5 minute read
80 Years of Food and Friendship
Words by Meagan Wohlberg
“For some unexplainable reason, the caribou quit migrating,” Ellen Binder recalls in the 1992 book, Reindeer Days Remembered.
The daughter of a Norwegian reindeer herder, Binder’s family was brought—along with 3,000 reindeer—to the Mackenzie Delta region in the 1930s. Their arrival, at the end of a long arduous journey overland from Alaska, helped stave off famine in the Western Arctic after the once-predictable caribou migrations stopped.
Though the establishment of Canada’s only free-range reindeer herd is now somewhat of a legendary tale, back then, Binder says the reasons behind the fabled migration were matter-of-fact:
“There was a need for meat.”
In the mid-1920s, the federal government launched the Canadian Reindeer Project, an initiative that saw 3,440 reindeer cross the border into Canada via Alaska. Originally from Russia, the animals had been transported from Norway to New York City by steamship, then to Seattle by train and north to Alaska again by ship, as part of the U.S. government’s Alaskan Reindeer Experiment.
Noting the success of the Alaskan experiment, Canada decided to try its own hand at reindeer herding. Purchased at $65 a head from the Loman Brothers Company in Alaska, the Canadian government paid more than $150,000 (around $2.5 million, today) for the 2,370 animals that survived the arduous journey from Napaktolik in Alaska to Reindeer Station—a community created 100 kilometres north of what would eventually become Inuvik.
Though the reindeer were expected to arrive in 1931 after an easy 18-month trek, hundreds escaped and tried to return home to Alaska. Storms and frigid winter temperatures broke the herd up further, impeding travel. A single ice storm in 1934, alone, is credited with delaying the herd’s arrival across the frozen Mackenzie Delta by almost a full year.
In the end, it would take a remarkable five years to finish the entire journey, and the herder—Anders Bahr, a Saami man from Poulsbo, Norway—would become heralded as “The Arctic Moses” for successfully following through with his treacherous mission. Shortly after the herd’s arrival, 811 fawns were born, increasing the total population close to its original number.
Along with the reindeer came other Saami people — Indigenous reindeer herders from Scandinavia—to train apprentices. Among those were Ellen Binder’s parents, Anna and Mikkel Pulk, who were part of the first wave of Norwegian Saami hired to manage the Northwest Territories herd in 1932.
While many Inuvialuit continued to trap and harvest furs in the early reindeer days, the Great Depression in the 1930s saw fur prices drop, drawing locals into the herding way of life for economic reasons. Soon, strong cultural bonds began to flourish between the Saami and the Inuvialuit.
The Canadian Wildlife Service continued to own the herd until the 1960s, using it to provide meat to people in the region. In 1969, the government withdrew from the project and the 90 or so residents of Reindeer Station relocated to Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. In 1974, there was no longer any shortage of food in the region and the herd was sold to a private firm.
Although the caribou have since returned—along with other economic opportunities—and Reindeer Station has emptied, to the Inuvialuit, the deep intercultural relationship forged alongside the reindeer experiment continues to thrive.
Today the reindeer remain a permanent economical and cultural fixture in the Delta, where around 3,000 animals represent the only free-range reindeer herd in Canada. Ownership of the herd is now shared by the Binder family and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) through the company, Canadian Reindeer. Still an important source of meat, reindeer are now distributed locally through the IRC or sold privately.
“Inuvialuit are well positioned to engage in the sustainable commercial harvesting of reindeer for markets beyond the region,” Inuvik locals Peggy Jay and Jiri Raska wrote in Inuktitut Magazine last spring. “It creates direct employment, provides further mobility to skilled workers, supports food security and country food nutrition initiatives and stimulates opportunities in value-added processing and country food retail trade between Inuit regions through the Nutrition North program.”
In addition to boosting food security and employment in the region, the reindeer are also becoming their own tourist draw. Each year, the herd makes its trek from its wintering grounds at Jimmy Lake to the calving grounds on Richards Island. Two years ago, the IRC decided to open up the reindeer migration to be viewed by the public. Visitors and locals alike now gather each spring at Swimming Point Crossing, where the reindeer cross the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk ice road over the east arm of the Mackenzie River.
This year’s crossing included a special celebration to mark the herd’s 80th anniversary in the Mackenzie Delta.
In mid-2014, IRC partnered with the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the Government of Canada, the Association of World Reindeer Herders and the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry to recognize the history of reindeer herding in Canada and tie it to the circumpolar world.
To recognize the cultural bonds forged between Saami reindeer herders and Inuvialuit, five reindeer herders from Norway and Russia travelled to Inuvik last March to ring in the 80th anniversary of the first reindeer crossing, held in March 1935.
Joined by students from East Three Secondary School, the special guests visited the historic Reindeer Station, learning how to herd, lasso, harvest and cook reindeer. The visitors were then given a taste of Inuvialuit culture, including Arctic sports, drum dancing and trapping. The cross-cultural exchange continued at the annual Muskrat Jamboree where reindeer meat and Saami bread were part of the official menu. A Saami tent was set up along the river, and people could get their photos taken with Addjub the reindeer.
But the highlight of the anniversary celebrations was watching the magnificent herd make its annual crossing toward the Arctic coast. For a steady half-hour, the 3,000 animals flowed thunderously before a crowd of 500 spectators like a moving river across the ice road.
With all of the many challenges that Canada’s one-of-akind reindeer herd has overcome over the last 80 years, it’s an occasion that is unlikely to stop any time soon.
