1892 - 1906 Sheldon Jackson Reindeer Reports
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GUEST:
We have 17 Sheldon Jackson reindeer reports from 1893 to 1906. So this is just part of our collection. And because my grandfather was a reindeer herder and his name is in some of these books, that's... that was our interest in them.
APPRAISER:
I'm learning things in Alaska, never having come to Alaska before, and I'm grateful to be here and to, to learn about the reindeer. I did not know that they were not indigenous to Alaska, they were introduced.
GUEST:
The reindeer's cousin, the caribou, is indigenous to Alaska. My ancestors, their main source of food, if you're on the coast, were sea mammals-- so whales, walrus, and seals. And now back in the 1800s, so many of them were taken by-- in the whaling ships...
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
...around the world, and so, that left very little food for my ancestors. And Sheldon Jackson, the education agent, saw that. He had heard that other countries were raising reindeer for food, and so he thought it would be good to try that in Alaska.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, and it was something that indigenous people in, in other parts of Siberia and other parts of Scandinavia did as well.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
The books are so interesting, because they are, as they say on the title, reports of this program. So, in addition to your grandfather's name, they have the names of all of the people that were involved in the program, and, of course, the numbers of animals and then how the program was doing, which is, which is fascinating. Because they are reports for an ongoing government program, the only way you can really get them is in the original editions as they're coming out each year from the government printing office. There's photos in there, there are maps. We can look at a photo. It does show milking reindeer. The female reindeer were only meant to be given to people in the community only. They wanted to keep the new tradition of herding among indigenous Alaskans. These books are important to you personally, and it's also such an i... an interesting moment in the history of this very diverse place of Alaska.
GUEST:
A lot of these, we bought 40 years ago...
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
And we have no idea what they're worth now.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
The price range varied; the average was about $50.
APPRAISER:
What I see right now on the retail market is individual volumes selling for about, more like $100 to $200.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
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