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Remember… Only YOU can prevent wild fires!

On a recent trip to California, my wife Marie and I stopped in the historical part of old downtown Kingman, Arizona. We purchased an Alaska Reindeer Service Bill of Sale. We brought it home, researched it, and found an interesting connection relating to a Wisconsinite.

The Bill of Sale is from Shaktoolik, Alaska. Shaktoolik is located on the east shore of Norton Sound. It is 125 miles east of Nome, in the Bering Straits, across from Siberia, Russia. The population in 1922 was 222 and then it declined to just 60 in 1926. The 2010 census recorded a population of 251. According to the Alaska Dept. of Community and Economic Development, Shaktoolik was the first and southernmost Malemiut Eskimo settlement on Norton Sound, occupied as early as 1839. In the 1850’s the Eskimos would barter their artwork, hides, and meat to sailors passing by, for tools, flour, coffee, and liquor.

In the early 1890’s Sheldon Jackson, a missionary and political leader, mistakenly believed the Eskimos of Western Alaska were facing starvation. With help from his lobbying, in 1893 Congress approved $6000.00 (followed by larger sums) to purchase reindeer from Siberia to be delivered to Alaska for the indigenous people to use as food, clothing, and barter. To do this, Jackson started moving reindeer to Alaska on board the United States Revenue Cutter Ship, the Bear, piloted by Captain Michael Healy. The total number of reindeer imported into Alaska from 1892 to 1902 was one thousand two hundred eighty.

Jackson realized that the Eskimos needed to be educated on the complexities of herding reindeer so he set out to find and recruit ‘reindeer men’. He found a man of Norwegian descent who lived in Wisconsin, named William Kjellmann. (Jackson himself had lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota around the time of the Civil War) They raised donated funds to go to Finnmark, Norway and managed to sign sixteen Saami herders to three-year contracts to teach reindeer herding to the Alaska natives. (The Saami are the only indigenous people of Scandinavia, recognized for their inherent skills in fur trading, sheep herding, coastal fishing, and nomadic reindeer herding.) They arrived in New York on May 12, 1894 and then spent the next few months traveling by rail to Seattle. Kjellmann and the Saami herders arrived at the Reindeer Station near Teller, Alaska on the coast of the Seward Penninsula on July 29, 1894.

By 1905 there were an estimated 10,000 reindeer in Alaska. In 1907 the formation of the U.S. Reindeer Service came into existence to manage the herds. In order to get more reindeer into the hands of Alaska Natives, the herds were broken up and smaller reindeer stations were created in distant villages. The Natives embraced their roles in learning the reindeer herding trade and started their own village herding associations. Instead of going through some government or mission sponsored apprenticeship program to acquire a herd, Native Alaskans could now simply purchase reindeer from other herders for about $10.00 each.

Alaska Natives believe that reindeer are an intricate part of their lives. As native herder Cudluck Oquilluk explained; “the deer help us very well. The deer is just like money. We all say to the government, thank you, because he bring us deer in Alaska for the Eskimos.”

The full copy of the Bill of Sale reads as follows:

Form No. 8-925. (Make 5 copies. One each for the Commissioner of Education, the District Superintendent, the Station Records, the Seller, and the Buyer.)

Alaska Reindeer Service Bill of Sale, Shaktoolik, Alaska, dated April 4, 1923. Received of Philip Kiorluk, Iron Bed. Valued to $10.00, for one fawn female reindeer in Shak. R. Co. Person selling deer was Alexander K. Also stated – I agree to keep the above deer with the herd at Shak. R. Co. and will not remove them or dispose of them, by sale or otherwise, without the consent of both the Local Superintendent and the District Superintendent of Schools. Signed by person buying deer, Philip Kiorluk. With this Understanding the sale is approved. Signed by an Old mark. Signed by M. S. Ivanoff, Local Superintendent. Signed by a New mark, Signed by Jean Dupertuis, District Superintendent.

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I spoke to a person at the State Reindeer Service Department in Shaktoolik, Alaska last year. It was very hard to get connected on the phone and to hear what they were saying. From what I could understand, the natives of Shaktoolik formed the ‘Shaktoolik Native Corporation’ as part of the Alaska Native Regional Corporation which was established in 1971 by the U.S. Congress to help administer financial and land rights of Alaska’s Natives.

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