pinned us out of sight in the snow.

We heard the hoofs of Uncle Ben beating on the pulk’s side as he pawed up the snow in his efforts to get at us, and if we had not held to the straps and had not kept the pulk over us, he would have tossed it into the air with one sweep of his horns and would still have had his bout with us, in which case we should have been helpless and completely at his mercy.

For the first time we had occasion to see how fierce an angry reindeer can he. When he was convinced that he could not reach us, Uncle Ben turned upon Oosilik, and we heard the Eskimo shouting and clubbing the deer as he ran in and out of the pulks in a swift circuit, pursued by the bellowing reindeer.

We spent an exciting half-hour under the pulks, with the hoofs of the deer rattling like hail on the frozen boards, and then the unusual commotion ceased all at once, for the reindeer had found a lichen-bed. In a jiffy they were pawing up the snow in their hurry to get at the succulent moss, and we were forgotten.

Amalik and Oosilik lifted the pulks from our heads and dug us up out of the snow and set us on our feet. By the time the reindeer had eaten themselves into a passable humor, Amalik and Oosilik led them back to the pulks.

We had four hours of traveling before we came in sight of the corral that had sent us the reindeer from Eaton Station. As soon as the deer scented the well-known corral, they quickened their strides so that we reached the Station before it was quite dark, and crawled from the sleds with a deep feeling of relief, glad beyond measure to be at home after the perils of our protracted journey.

Our friends turned out in a body and welcomed us joyfully, for they had begun to entertain the gravest fears for our safety, and had been on the lookout for us for almost a week.

“The Land of the Midnight Sun.”

1. Reprinted by kind permission of the Macmillan Co.