December 22, 2025 • 37 mins
In this special Christmas-themed episode, we will be focusing in on the animal that seems to get all press and attention during the holiday season- reindeer. In the high arctic of Norway, reindeer have been around for long, long time, and we're going to learn all about them. The stories and lore, their actual biology and ecology, the indigenous tribes that heard them, and even some Santa Clause talk. It's all part of a bigger story of how reindeer impact our world and lives today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
conserving both. Big shout out to onex Hunt for their
support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and Today,
Oh Today, my friends, is not your run of the
mill Backwoods U episode. I mean, how could it be?
(00:28):
We're just days away from Christmas. Chances are if this
has found its way to your eyes and ear drums,
you're in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle.
Maybe you're out doing last minute shopping. Maybe you're out
getting ready for a party year for family to come over.
Maybe you're on vacation until New Year's and you're riding
out to go hunting. You lucky rascal, whatever you're up to,
(00:48):
I hope this most wonderful time of year brings you
all the joy and happiness that your heart can stand,
and in the nature of being in the Christmas spirit,
I present to you this very special Christmas episode. Now,
think for a minute. If I was to do a
podcast focused on wildlife and wild places that was Christmas themed,
where do you reckon? I would land what animal gets
(01:10):
more pressed than any other during this holiday season. I
hope you all are ready for some crazy stories. So
grab a seat and make sure you're bundled up, because
we're headed to the high Arctic of Norway to learn
all about reindeer, the stories and lord built around them,
the biology and ecology of the actual animal, and the
people who interact with them every single day.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I'm going to tell you about Scanta Claus. Like many
of these things which seems complete fairy stories, there's actually
a grain of truth in there, and in this case,
actually more than a grain of truth. You think of
a guy who flies around in the middle of the winter,
(01:57):
drawn by reindeer down the chimney, bringing presents, and you
might say, who made that up? But of course it's
almost entirely true, every bit of it, well except for
the flying.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
The voice with a very cool accident you're hearing is
doctor Nicholas Tyler, a wildlife biologist who has spent forty
years studying the ecology of both wildlife and domestic reindeer.
He's going to be our main source of truth and
learning all the wild and cool facts about these animals.
But first he's going to give us this unique Santa
Claus origin story that I bet most of you didn't know.
(02:37):
I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
In the old days, the principal transport in the snow
season up here in the mountains was by reindeer and sledge.
And you have in the eastern part of northern Norway
Finnmark you have big sledges with big runners a curve
up at the front, I'm sorry, in the west, in
(03:02):
the western part. In the eastern part you have things
called pulk, which are like little boats because it's more
forested and the big sledges don't move well between the trees.
But in either case you sit in your on your
sledge or in your pulk and you're dragged about by reindeer.
(03:23):
When the animals had spent the summer out of the
coast and they migrated in while they migrate inland in
winter time and settled down. The people on their migration
were using their lava their tents rather like your wigwams
canvas tents in a pyramidal form. But in the winter
(03:45):
they would move into a gummer. And a gummer is
a permanent structure, a wooden frame and built up on
all sides and on the top with turf, and once
you settled in your gummer or winter hut, then you
would let the door snow in. Snow would pack round
(04:06):
the hut. And that's good. That's more insulation. And at
that time, the only way in and out of a
gumma is up the ladder and out of the smoke hole. Now,
the only guy you see where I'm going, the only
person who's moving around at that time of year is
the shaman. And the shaman is sitting on his sledge
(04:28):
being pulled by reindeer. And when he arrives at the gumma,
he comes down the smoke hole. But he's not bringing gifts.
He's bringing something much more important. He's bringing medicine and news.
Medicine and news are really important. So there you have it. Here,
(04:51):
you have the good guy traveling around in the middle
of the winter, pulled by reindeer. He comes down the
smoke hole and he brings gifts. Wyb brings important stuff.
Sounds familiar. I don't know whether that is the origin
of Santa Claus, but it jolly well oughts to be.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think it jolly well ought to be too. I
bet y'all didn't think y'all well ever going to get
a Santa Claus education on Backwoods University. But here we
are got to stay on your toes around here. We
got one more wild tale that I don't think you'll believe,
but we're going to save that until the very end
of this episode. For now, let's dive into all things reindeer,
starting off by learning a little more about doctor Nicholas Tyler,
(05:30):
who's going to be our resident reindeer expert.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I'm a biologist and I've spent forty years studying the
ecology of reindeer, and I started off with wild reindeer
in the hi Optic Archipelago of Svalbard, and then since
then I've worked a lot also with domesticated reindeer in
northern Norway, where I live. And the reasons we're working
(05:57):
with those animals is that we can keep them in
captivity for physiological experiments. But when you work with these animals,
you can't avoid also becoming involved in the Sami people
who heard them. So although I'm principally an ecologist, with
to do some work in physiology as well, but I
(06:19):
have also written papers on reindeer, posturalism, and the Sami people,
which is a part and parcel of studying reindeer in
their environment.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, so we got a good bit of foreshadowing of
where all this conversation will take us. Wild reindeer, domesticated reindeer,
the indigenous Sami people of Norway that heard them. I'm
telling you this has a lot of fascinating twist and turns,
some of which I promise you're not going to see coming.
And another thing that excites me about these kind of
topics is it gives us a glimpse to how humans
(06:51):
interact with wildlife and wild places outside of our own country.
I always find it valuable to gain more perspectives and
identify key differences in similarities between there and here at home.
But before we get into all that, let's get a
better general understanding of the animals themselves.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Reindeer as we call them in English in Eurasia and
you call caribou in North America. That's the same species.
It's one big species rangefa tarandus, and these animals have
a circumpolar distribution, so they are found right the way
across North and North America and northern Eurasia, from the
(07:34):
Fennoscandinavian Peninsula in the west to the Pacific Ocean in
the east, and caribou the North American form only exists
only as wild animals. All together, there are about four
million of these animals in the world. About half of
(07:55):
them are what we call domesticated. So in the Eurasia,
in a North America, you have wild caribou, and in
Eurasia you have wild reindeer and domesticated reindeer, which are
the majority over here. And these animals are herded by
indigenous peoples right the way across northern Eurasia twenty four
(08:19):
different peoples from the Sami people of Fenes Gandia, and
then you have the nets and Komi and doll guns
and airvens and avenky, different groups of indigenous peoples continuously
stretching halfway around the northern world in northern Eurasia, and
(08:42):
there's evidence of humans working closely with reindeer in northern
Eurasia going back about ten thousand years, but domestication as
we recognize it now seems to be of more recent origin,
probably two thousand years old in some form. But large
(09:05):
scale reindeer husbandry as we see it now, with herds
of thousands or even more animals, is probably of more
recent origin four or five hundred years, but all the
way across northern Eurasia with these peoples. One of the many,
(09:25):
many common elements they have in their different languages is
our highly sophisticated vocabulary about all aspects of reindeer and
their environment. And the existence of these vocabularies tells us
that the association between peoples and the animals is of
very ancient origin.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
All right, Three things right out of the gate that
we need to make sure stick. Number One, you heard
the term circumpolar distribution. If you don't know, this means
that an animal can be found all the way around
either the North Pole or the South Pole. In this case,
reindeer can be found all the way around the North
Pole from Norway to Russia to Alaska. Number Two, saying
(10:08):
reindeer and caribou is like saying tomato, tomato. They're the
same thing. This is going to come back up later,
so make sure you hold on to that. Number Three,
the relationship between the indigenous peoples and the reindeer is
a huge part of this story. We haven't made it
far enough into the conversation to truly grasp how important
and how impact will just yet but trust me, before
(10:30):
we dive into all that, I want to spend a
little bit more time with doctor Nicholas Tyler about how
he personally became interested in reindeer, other wildlife species of
the Arctic, and the Arctic ecosystem itself. I think it's
important that we get a sense of the passion this
man has for this subject before we dive into the
facts and science part of it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
As a boy, I went with my father. I went
to camping and fishing and walking in the mountains in
England inso far as we've got mountains, and loved being outdoors.
And then I was fortunate enough to find a profession
that enabled me to do that as part of my job,
(11:10):
and was enormously inspired by people who had an understanding
of the natural environment and a scientific understanding. That's more
than just really good naturalists who can tell you identify
anything they see and tell you a lot about it.
(11:31):
But looking at the mechanisms of the phenomena that the
things that we see for the reindeer, how do animals
survive in the cold. You know, you're out there in
December in the twilight, and it seems a barren wasteland
stretching away as far as the eye can see, and
(11:52):
unless if you've got really good clothing on, you can't
stand it out there for more than a few minutes.
And then a bunch of what passed you in These
animals perfectly happy, perfectly comfortable. How do they manage it?
And it's questions like that I find absolutely gripping. We
have a hut in the mountains here near Tromser, and
(12:15):
we're going to spend Christmas there, and there will be
little forest birds out there all right, little grape tits
and things like that, Little animals that weigh fifteen grams.
And the temperatures minus twenty centigrade and fahrenheit, and there's
a strong wind and you weigh fifteen grams. I mean,
(12:39):
people think polar bears are cool. Polar bears are complete amateurs.
I mean, what's cool about being a polar bear? Four
hundred kilos of meat with a great big bellies not
a problem? I mean the really tough guys are these
small people fifteen grounds? How on earth do they manage?
(13:01):
And the same with a big, great, big grazing animal
like a reindeer just standing around the wind is whipping
snow around its legs, and it's standing there looking at you,
chewing in the card, apparently completely contented. And when you
start taking measurements of the animal, indeed it is completely contented.
(13:22):
I have books here at home that I bought when
I started my PhD in nineteen seventy nine. One of
them was JP. Kelsall's great book The Caribou, published in
Canada in nineteen sixty eight, and at the time this
was the most mighty volume. This was every aspect of
(13:45):
the animal was covered in it. Absolutely monumental piece of work.
Fantastic it still is. But even though and this is
in no way detracting from it, even though it is
a monumental piece of work, if you compare what we
know now and the kinds of questions we can ask
(14:05):
now about the animals and their environment with the kind
of knowledge even people like Kelsel had fifty years ago,
it's just fantastic how much progress has been made. I mean,
it's absolutely wonderful. And so when I started, the general
idea was the Arctic was a frightfully vicious place where
(14:29):
plant and animal life was teetering on the brink of
existence and the smallest pressure would knock things into extinction.
My gosh, it's a really fragile environment. Quite the reverse,
You've got wonderfully well adapted plants and animals who are
(14:50):
as comfortable in their environment as you are in yours.
It's a highly unstable environment, but it's immensely robust, and
I think that kind of discovery is absolutely wonderful. It
completely changes the way you think about the world around you,
without in any way detracting from the majesty and the
(15:11):
beauty and the awe of that world. Inspires quite the reverse,
Quite the reverse, it enhances your appreciation of that world
because you feel a little bit more understanding now than
people had in the past, and that's just great.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The more you understand something, the more you're able to
respect it and appreciate it. My experience so far with
this show and the topics we've chased down is that
this sentiment has only become more solidified and true. I
also find it so important to hear this type of
perspective from folks just like doctor Nicholas Tyler. You can
feel the deep admiration for the things and places he's
(15:50):
spent his life studying, coming all the way from his
home in Norway through your speakers, and it's impossible for
me not to respect that. So now that we have
a good grasp on that of it, let's dive into reindeer.
Starting out the gate with some need to know reindeer
facts brought to you by some of doctor Nicholas Tyler's
own writings and publications. You ready, here we go ten
(16:12):
thousand years ago, leading to their current distribution. Throughout the
entire Northern Arctic. Reindeer exists and are recognized in three
different types hier Arctic island type, continental tundra type, and
forest mountain type. There's also fourteen extant subspecies. The current
distribution of different genotypes is owed heavily to glacial types
(16:32):
that caused major shifts in the distribution and abundance of
reindeer during the Pleistocene. Some of these subspecies include Alaska Cariboo,
Canadian barren ground Cariboo, North American woodland cariboo, and Siberian
tundra reindeer, just to name a few. There's a lot
of physical distinctions and characteristics specific to reindeer, but the
(16:53):
two we're going to highlight today are their antlers and
their adaptations to the northern environment. Starting out with the antlers.
Reindeer are the only known servid in which both males
and females annually grow a set of antlers. So if
you ever see a live reindeer or a picture of one,
you can't just look at a set of horns and say, oh,
that's a male like you could an elk or a
(17:14):
whitetail could go either way. Move over to their adaptations
to the northern environment. We heard doctor Nicholas say earlier
that the Arctic is often portrayed as a barren and
unwelcoming place where life is an almost impossible struggle. However,
reindeer are so very suited to not only survive, but
rather live, content and happy in the conditions the Arctic
(17:36):
is known for. They're able to achieve this by three
very important environmental adaptations. Number one, reduced energy or food
requirements in the winter. Reindeer do this by restricting heat
loss and by down regulating their growth. Their main tool
in doing this is their fur. Their coats can be
up to seven centimeters deep in higher Arctic forms, and
(17:58):
their coats consist in part of hairs that have a
hollow core that creates an incredible insulation. Doctor Tyler told
me that he had personally witnessed reindeer at thirty five
below zero and they still exhibited no metabolic response and
are perfectly comfortable in those temperatures. That's crazy, thirty five below.
Number two enhanced ability to extract energy from the environment.
(18:21):
Reindeer have broad spreading hoofs to dig through the snow
to find the nutrition dense plants covered beneath. They sometimes
dig up to a meter deep to find the food
they want and need. Some also suggest that these wide
spreading hoofs could potentially aid in flying and making quick
and quiet stops on rooftops, but there's no scientific evidence
to confirm that. Number three energy storage. All reindeer retain
(18:43):
energy in the summer months and store it as fat,
which they can use to draw from during the winter months.
The last thing that we have to mention is migration. Often,
especially here in the United States, when you hear the
word migration, your mind often goes to birds, like migratory
bird species like the ani and you'll waterfol migration, for example,
But reindeer or migratory, which doesn't necessarily mean that they
(19:06):
could fly like birds, but it definitely doesn't rule it
out just saying, but seriously, reindeer, caribou, whichever one you
want to call them, they migrate. Sometimes. These migratory groups
number into the hundreds or even thousands of animals, and
they can travel hundreds of miles to areas where they
have grow store up fat reserves before returning months later
to an area where they spend the winter. It's some
(19:27):
pretty wild stuff. Go search on YouTube for videos of
reindeer caribou migrating and you'll see what I mean. Okay,
now let's shift to tad to still talking about reindeer,
but focusing more about the human involvement with them. Quick, FYI,
you're going to hear a term called pastoralism, which basically
(19:50):
means animal herting.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
In Norway, reindev hostitialism is a flagship of the Sawmy people.
It's only a minority of the s army who are
reindeer herders, I think in the order of ten percent,
but nevertheless it's symbolic of that people and their culture.
If you think of any form of pastoralism, you've got
(20:16):
one extreme, which is sheep or cattle in a fenced field.
And in a situation like that, the humans have complete
control of the animals where they are, what they do,
what they eat, how and when they reproduce and so on.
The other extreme is that you have free living animals
(20:39):
in nature that by great North and South as their
wild conspecifics do, and the people follow the migration. The
people don't lead the migration, they follow it. So the
domesticated animals are doing the natural behavior of this species
(21:01):
and humans follow along as part of it. So what
you could say is the animals control the humans in
terms of the annual cycle, but the humans might control
the animals from day to day. So a group of
herders might say we want our animals across this river,
(21:22):
and we're going to take them across this river tomorrow,
and there on a day to day basis, the humans
are in charge of the animals, but in terms of
an annual cycle, it's the other way around.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The Sami people are just one of the twenty plus
indigenous people groups that heard reindeer. Collectively, these groups graze
upwards of two point five million of these animals, and
this practice spreads across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia pretty wild. Today,
we're going to be focusing mostly on the Sami people.
(21:53):
And the interesting thing to me here is, well, you
heard doctor Nicholas say it just a few seconds ago.
These aren't reindeer. You're sitting inside a fenced pasture like
cattle here at home. Like we learned earlier, reindeer migrate
for miles upon miles, and the herders follow them along
during this. It's fascinating and it's been going on for
thousands of years. It's hurting animals, but they're essentially using
(22:17):
and moving through the same landscape that they were before
they were ever domesticated. It's an interesting human and animal
dynamic that I'm very unfamiliar with, and frankly now I'm
intrigued by it, but I'm interested in what's going on
with it currently.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
If you take reindeer apostolism generally not good, it's under threat.
There are about four hundred and fifty thousand domesticated reindeer
in the Scandinavian Peninsula. They're about one point seven million
domesticated reindeer and Russia. Russia is considerably bigger than the
(23:03):
Scantinate Finnish canton in peninsula, so the density of animals
here is very, very much higher than in Russia, but
reindeer husbandry reinde pastoralism here is under threat, or at
least under pressure. It's under multiple pressures, the principal one
being a loss of habitat to industrial and domestic encroachment.
(23:28):
About seventy one percent of the pasture lands in Norway
are influenced by the presence of humans, and that means
that animals move away from where humans are. So there
is huge areas of pasture which is underused, and the
other side of that coin is there are huge areas
(23:50):
of pasture which are overused as a result of that phenomenon.
And then the same situation exists in the Russian Federation,
where reindeer husbandry increased considerably during the communist period, but
when communism collapsed in nineteen ninety one, so did the
(24:15):
subsidies given to the herders, and reindeer husbandry in the
East has suffered considerably as a result. I talked to
one leader from the far East of Russia, and I
knew that some years before he was in charge of
about twenty thousand reindeer, and I said to him, then,
(24:37):
how are your animals now? And he said there aren't any,
And I said well, where did they go? And he said,
we ate them. And because this is now we're talking
about the late nineteen nineties, because food was in short supply,
the supply lines provided by the communist state had been dismantled,
(25:01):
and the people ate their reindeer. So reindeer pastoralism, which
is enormously culturally, enormously important for all these peoples, is,
if not exactly under threat, it's certainly under considerable pressure.
So were reindeer pastoralism to reduce, that would have an
(25:25):
effect not only for the herders and for the animals
and for the pasture lands which the animals historically have grazed,
but it would have an effect for an entire culture.
And I don't think the situation is quite as catastrophic
as that sounds. But it's clearly the case that the
implication of a decline in reindeer pastoralism involves effects on
(25:50):
more than just the people who are directly involved. I
either herders themselves. No, it's more important than that.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's interesting, it's very interesting talking about that subject there.
And then all this like loss of access and habitat.
We deal with similar things in North America, right, We
lose wildlife habitat all the time to industrial activity to
domestic sprawl. There's some parallels there, and I'm at home.
(26:18):
We some things that we have in place, like we
have some conservation organizations that folks will try to make
an effort or initiative to you know, put some acreage
of land back into wildlife habitat, or they'll try to
restore or read rewild areas. Is there anything like that
in Norway where you know their attempts to try to
(26:39):
restore habitat or rehope in habitat or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
What we have at the moment is a furious argument
about the creation of wind farms in the mountains and
a local newspaper up here. I mean every week there
is somebody writes in about a new wind farm and say,
(27:04):
this is simply appalling. We don't like these wind farms.
They are intrude in the terrain, and they disturb the
animals and the reindeer, for example, move away from them
and soon and then the following week you get another
person who writes in and say, that's all nonsense. Wind
farms are green energy. We have to have more energy,
and anyway, the reindeer don't avoid them, and so the
(27:28):
debate goes on. But it's absolutely clear there are a
lot of people here who are desperately anxious that our
remaining undeveloped habitats shall stay that way. That's a really
important part of the Norwegian psyche, maintaining the outdoors. At
(27:50):
the same time, we all like electricity, and we all
like major computer developments that give us AI access and
things like that. You can only see that this problem
is not going to go away. It's turning in to
get worse.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
We face similar issues here. A guy that works for
meat Eater, a guy named Ryan Callahan. I heard him
say that. He said, the conservation is rarely convenient because
to your point, look at what we're doing right now.
You know, I'm talking to you in Norway from Mississippi.
Thanks to technology, I enjoy modern conveniences, but I also
(28:26):
put high value. I put high value on wild undeveloped
wildlife habitat, and it is encouraging to hear that a
lot of the culture over there puts a relative high
level of value on that as well.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yes, I mean I completely I couldn't think of anything
else to say. I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, it's interesting to me when I can find some
parallels between natural resource issues going on here in North
America and all the way over in Norway or any
other country. Loss of wild habitat dude urban activity. Well,
we North Americans can relate to that one for sure.
And I know it's different because we're talking about the
habitat loss effects on herding animals. But stay with me here.
(29:10):
We have to remember that these reindeer are moving about
and using the same wild habitats that they were using
since well before domestication. So in turn, we can safely
assume that this habitat loss is affecting other.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Species wild species as well.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It's also nice to hear that it's an important part
of the Norwegian psyche to protect undeveloped and wild habitats.
I don't know about y'all, but I'm for conserving wild places,
regardless of whether or not I'll ever step foot in them. Now,
I'm going to take a sharp topic turn. Remember when
I told y'all earlier that the relationship between indigenous people
(29:47):
and reindeer was going to be a vital part of
this story, Well, here it is, and I bet y'all
didn't see this coming.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Eighteen ninety two report on the introduction domestic rangeer into
Alaska with maps and illustration. This is a repulse to
the Senate of the United States.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
All Right, this story is only going to get wilder,
so y'all settle in. During the eighteen nineties, there was
growing concern that Alaskan Native people were starving due to
lack of marine mammals, the whaling industry, and the fact
that there was virtually no reindeer or caribou in western
Alaska at the time. The US government made the decision
to import domestic reindeer into western Alaska in an attempt
(30:33):
to provide food, income and training for reindeerhrting. So that
meant that they brought in Sami people to help with
that training. So these Sami people that we've been learning
about throughout this whole episode that reside in Norway were
brought stateside along with their reindeer.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Crazy And this is written by a guy called Sheldon
Jackson January eighteen ninety three, Washington, the government printing house,
and he was instrumental in moving domesticated reindeer from Siberia
to Alaska. I think eighteen ninety four. The first ones came.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
As doctor Nicholas tells me this story, he's showing me
pictures of the boats being used to haul reindeer, reindeer
getting lifted and loaded for transport, and some honestly pretty
chilling and sad photos of skeleton remains of people who
had succumbed to starvation. These photos were taken to help
encourage the US government to proceed forward with this plan.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, they didn't mess around, and when they wrote government
reports in those days, I tell you no, they didn't.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
But that was one of the main reasons they wanted
to introduce reindeer pastoralism in Alaska was for sustenance for
Native folks.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That stage, there were no cariboo in the western Alaska,
and so animals were brought from Siberia and that was
the success. Then the contract went out to northern Scandinavia
and hundreds of animals were taken from northern Sweden and
northern norwayian shipped across the Atlantic to New York and
(32:14):
put on trains and taken to San Francisco. They were
unloaded at San Francisco and they were taken up to
Anchorage and they were taken into the interior. These guys
did not mess around. It was so productive because there
were no caribou in western Alaska at the time, and
the pastures were really rich and the animals thrived.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
This importation of domestic reindeer was so successful that at
one point there was believed to be around six hundred
thousand animals present in the nineteen thirties. However, this success
didn't last forever. The Reindeer Act was signed and made
federal law in nineteen thirty seven, which prohibited reindeer ownership
in Alaska by any non Native Americans. This would lead
(33:01):
to any of the Sami people that still lived in
Alaska to sell their hurts. Many of them would leave
Alaska after doing this, and it pretty much put an
end to reindeer herding in the United States. Furthermore, mismanagement
and losses of reindeer to wolves and also losses to
wild caribou by way of interbreeding and also just captive
(33:23):
herds joining up with wild herds and leaving. The numbers
dropped drastically to the tune of an estimated fifty thousand
in the nineteen fifties. Today, there's still believed to be
around thirty thousand domestic reindeer living in Alaska. Wild story,
But it's not completely done yet. There's one more part
of this that I think y'all have to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
The Lowman Company took their goods down to I think again,
San Francisco at Christmas time to sell reindeer sausage and
reindeer meat and so on. And there are photographs of
Sami people with their little blue costumes and their hook
toed shoes and their pointy hats in Alaska at Christmas
(34:10):
time with reindeer and a sledge, And does that sound familiar?
Sort of Christmas card? Wise, it all seems as though
the commercialization of reindeer and little people and snow is
an American advertising gimmick.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Who would have thought that the Sami people, just minding
their business and hurting their reindeer would end up not
only being brought over to Alaska to teach reindeer hurting,
but would end up being the muse, so to speak,
of how Santa's elves are commonly depicted in Christmas illustrations.
I mean, it's crazy. Okay, we've about reached the end
of this story, but I did promise at the beginning
(34:51):
of this episode that I had one more mind blowing
tail involving reindeer, and I promise you're not going to
guess where this is going to go.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
No, tell you another story, which is also illustrative. The
BBC on one occasion were making a program about animals
that used narcotics of one form or another, you know,
eight fermented fruit and things like that. And the question
was put to me, was it the case that the
(35:21):
sami reindeer herder would go into the snow and collect
the frozen urine of the reindeer that had been eating
the magic mushrooms and use that. And I said, I
have absolutely no idea, but I will ask a Samy
(35:43):
friend of mine, and I repeated the question to him
and he said, no, no, no, no, they got it
all wrong. It's the other way around. There would be
some in a herd who were clever and they knew
that the either the sami or the herder collected magic mushrooms,
(36:06):
and these animals would hang around his tent and wait
for him to ironate in the snow and then they
would eat that because they want some of the good
stuff too. And I can't remember the word, but the
Sami word for Reindea's watsaw, and there is a prefix
for watsaw, which is the name of the type of
(36:27):
animal that specifically does that hangs around the tent waiting
for the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Maybe that's why they think they can fly sometimes.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well they could be.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Told JA that was a crazy story. Also, stay away
from those mushrooms. They're bad. I want to thank all
of you for listening to Backwoods University as well as
Bear Grease in this country life. I know it means
a whole lot to Clay brent In myself and I
(37:00):
truly do wish that you and your loved ones have
a merry Christmas and a fantastic holiday season. If you
like this episode, share it with a friend and stick
around because the new year is almost here and we
have big plans for twenty twenty six. There's a whole
lot more on the way.
Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
conserving both. Big shout out to onex Hunt for their
support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and Today,
Oh Today, my friends, is not your run of the
mill Backwoods U episode. I mean, how could it be?
(00:28):
We're just days away from Christmas. Chances are if this
has found its way to your eyes and ear drums,
you're in the midst of the holiday hustle and bustle.
Maybe you're out doing last minute shopping. Maybe you're out
getting ready for a party year for family to come over.
Maybe you're on vacation until New Year's and you're riding
out to go hunting. You lucky rascal, whatever you're up to,
(00:48):
I hope this most wonderful time of year brings you
all the joy and happiness that your heart can stand,
and in the nature of being in the Christmas spirit,
I present to you this very special Christmas episode. Now,
think for a minute. If I was to do a
podcast focused on wildlife and wild places that was Christmas themed,
where do you reckon? I would land what animal gets
(01:10):
more pressed than any other during this holiday season. I
hope you all are ready for some crazy stories. So
grab a seat and make sure you're bundled up, because
we're headed to the high Arctic of Norway to learn
all about reindeer, the stories and lord built around them,
the biology and ecology of the actual animal, and the
people who interact with them every single day.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I'm going to tell you about Scanta Claus. Like many
of these things which seems complete fairy stories, there's actually
a grain of truth in there, and in this case,
actually more than a grain of truth. You think of
a guy who flies around in the middle of the winter,
(01:57):
drawn by reindeer down the chimney, bringing presents, and you
might say, who made that up? But of course it's
almost entirely true, every bit of it, well except for
the flying.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
The voice with a very cool accident you're hearing is
doctor Nicholas Tyler, a wildlife biologist who has spent forty
years studying the ecology of both wildlife and domestic reindeer.
He's going to be our main source of truth and
learning all the wild and cool facts about these animals.
But first he's going to give us this unique Santa
Claus origin story that I bet most of you didn't know.
(02:37):
I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
In the old days, the principal transport in the snow
season up here in the mountains was by reindeer and sledge.
And you have in the eastern part of northern Norway
Finnmark you have big sledges with big runners a curve
up at the front, I'm sorry, in the west, in
(03:02):
the western part. In the eastern part you have things
called pulk, which are like little boats because it's more
forested and the big sledges don't move well between the trees.
But in either case you sit in your on your
sledge or in your pulk and you're dragged about by reindeer.
(03:23):
When the animals had spent the summer out of the
coast and they migrated in while they migrate inland in
winter time and settled down. The people on their migration
were using their lava their tents rather like your wigwams
canvas tents in a pyramidal form. But in the winter
(03:45):
they would move into a gummer. And a gummer is
a permanent structure, a wooden frame and built up on
all sides and on the top with turf, and once
you settled in your gummer or winter hut, then you
would let the door snow in. Snow would pack round
(04:06):
the hut. And that's good. That's more insulation. And at
that time, the only way in and out of a
gumma is up the ladder and out of the smoke hole. Now,
the only guy you see where I'm going, the only
person who's moving around at that time of year is
the shaman. And the shaman is sitting on his sledge
(04:28):
being pulled by reindeer. And when he arrives at the gumma,
he comes down the smoke hole. But he's not bringing gifts.
He's bringing something much more important. He's bringing medicine and news.
Medicine and news are really important. So there you have it. Here,
(04:51):
you have the good guy traveling around in the middle
of the winter, pulled by reindeer. He comes down the
smoke hole and he brings gifts. Wyb brings important stuff.
Sounds familiar. I don't know whether that is the origin
of Santa Claus, but it jolly well oughts to be.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think it jolly well ought to be too. I
bet y'all didn't think y'all well ever going to get
a Santa Claus education on Backwoods University. But here we
are got to stay on your toes around here. We
got one more wild tale that I don't think you'll believe,
but we're going to save that until the very end
of this episode. For now, let's dive into all things reindeer,
starting off by learning a little more about doctor Nicholas Tyler,
(05:30):
who's going to be our resident reindeer expert.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I'm a biologist and I've spent forty years studying the
ecology of reindeer, and I started off with wild reindeer
in the hi Optic Archipelago of Svalbard, and then since
then I've worked a lot also with domesticated reindeer in
northern Norway, where I live. And the reasons we're working
(05:57):
with those animals is that we can keep them in
captivity for physiological experiments. But when you work with these animals,
you can't avoid also becoming involved in the Sami people
who heard them. So although I'm principally an ecologist, with
to do some work in physiology as well, but I
(06:19):
have also written papers on reindeer, posturalism, and the Sami people,
which is a part and parcel of studying reindeer in
their environment.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, so we got a good bit of foreshadowing of
where all this conversation will take us. Wild reindeer, domesticated reindeer,
the indigenous Sami people of Norway that heard them. I'm
telling you this has a lot of fascinating twist and turns,
some of which I promise you're not going to see coming.
And another thing that excites me about these kind of
topics is it gives us a glimpse to how humans
(06:51):
interact with wildlife and wild places outside of our own country.
I always find it valuable to gain more perspectives and
identify key differences in similarities between there and here at home.
But before we get into all that, let's get a
better general understanding of the animals themselves.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Reindeer as we call them in English in Eurasia and
you call caribou in North America. That's the same species.
It's one big species rangefa tarandus, and these animals have
a circumpolar distribution, so they are found right the way
across North and North America and northern Eurasia, from the
(07:34):
Fennoscandinavian Peninsula in the west to the Pacific Ocean in
the east, and caribou the North American form only exists
only as wild animals. All together, there are about four
million of these animals in the world. About half of
(07:55):
them are what we call domesticated. So in the Eurasia,
in a North America, you have wild caribou, and in
Eurasia you have wild reindeer and domesticated reindeer, which are
the majority over here. And these animals are herded by
indigenous peoples right the way across northern Eurasia twenty four
(08:19):
different peoples from the Sami people of Fenes Gandia, and
then you have the nets and Komi and doll guns
and airvens and avenky, different groups of indigenous peoples continuously
stretching halfway around the northern world in northern Eurasia, and
(08:42):
there's evidence of humans working closely with reindeer in northern
Eurasia going back about ten thousand years, but domestication as
we recognize it now seems to be of more recent origin,
probably two thousand years old in some form. But large
(09:05):
scale reindeer husbandry as we see it now, with herds
of thousands or even more animals, is probably of more
recent origin four or five hundred years, but all the
way across northern Eurasia with these peoples. One of the many,
(09:25):
many common elements they have in their different languages is
our highly sophisticated vocabulary about all aspects of reindeer and
their environment. And the existence of these vocabularies tells us
that the association between peoples and the animals is of
very ancient origin.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
All right, Three things right out of the gate that
we need to make sure stick. Number One, you heard
the term circumpolar distribution. If you don't know, this means
that an animal can be found all the way around
either the North Pole or the South Pole. In this case,
reindeer can be found all the way around the North
Pole from Norway to Russia to Alaska. Number Two, saying
(10:08):
reindeer and caribou is like saying tomato, tomato. They're the
same thing. This is going to come back up later,
so make sure you hold on to that. Number Three,
the relationship between the indigenous peoples and the reindeer is
a huge part of this story. We haven't made it
far enough into the conversation to truly grasp how important
and how impact will just yet but trust me, before
(10:30):
we dive into all that, I want to spend a
little bit more time with doctor Nicholas Tyler about how
he personally became interested in reindeer, other wildlife species of
the Arctic, and the Arctic ecosystem itself. I think it's
important that we get a sense of the passion this
man has for this subject before we dive into the
facts and science part of it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
As a boy, I went with my father. I went
to camping and fishing and walking in the mountains in
England inso far as we've got mountains, and loved being outdoors.
And then I was fortunate enough to find a profession
that enabled me to do that as part of my job,
(11:10):
and was enormously inspired by people who had an understanding
of the natural environment and a scientific understanding. That's more
than just really good naturalists who can tell you identify
anything they see and tell you a lot about it.
(11:31):
But looking at the mechanisms of the phenomena that the
things that we see for the reindeer, how do animals
survive in the cold. You know, you're out there in
December in the twilight, and it seems a barren wasteland
stretching away as far as the eye can see, and
(11:52):
unless if you've got really good clothing on, you can't
stand it out there for more than a few minutes.
And then a bunch of what passed you in These
animals perfectly happy, perfectly comfortable. How do they manage it?
And it's questions like that I find absolutely gripping. We
have a hut in the mountains here near Tromser, and
(12:15):
we're going to spend Christmas there, and there will be
little forest birds out there all right, little grape tits
and things like that, Little animals that weigh fifteen grams.
And the temperatures minus twenty centigrade and fahrenheit, and there's
a strong wind and you weigh fifteen grams. I mean,
(12:39):
people think polar bears are cool. Polar bears are complete amateurs.
I mean, what's cool about being a polar bear? Four
hundred kilos of meat with a great big bellies not
a problem? I mean the really tough guys are these
small people fifteen grounds? How on earth do they manage?
(13:01):
And the same with a big, great, big grazing animal
like a reindeer just standing around the wind is whipping
snow around its legs, and it's standing there looking at you,
chewing in the card, apparently completely contented. And when you
start taking measurements of the animal, indeed it is completely contented.
(13:22):
I have books here at home that I bought when
I started my PhD in nineteen seventy nine. One of
them was JP. Kelsall's great book The Caribou, published in
Canada in nineteen sixty eight, and at the time this
was the most mighty volume. This was every aspect of
(13:45):
the animal was covered in it. Absolutely monumental piece of work.
Fantastic it still is. But even though and this is
in no way detracting from it, even though it is
a monumental piece of work, if you compare what we
know now and the kinds of questions we can ask
(14:05):
now about the animals and their environment with the kind
of knowledge even people like Kelsel had fifty years ago,
it's just fantastic how much progress has been made. I mean,
it's absolutely wonderful. And so when I started, the general
idea was the Arctic was a frightfully vicious place where
(14:29):
plant and animal life was teetering on the brink of
existence and the smallest pressure would knock things into extinction.
My gosh, it's a really fragile environment. Quite the reverse,
You've got wonderfully well adapted plants and animals who are
(14:50):
as comfortable in their environment as you are in yours.
It's a highly unstable environment, but it's immensely robust, and
I think that kind of discovery is absolutely wonderful. It
completely changes the way you think about the world around you,
without in any way detracting from the majesty and the
(15:11):
beauty and the awe of that world. Inspires quite the reverse,
Quite the reverse, it enhances your appreciation of that world
because you feel a little bit more understanding now than
people had in the past, and that's just great.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
The more you understand something, the more you're able to
respect it and appreciate it. My experience so far with
this show and the topics we've chased down is that
this sentiment has only become more solidified and true. I
also find it so important to hear this type of
perspective from folks just like doctor Nicholas Tyler. You can
feel the deep admiration for the things and places he's
(15:50):
spent his life studying, coming all the way from his
home in Norway through your speakers, and it's impossible for
me not to respect that. So now that we have
a good grasp on that of it, let's dive into reindeer.
Starting out the gate with some need to know reindeer
facts brought to you by some of doctor Nicholas Tyler's
own writings and publications. You ready, here we go ten
(16:12):
thousand years ago, leading to their current distribution. Throughout the
entire Northern Arctic. Reindeer exists and are recognized in three
different types hier Arctic island type, continental tundra type, and
forest mountain type. There's also fourteen extant subspecies. The current
distribution of different genotypes is owed heavily to glacial types
(16:32):
that caused major shifts in the distribution and abundance of
reindeer during the Pleistocene. Some of these subspecies include Alaska Cariboo,
Canadian barren ground Cariboo, North American woodland cariboo, and Siberian
tundra reindeer, just to name a few. There's a lot
of physical distinctions and characteristics specific to reindeer, but the
(16:53):
two we're going to highlight today are their antlers and
their adaptations to the northern environment. Starting out with the antlers.
Reindeer are the only known servid in which both males
and females annually grow a set of antlers. So if
you ever see a live reindeer or a picture of one,
you can't just look at a set of horns and say, oh,
that's a male like you could an elk or a
(17:14):
whitetail could go either way. Move over to their adaptations
to the northern environment. We heard doctor Nicholas say earlier
that the Arctic is often portrayed as a barren and
unwelcoming place where life is an almost impossible struggle. However,
reindeer are so very suited to not only survive, but
rather live, content and happy in the conditions the Arctic
(17:36):
is known for. They're able to achieve this by three
very important environmental adaptations. Number one, reduced energy or food
requirements in the winter. Reindeer do this by restricting heat
loss and by down regulating their growth. Their main tool
in doing this is their fur. Their coats can be
up to seven centimeters deep in higher Arctic forms, and
(17:58):
their coats consist in part of hairs that have a
hollow core that creates an incredible insulation. Doctor Tyler told
me that he had personally witnessed reindeer at thirty five
below zero and they still exhibited no metabolic response and
are perfectly comfortable in those temperatures. That's crazy, thirty five below.
Number two enhanced ability to extract energy from the environment.
(18:21):
Reindeer have broad spreading hoofs to dig through the snow
to find the nutrition dense plants covered beneath. They sometimes
dig up to a meter deep to find the food
they want and need. Some also suggest that these wide
spreading hoofs could potentially aid in flying and making quick
and quiet stops on rooftops, but there's no scientific evidence
to confirm that. Number three energy storage. All reindeer retain
(18:43):
energy in the summer months and store it as fat,
which they can use to draw from during the winter months.
The last thing that we have to mention is migration. Often,
especially here in the United States, when you hear the
word migration, your mind often goes to birds, like migratory
bird species like the ani and you'll waterfol migration, for example,
But reindeer or migratory, which doesn't necessarily mean that they
(19:06):
could fly like birds, but it definitely doesn't rule it
out just saying, but seriously, reindeer, caribou, whichever one you
want to call them, they migrate. Sometimes. These migratory groups
number into the hundreds or even thousands of animals, and
they can travel hundreds of miles to areas where they
have grow store up fat reserves before returning months later
to an area where they spend the winter. It's some
(19:27):
pretty wild stuff. Go search on YouTube for videos of
reindeer caribou migrating and you'll see what I mean. Okay,
now let's shift to tad to still talking about reindeer,
but focusing more about the human involvement with them. Quick, FYI,
you're going to hear a term called pastoralism, which basically
(19:50):
means animal herting.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
In Norway, reindev hostitialism is a flagship of the Sawmy people.
It's only a minority of the s army who are
reindeer herders, I think in the order of ten percent,
but nevertheless it's symbolic of that people and their culture.
If you think of any form of pastoralism, you've got
(20:16):
one extreme, which is sheep or cattle in a fenced field.
And in a situation like that, the humans have complete
control of the animals where they are, what they do,
what they eat, how and when they reproduce and so on.
The other extreme is that you have free living animals
(20:39):
in nature that by great North and South as their
wild conspecifics do, and the people follow the migration. The
people don't lead the migration, they follow it. So the
domesticated animals are doing the natural behavior of this species
(21:01):
and humans follow along as part of it. So what
you could say is the animals control the humans in
terms of the annual cycle, but the humans might control
the animals from day to day. So a group of
herders might say we want our animals across this river,
(21:22):
and we're going to take them across this river tomorrow,
and there on a day to day basis, the humans
are in charge of the animals, but in terms of
an annual cycle, it's the other way around.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
The Sami people are just one of the twenty plus
indigenous people groups that heard reindeer. Collectively, these groups graze
upwards of two point five million of these animals, and
this practice spreads across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia pretty wild. Today,
we're going to be focusing mostly on the Sami people.
(21:53):
And the interesting thing to me here is, well, you
heard doctor Nicholas say it just a few seconds ago.
These aren't reindeer. You're sitting inside a fenced pasture like
cattle here at home. Like we learned earlier, reindeer migrate
for miles upon miles, and the herders follow them along
during this. It's fascinating and it's been going on for
thousands of years. It's hurting animals, but they're essentially using
(22:17):
and moving through the same landscape that they were before
they were ever domesticated. It's an interesting human and animal
dynamic that I'm very unfamiliar with, and frankly now I'm
intrigued by it, but I'm interested in what's going on
with it currently.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
If you take reindeer apostolism generally not good, it's under threat.
There are about four hundred and fifty thousand domesticated reindeer
in the Scandinavian Peninsula. They're about one point seven million
domesticated reindeer and Russia. Russia is considerably bigger than the
(23:03):
Scantinate Finnish canton in peninsula, so the density of animals
here is very, very much higher than in Russia, but
reindeer husbandry reinde pastoralism here is under threat, or at
least under pressure. It's under multiple pressures, the principal one
being a loss of habitat to industrial and domestic encroachment.
(23:28):
About seventy one percent of the pasture lands in Norway
are influenced by the presence of humans, and that means
that animals move away from where humans are. So there
is huge areas of pasture which is underused, and the
other side of that coin is there are huge areas
(23:50):
of pasture which are overused as a result of that phenomenon.
And then the same situation exists in the Russian Federation,
where reindeer husbandry increased considerably during the communist period, but
when communism collapsed in nineteen ninety one, so did the
(24:15):
subsidies given to the herders, and reindeer husbandry in the
East has suffered considerably as a result. I talked to
one leader from the far East of Russia, and I
knew that some years before he was in charge of
about twenty thousand reindeer, and I said to him, then,
(24:37):
how are your animals now? And he said there aren't any,
And I said well, where did they go? And he said,
we ate them. And because this is now we're talking
about the late nineteen nineties, because food was in short supply,
the supply lines provided by the communist state had been dismantled,
(25:01):
and the people ate their reindeer. So reindeer pastoralism, which
is enormously culturally, enormously important for all these peoples, is,
if not exactly under threat, it's certainly under considerable pressure.
So were reindeer pastoralism to reduce, that would have an
(25:25):
effect not only for the herders and for the animals
and for the pasture lands which the animals historically have grazed,
but it would have an effect for an entire culture.
And I don't think the situation is quite as catastrophic
as that sounds. But it's clearly the case that the
implication of a decline in reindeer pastoralism involves effects on
(25:50):
more than just the people who are directly involved. I
either herders themselves. No, it's more important than that.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's interesting, it's very interesting talking about that subject there.
And then all this like loss of access and habitat.
We deal with similar things in North America, right, We
lose wildlife habitat all the time to industrial activity to
domestic sprawl. There's some parallels there, and I'm at home.
(26:18):
We some things that we have in place, like we
have some conservation organizations that folks will try to make
an effort or initiative to you know, put some acreage
of land back into wildlife habitat, or they'll try to
restore or read rewild areas. Is there anything like that
in Norway where you know their attempts to try to
(26:39):
restore habitat or rehope in habitat or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
What we have at the moment is a furious argument
about the creation of wind farms in the mountains and
a local newspaper up here. I mean every week there
is somebody writes in about a new wind farm and say,
(27:04):
this is simply appalling. We don't like these wind farms.
They are intrude in the terrain, and they disturb the
animals and the reindeer, for example, move away from them
and soon and then the following week you get another
person who writes in and say, that's all nonsense. Wind
farms are green energy. We have to have more energy,
and anyway, the reindeer don't avoid them, and so the
(27:28):
debate goes on. But it's absolutely clear there are a
lot of people here who are desperately anxious that our
remaining undeveloped habitats shall stay that way. That's a really
important part of the Norwegian psyche, maintaining the outdoors. At
(27:50):
the same time, we all like electricity, and we all
like major computer developments that give us AI access and
things like that. You can only see that this problem
is not going to go away. It's turning in to
get worse.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
We face similar issues here. A guy that works for
meat Eater, a guy named Ryan Callahan. I heard him
say that. He said, the conservation is rarely convenient because
to your point, look at what we're doing right now.
You know, I'm talking to you in Norway from Mississippi.
Thanks to technology, I enjoy modern conveniences, but I also
(28:26):
put high value. I put high value on wild undeveloped
wildlife habitat, and it is encouraging to hear that a
lot of the culture over there puts a relative high
level of value on that as well.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yes, I mean I completely I couldn't think of anything
else to say. I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, it's interesting to me when I can find some
parallels between natural resource issues going on here in North
America and all the way over in Norway or any
other country. Loss of wild habitat dude urban activity. Well,
we North Americans can relate to that one for sure.
And I know it's different because we're talking about the
habitat loss effects on herding animals. But stay with me here.
(29:10):
We have to remember that these reindeer are moving about
and using the same wild habitats that they were using
since well before domestication. So in turn, we can safely
assume that this habitat loss is affecting other.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Species wild species as well.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It's also nice to hear that it's an important part
of the Norwegian psyche to protect undeveloped and wild habitats.
I don't know about y'all, but I'm for conserving wild places,
regardless of whether or not I'll ever step foot in them. Now,
I'm going to take a sharp topic turn. Remember when
I told y'all earlier that the relationship between indigenous people
(29:47):
and reindeer was going to be a vital part of
this story, Well, here it is, and I bet y'all
didn't see this coming.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Eighteen ninety two report on the introduction domestic rangeer into
Alaska with maps and illustration. This is a repulse to
the Senate of the United States.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
All Right, this story is only going to get wilder,
so y'all settle in. During the eighteen nineties, there was
growing concern that Alaskan Native people were starving due to
lack of marine mammals, the whaling industry, and the fact
that there was virtually no reindeer or caribou in western
Alaska at the time. The US government made the decision
to import domestic reindeer into western Alaska in an attempt
(30:33):
to provide food, income and training for reindeerhrting. So that
meant that they brought in Sami people to help with
that training. So these Sami people that we've been learning
about throughout this whole episode that reside in Norway were
brought stateside along with their reindeer.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Crazy And this is written by a guy called Sheldon
Jackson January eighteen ninety three, Washington, the government printing house,
and he was instrumental in moving domesticated reindeer from Siberia
to Alaska. I think eighteen ninety four. The first ones came.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
As doctor Nicholas tells me this story, he's showing me
pictures of the boats being used to haul reindeer, reindeer
getting lifted and loaded for transport, and some honestly pretty
chilling and sad photos of skeleton remains of people who
had succumbed to starvation. These photos were taken to help
encourage the US government to proceed forward with this plan.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, they didn't mess around, and when they wrote government
reports in those days, I tell you no, they didn't.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
But that was one of the main reasons they wanted
to introduce reindeer pastoralism in Alaska was for sustenance for
Native folks.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That stage, there were no cariboo in the western Alaska,
and so animals were brought from Siberia and that was
the success. Then the contract went out to northern Scandinavia
and hundreds of animals were taken from northern Sweden and
northern norwayian shipped across the Atlantic to New York and
(32:14):
put on trains and taken to San Francisco. They were
unloaded at San Francisco and they were taken up to
Anchorage and they were taken into the interior. These guys
did not mess around. It was so productive because there
were no caribou in western Alaska at the time, and
the pastures were really rich and the animals thrived.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
This importation of domestic reindeer was so successful that at
one point there was believed to be around six hundred
thousand animals present in the nineteen thirties. However, this success
didn't last forever. The Reindeer Act was signed and made
federal law in nineteen thirty seven, which prohibited reindeer ownership
in Alaska by any non Native Americans. This would lead
(33:01):
to any of the Sami people that still lived in
Alaska to sell their hurts. Many of them would leave
Alaska after doing this, and it pretty much put an
end to reindeer herding in the United States. Furthermore, mismanagement
and losses of reindeer to wolves and also losses to
wild caribou by way of interbreeding and also just captive
(33:23):
herds joining up with wild herds and leaving. The numbers
dropped drastically to the tune of an estimated fifty thousand
in the nineteen fifties. Today, there's still believed to be
around thirty thousand domestic reindeer living in Alaska. Wild story,
But it's not completely done yet. There's one more part
of this that I think y'all have to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
The Lowman Company took their goods down to I think again,
San Francisco at Christmas time to sell reindeer sausage and
reindeer meat and so on. And there are photographs of
Sami people with their little blue costumes and their hook
toed shoes and their pointy hats in Alaska at Christmas
(34:10):
time with reindeer and a sledge, And does that sound familiar?
Sort of Christmas card? Wise, it all seems as though
the commercialization of reindeer and little people and snow is
an American advertising gimmick.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Who would have thought that the Sami people, just minding
their business and hurting their reindeer would end up not
only being brought over to Alaska to teach reindeer hurting,
but would end up being the muse, so to speak,
of how Santa's elves are commonly depicted in Christmas illustrations.
I mean, it's crazy. Okay, we've about reached the end
of this story, but I did promise at the beginning
(34:51):
of this episode that I had one more mind blowing
tail involving reindeer, and I promise you're not going to
guess where this is going to go.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
No, tell you another story, which is also illustrative. The
BBC on one occasion were making a program about animals
that used narcotics of one form or another, you know,
eight fermented fruit and things like that. And the question
was put to me, was it the case that the
(35:21):
sami reindeer herder would go into the snow and collect
the frozen urine of the reindeer that had been eating
the magic mushrooms and use that. And I said, I
have absolutely no idea, but I will ask a Samy
(35:43):
friend of mine, and I repeated the question to him
and he said, no, no, no, no, they got it
all wrong. It's the other way around. There would be
some in a herd who were clever and they knew
that the either the sami or the herder collected magic mushrooms,
(36:06):
and these animals would hang around his tent and wait
for him to ironate in the snow and then they
would eat that because they want some of the good
stuff too. And I can't remember the word, but the
Sami word for Reindea's watsaw, and there is a prefix
for watsaw, which is the name of the type of
(36:27):
animal that specifically does that hangs around the tent waiting
for the good stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Maybe that's why they think they can fly sometimes.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well they could be.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Told JA that was a crazy story. Also, stay away
from those mushrooms. They're bad. I want to thank all
of you for listening to Backwoods University as well as
Bear Grease in this country life. I know it means
a whole lot to Clay brent In myself and I
(37:00):
truly do wish that you and your loved ones have
a merry Christmas and a fantastic holiday season. If you
like this episode, share it with a friend and stick
around because the new year is almost here and we
have big plans for twenty twenty six. There's a whole
lot more on the way.
Host
Clay Newcomb
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