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In recent months North Americans have had the privilege to see some truly impressive herds of caribou on their television screens, as a backdrop to the arguments for and against President Bush's plans to drill oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The animals move like a tidal wave through the barren landscape and it is hard to imagine that anything could stop them. But Greenpeace and Yup'ik and Givichen elders warn that global warming is already threatening the survival of the caribou as well as that of the the polar bears and walrus, and oil exploration could just be the last drop. In extension, the survival of the traditional lives of the indigenous people in this area is also being threatened.
This is not the first time that the livelihood of the indigenous people has been threatened. More than a hundred years ago, the United States embarked on an ambitious experiment to turn the tide for the starving Yup'ik and Inupiaq communities, recruiting Scandinavian Sami to come to Alaska and teach reindeer husbandry to the Eskimos and other natives.
The First Reindeer
The wild caribou and the tame reindeer are actually the same species (Rangifer tarandus) but in modern times no-one has succeeded in taming a caribou. Anthropologists believe that the origins of all reindeer can be traced to a domesticated stock in the Altai Mountain region in Mongolia dating back some 5 000 years. It is speculated that tamed reindeer, on a leash, were originally used as a means to sneak closer to wild herds. Eventually tame animals were used to pull sleds and even be saddled and ridden. Soon Eurasian people were keeping reindeer herds as a dependable source of milk, food and hides besides transportation.
The idea of reindeer husbandry in Alaska came up after efficient "over-hunting" by American and Russian whalers and fishermen had robbed local hunters of their prey. It was Alaska's "General Agent of Education", Sheldon Jackson, who was also a Presbyterian missionary, who hatched the idea. He purchased the first 16 Siberian reindeer in 1890 (only 23 years after the United States had purchased Alaska from Russia for $7 200 000). This was an experiment to see how the reindeer would survive the sea journey and...