C.O.D. Trek

C. O. D. Trek

Across the wasteland of Alaska there is now on trek a herd of 3,000 reindeer, mostly females, which is being driven from Nobuktulik to the Kittigazuit Peninsula in the Canadian Northwest. The herd started in November and is due in the spring of 1931, traveling via the Colville Basin (southeast of Point Barrow, northernmost point of Alaska) where it will spend the fawning season and summer, giving the fawns time to become strong enough to travel. When the herd arrives at Kittigazuit what is left of it will be bought by the Canadian Government which has become interested in the reindeer industry as a new meat source. Driver of the herd is Andrew Bahr, expert Lapp herder, who is accompanied by three other Laplanders, six Eskimos, a medical attendant and a member of the Alaskan Geographical Survey Department. Reindeer fare in winter is the hardy Alaskan lichen; to get it deer must paw through a foot of snow. In summer they graze on greens, willow buds, blueberries.

Sender of the C. O. D. consignment is Carl Joys Lomen, President of the Lomen Reindeer Corp., in which are also engaged his four brothers, George, Harry, Ralph and Alfred. He was born in southern Minnesota of Norwegian stock, was raised to follow his father into law. In the summer of 1900, after much persuasion, the elder Lomen took Carl to Nome for the summer. The Nome gold rush was in progress and Lomen Sr. found many a client there while his son prospected the territory. Their visit lasted two years, then father and son returned to St. Paul, but only to pack up the family and move back to Nome. They prospered, the father became Mayor of Nome, the sons became miners.

In 1892 Dr. Sheldon Jackson, working for the U. S. Bureau of Education in Alaska, became worried about the Eskimos; they were starving. He imported from Siberia a herd of 1,280 reindeer, and some Lapp herdsmen to teach the Eskimos how to tend them.* The Eskimos, natural hunters and trappers, but with little talent for agriculture, were not successful. Carl Lomen noticed this. He wanted to try his hand with reindeer but found that by Government decree no white man could engage in the industry. He learned, however, that the Government would allow a certain contract, due to expire in 1914, to succeed to a white man. Lomen secured it and on the day of his succession founded the Lomen Reindeer Corp. The new company instituted reforms at once, substituted the corral for the lasso,/- built a cold storage plant and proper houses for herdsmen. The problems of marking, slaughtering, packing and shipping, which had never occured to the Eskimos, were studied.

Today the Lomen family is separated. Two brothers are on the Alaskan ranges; two are in Seattle at the company's main office, while President Carl travels the country in charge of sales promotion. But he spends his summers with the herds.

Carl Lomen at 48 is tall and slim with greying hair. His activities are many. He is a book and stamp collector, an ardent archeologist, but reindeer are his greatest hobby. His wife (they were married in October 1928) was Laura Volstead, daughter of the Father of Prohibition. Last summer she, now only passively interested in politics, spent her time flying from herd to herd with her husband. It is one of Carl Lomen's theories that reindeer herding can be done by airplane.

Reindeer meat is tender, nourishing and free from disease. Enthusiasts place its flavor between lamb and breast of mallard duck. Two years ago Manhattan's Mayor Walker proclaimed a city-wide "Reindeer Week" to introduce the meat. Considered a delicacy, the meat is eaten in northern Germany on festival occasions. Princess Astrid of Sweden nibbled some at her wedding.

* Only recently, when the U. S. Bureau of Education complained that the descendants of this same herd (about 1,000,000) were too great a responsibility, was the jurisdiction of reindeer transferred to the Governor of Alaska.

/- Eskimos clumsily broke horns and legs in using the lasso.

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