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How Rudoph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came to Europe
make the LONG, LONG JOURNEY from
LAPLAND to EUROPE
IN TIME FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS
plus THE HISTORY OF THE LAPLANDERS IN ALASKA.
A Story for Every Season of the Year.
Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer and his ancestors, the reindeer of the Laplanders in Europe's last wilderness, became permanently associated with Santa Claus and our Christmas directly from snowy Lapland via Alaska. Lapland is Finnmar, the land at the top of the world.
The reindeer were taken to Alaska in an unprecedented act of humanity toward the native Inuit who were starving to death. The Laplanders, who prefer to be called the Saami, and so, here, this we shall do, gave their centuries-old knowledge and expertise to the native Inuit whom we sometimes know as the Eskimo.
They say, "Give a man a fish and he will eat today but teach him to fish and he will eat for life". The Saami gave the gift of life to the Inuit and this is not only their story but also the story of how Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer eventually came into your Christmas
THE JOURNEY FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD BEGINS
over three hundred years ago, when the wildlife of Lapland had all but disappeared, some of the Saami people began adapting to a new life as herders and soon semi-domesticated the, up until then, wild reindeer of Lapland. The traders, having brought much of Laplands other animals and birds to the point of extinction, then moved on to Alaska where they did exactly the same. By the time Russia sold Alaska to America two hundred years ago for seven million dollars, their combined exploitation of Alaskan wildlife had left the majority of Inuit starving to death. Thus began the belief that the Saami and their way of life might save the Inuit from certain extinction.
Therefore, in 1893 thirteen Saami families with dogs, pulka (sledges) and, of course, reindeer, left Lapland for New York. Their train journey across America was a sensation. People mobbed them at every stop along the way. On their arrival by whaler at Teller Station in Alaska, the native Inuit described the Saami as the Card People due to the Cap-of-the-Four Winds Hats worn by the men.
It would not be long before Alaska would hear the click-clicking of the hooves of the reindeer as they trekked across the tundra (a word that comes sraight from the Saami language). Their hooves are jointed like a hinge to prevent ice and snow compacting around their feet; a pair of long claws hang down at either side of each hoof in order to give a firm grip.
When this first herd arrived, the Saami immediately set about instructing the Inuit in their centuries old Lapland knowledge and expertise.
The Saami were generous to a fault, holding back nothing. They taught the Inuit everything there was to know about reindeer and, therefore, acquitted themselves with honour.
They first taught the Inuit the capture and taming of reindeer and then introduced them to herding, milking and lassoing techniques as well as how to produce cheese, glue, sleds, clothes, harnesses and boots etc.
The Saami had for centuries wrapped carex sedge around their feet inside their reindeer-skin boots for it does not soak up water as do socks. The word sedge comes from the Latin and means sword. Carex sedge, unlike other grasses, is solid rather than hollow and, therefore, does not retain moisture. The most famous wearer of such footgear known in recent times is the famous Ice Man who was found in the Alps and he is said to be around seven thousand years old.
All reindeer meat is eaten including the intestine which provides essential vitamins. The tendons and sinews are used for sewing clothing as well as the lavuu, the tepee-shaped Saami tent, which can be erected by one person - necessary when the herders are with the reindeer and living away from their Saami siidats - permanent villages.
There are eight seasons to the reindeer herds annual cycle.
Spring/Winter
Pregnant females lead the herd from the forests to the mountains.
Spring
Snow melts while the reindeer calves are born in the foothills.
Pre-summer
A calm period for the herders while the animals graze on the fresh growth.
Summer
Under the light of the midnight sun, herders mark their new-born calves.
Pre-autumn
Bull reindeer, fat from the summer, are sorted out.
Autumn
Herders fish for food while the bull reindeer mate with the cows.
Pre-winter
The herd travels out of the frost-covered mountains into marshlands where green growth is still available.
Winter
After dividing the herd, the Sami families move the reindeer to the forest where winter fodder is more accessible.
The reindeer-herding Saami often wore peskis - a reindeer-skin fur coat - and sisnas. a waterproof leather suit with trousers. Until it was made popular by rock n roll singers in the 1950s, leather, like denhim, was always the working persons clothing. Even today, some Saami still treat the skin for leather by hand and it can go through as many as seventy processes before it is considered finished. Fur gloves, shoes, and hats are shaped thus because of the shape of the reindeer's leg. Mobile phone covers too are now made from leg skins. Straps and harnesses are made from the skin from the forehead. Coats and jackets are made from skins obtained during the autumn. Nothing goes to waste and so bones and antlers are used for both useful and decorative objects.
The Saami believed that they had a special relationship with the reindeer and that they and the reindeer are a part of each other. They have permission to live from the reindeer and the spirit of the reindeer is carried on the wind as a guide for the Saami people. An early Saami story tells of the boy Meandash who was born of the Reindeer King and a human mother. He was entrusted to chop wood and keep the fires of life burning in Lapland, the Land of the Midnight Sun. Then, of course, the Saami themselves were entrusted with the task of giving the gift of life to the Inuit and they did so with great generosity of spirit.
THE LAPLAND-YUKON EXPEDITION
When gold was discovered in the Yukon three years later, some Saami took the opportunity to switch profession eventually becoming very rich. However, the mining of the Alaskan Gold Rush caused an alarming decrease in the water levels of the Yukon River and, because ships could no longer navigate upstream, winter supplies could not get through to the now starving miners. America then brought more Saami herders and reindeer from Lapland to Alaska for a second time for the Lapland-Yukon Relief Expedition.
In 1898, over seventy Saami herders and their families set out for the United States of America. Aboard the s.s. Manitoba with this second group was Samuel Balto the Saami writer and explorer who had accompanied Nansen on his successful, world-acclaimed 1888 expedition across Greenland. (Nansen had attempted the crossing unsuccessfully eight times earlier before asking Balto and another Saami explorer, Ole Ravna, to accompany him and his two other Norwegian companions). His claim at what became known as Balto Creek was a good one and he never sold it.
When they disembarked in Alaska, the new herders and their reindeer then travelled the 1,500 kilometres over the tundra toward Circle City in the Yukon Valley. After a long and harrowing journey over hostile terrain, the men and their families were re-united at Unalakleet which had by then become the first Saami colony in Alaska.
THE FIRST FINNMARK FLYERS & THE PULKA POST
A small band of Saami became mail carriers thereby opening up the Alaskan communications industry. Using their reindeer as draught animals, the Saami became responsible for a revolution in the Alaskan mail delivery service.
As more and more mail stations were set up, the Saami reindeer each carried around 250 pounds of mail in relays varying from thirty to fifty miles. Overnight, the dog-sled journey between Circle City and Juneau decreased from sixty days to only six days by reindeer drawn pulka. The dog teams had not only been slower but had required expensive meat whilst reindeer eat lichen for free. Thus it can be said that the first Finnmark Flyers and the Pulka Post were born. Once again, the Saami deploying their reindeer produced for America yet another important, efficient and cost-effective enterprise.
The first Alaskan Reindeer Fair was organised in 1914 in the village of Igloo and competitions in herding skills and reindeer races brought the herders together annually. But, the Saami also became proficient with the worlds greatest sled dogs, the Siberian husky.
Part and parcel of the lives of the Russian Chuchki people for thousands of years, the Siberian arrived in Alaska in 1909 and Saami, Leonard Seppala, immediately saw the potential of the breed. Some of the highest bred showing and racing Siberians today are descendents of those of Seppala's kennels. It is still the most important pedigree that a dog can have. In less than twenty years after its arrival in Alaska, the dogs, their handlers and Seppala would be responsible for one of dog-sleddings proudest moments.
THE RACE OVER THE BARENTS SEA ICE WITH DIPHTHERIA SERUM
In the winter of 1925 during some of the worst blizzards ever seen during an Alaskan winter, Saami, Leonard Seppala, three times Champion of the All Alaskan Sweepstakes, is said to have mushed 340 miles of the 600 miles of a five-and-a-half-day race to save lives. His brave-hearted lead-dog, the lightweight Togo, weighing only 48lbs, afterwards collapsed with the effort. They were carrying diphtheria serum to the people of Nome who had been cut off by the snow.
Before immunisation, Diphtheria, a disease of the respiratory tract, was almost always fatal. Many Inuit communities had been virtually wiped out by a measles epidemic the year before. With an incubation period of five days, four people already dead and trains and planes immobilised, Seppala and his pack, lead by the courageous Togo, ran the race of their lives and so the expected fifteen-day mush took only five-and-a half days.
Several teams of dogs and handlers were used in relays, each averaging 53 miles and when they finally arrived with the life-saving serum, Balto, the lead-dog, named after the Saami writer and explorer, and of a Seppala pedigree, ran the last fifty miles in brave and particularly intelligent fashion and was given not only a heros welcome but also a place in history. His statue now stands in New Yorks Central Park with the inscription:
DEDICATED TO THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT OF THE SLED DOGS
THAT RELAYED THE ANTITOXIN 600 MILES OVER ROUGH ICE,
TREACHEROUS WATERS' THROUGH ARCTIC BLIZZARDS
FROM NENANA TO THE RELIEF OF STRICKEN NOME
IN THE WINTER OF 1925
ENDURANCE. FIDELITY, INTELLIGENCE.
If you walk in Central Park today, you will always see children playing around and upon Baltos statue.
Balto and his companions were featured in the book Gold Rush Dogs also The Bravest Dog Ever - The True Story of Balto and in 1995 he became the hero of a full-length animated Walt Disney Film.
Today, the Iditarod Dog Sled race in Alaska annually commemorates the Togo and Balto cross-country Nenana to Nome serum race.
THE REINDEER ARRIVE for CHRISTMAS
One year after the serum run of 1925, the reindeer finally arrived in Christmas celebrations forever when, in order to promote the sale of reindeer products, the American company Lomen & Co, staged, along with Macy's Department Store, the first Santa Claus Reindeer Parade in cities throughout America. And, during the Christmas of 1926, the Lomen brothers began writing bogus letters to the newspapers, pretending to be from children, asking about Santa Claus and his reindeer. Eventually, everyone learned of the reindeers long journey with the Saami from Lapland to their own land and, soon, your Christmas celebrations.
Finally, the most famous Saami reindeer of all, Rudolph of the red-nose, appeared just for you, in 1939. The story was written by one Robert L May in the advertising department of yet another American store. Two-and-a-half million copies of the booklet in poem form were given free to children visiting his employer Montgomery Wards Santa Claus that year.
The little reindeer, who is at first shunned by his own kind and then becomes the leader of Santas sleigh-team, was originally intended to be called Rollo but the author's four-year-old daughter chose the name Rudolph. Fears that his red nose might be mistaken for an appetite for alcohol were allayed and the story of Rudolph became a success.
The song Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer came into being in 1949 when the poem that told of the misfit reindeer entrusted with the job of lighting Santas path on his way to bring children gifts on Christmas Eve was heard by everyone in Europe.
Therefore, we have the the Saami to thank for Christmas's most entrancing visitor, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, whom they brought on a long, long journey for you. So, every year,
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