In the last century the childlike Eskimos of Alaska, fascinated by the white man's guns, began shooting walrus and caribou with more enthusiasm than discretion. That, plus annual fluctuations in the whale catch, caused recurrent famine years. So in 1892, a notable famine year, a Presbyterian missionary named Sheldon Jackson, backed by Quaker funds, undertook an experiment in practical ecology, which is the science that relates living organisms to their environment. Reindeer were imported from Siberia into Alaska for the Eskimos' benefit. Unlike its close relative the caribou of Alaska, the Siberian reindeer is easily domesticated. It was figured that the...
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