Can travelers help save Canada's only reindeer herd?

Karen Gardiner 23/12/2019

Editor’s note: This article was published before the coronavirus pandemic, and may not reflect the current situation on the ground.

Ninety years ago, a 3,000-strong herd of reindeer led by a Sámi herder, made a five-year-long journey to Canada to replace declining caribou. What the government had hoped would be a solution to food scarcity was not so simple, finds Karen Gardiner.

Through swirling snow, I can barely pick out the reindeer. To my eyes, streaming from bitter cold, they’re scarcely distinguishable from the dwarf birch and stunted spruce that, bent by the Arctic elements, are strewn across the snow-blanketed tundra. Tony Lalong, the herder who my small group followed here, signals to us that we may move forward, a little, on our Ski-Doos. Gently, though, so we don’t startle the skittish creatures.

We’re in the far north of Canada’s Northwest Territories, a remote landscape in the Canadian Arctic. Our guide, from Inuit-owned Tundra North Tours has driven us up from Inuvik, Canada’s largest community north of the Arctic Circle, and far off the highway that runs through the eastern channel of the Mackenzie Delta. From here, we ride our Ski-Doos onto the winter grazing grounds of Canada’s only reindeer herd.

We creep to around a hundred feet’s distance, from where I can hear their snuffling and see their warm breath in the frosty air. Hundreds of reindeer, huddled close despite the vast range at their disposal. But if these creatures seem to lack the wildness of this place, it’s because they’re not from here.

Reindeer are scarcely distinguishable from the trees. — Reindeer are scarcely distinguishable from the dwarf birch and stunted spruce trees that, bent by the Arctic elements, are strewn across the snow-blanketed tundra. Photo: Karen Gardiner

Almost a century ago, the Inuvialuit (western Canadian Inuit) of the Mackenzie Delta were facing a problem. Caribou (native to North America), on which the Inuvialuit depended on for food, were getting scarce. Looking across the border, the Canadian government saw a solution.

In Alaska, in the late 1800s, two herds of reindeer—the smaller, domesticated European/Asian relative of the wild North American caribou—were brought from Siberia in response to declining wildlife numbers. Their arrival not only kept locals fed, it led to a booming reindeer meat business: Between 1918 and 1925, over 900,000 kilograms were shipped to the US mainland.

Could this work in Canada? The Canadian government surveyed the land along the Arctic coast and decided to replicate the Alaskan project in the Mackenzie Delta. But their project had an ulterior motive.

Reindeer herd in Canada's Northwest Territories. — In the late 1800s, two herds of reindeer—the smaller, domesticated European/Asian relative of the wild North American caribou—were brought from Siberia in response to declining wildlife numbers. Photo: Karen Gardiner

To assert its sovereignty in the Arctic, the government was establishing Royal Canadian Mounted Police outposts throughout the region and encouraging and even coercing Inuit to move off their traditional lands and settle at permanent trading and administrative posts.

Unlike a traditional hunting lifestyle, which takes people across large expanses of land by following its natural rhythms, reindeer management requires watching over the herd and staying, largely, in one place. It was, says Kylik Kisoun Taylor, Tundra North Tours’ owner, “another way to get Indigenous people off their land.”

You can walk on the frozen Arctic Ocean, drive on an ice road, sleep in an igloo, and herd reindeer. As there’s no other reindeer tourism experience available in North America, you’d otherwise have to go to two different continents to do all that.

The government signed a contract with the “Reindeer King”—Alaskan entrepreneur Carl Lomen—to send 3,000 reindeer some 2,400 kilometers from Naboktoolik, Alaska to the Mackenzie Delta. To drive them, Lomen hired Andrew Bahr, a Sámi herder originally from Norway. The herd left Alaska in December 1929 on what should have been, at most, a two-year journey. Instead it took them almost five hard years.

Reindeer being herded in Canada's Northwest Territories. — In 1929, the Canadian government hoped the migration of a 3,000-strong herd of reindeer from Alaska to the Northwest Territories to replace declining caribou would be a solution to food scarcity. Photo courtesy of Tundra North Tours

Much of the herd died along the way, but enough calves were born to make up the numbers. When they finally arrived, the government hoped Bahr and three other Sámi herders brought over from Norway would help train local Inuvialuit, who would enthusiastically take up reindeer herding.

But that lifestyle did not appeal to the communities in which hunting had long been the way of life. “Why would I spend all my time looking after reindeer when nature can do that for me?” Kisoun Taylor recalls his grandfather asking him.

Although reindeer husbandry never quite took off in the way it was hoped, the descendants of the original herd, now numbering around 1,500, still graze around the Mackenzie Delta. The herd has survived and occasionally thrived—when their antlers provided velvet to a once-booming Chinese market for aphrodisiacs and health supplements, it grew as large as 18,000.

Using Ski-doos, travelers can see the reindeer in Canada's Northwest Territories. — “We creep to around a hundred feet’s distance,” writes Karen Gardiner, “from where I can hear their snuffling and see their warm breath in the frosty air. Hundreds of reindeer, huddled close despite the vast range at their disposal.” Photo: Weronika Murray/Tundra North Tours

The reindeer still serve a purpose: Feeding local families, providing meat to regional restaurants, and helping keep traditional skills alive—during our visit, our herder Lalong shoots one of the bulls so that local schoolchildren could learn how to butcher it. And although farming made no sense to his grandfather, Kisoun Taylor has recently become involved with the reindeer in a different way: By taking tourists out to see the spectacle of them.

“When Lalong has to move the herd, he waits until we show up with our tourists so that we’re not moving them for no reason. We’re helping him get his job done and he’s helping us have a good experience.”

Kisoun Taylor, Tundra North Tour

We dismount our Ski-Doos and duck into Lalong’s modest tent for tea and shelter—Lalong stays outside, watching over the herd. The reindeer are under constant threat from predators, both animal and human—and increasingly since the 2017 opening of the highway eased access to their grazing grounds. As a result, protecting the reindeer requires long days alone out on the tundra.

Lalong is from Ontario and I was curious to know what had brought him north. “Things work out,” was his only explanation, his voice barely audible beneath his ski mask, his eyes fixed on the reindeer in the distance behind me. He seems like a man well-suited to his solitary outpost. Still, it’s an enormous task for just one person, which is where Kisoun Taylor and his team comes in.

Reindeer herder Tony Lalong herds reindeer from his Ski-Doo in Canada's Northwest Territories. — Reindeer herder Tony Lalong herds reindeer from his Ski-Doo in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Photos: Karen Gardiner

Kisoun Taylor tells me that he tries to time his reindeer tours for when Lalong has work to do. “When he has to move the herd, he waits until we show up with our tourists so that we’re not moving them for no reason,” he says. “We’re helping him get his job done and he’s helping us have a good experience.”

The herd’s current owner is elderly and there seems to be little interest from anyone in purchasing it from him. Including the herd in their tour packages could be a way to help ensure its survival. Tourism has the potential to show that these reindeer are worth protecting, and he points out that visitors can now check off several classic Arctic experiences in one trip.

You can walk on the frozen Arctic Ocean, drive on an ice road, sleep in an igloo, and herd reindeer. As there’s no other reindeer tourism experience available in North America, you’d otherwise have to go to two different continents to do all that.

Tourists to Canada's Northwest Territories can sleep in an igloo as part of the experience, as well as seeing reindeer. Here, some travelers cut meat inside an igloo. — Visitors to Canada’s Northwest Territories can sleep in an igloo as part of the experience. Photo courtesy of Tundra North Tours

A few nights before my visit, a wolf had scattered the herd, and it was now separated into two groups. Protecting them requires keeping the herd all together in one place so Lalong asks if we can help round them up.

Before we can do that, though, we need to drive to the right spot. The drive, which requires quick, tight turns around stocky shrubs on our Ski-Doos, was no small feat. And as Lalong glides effortlessly over the snow, my machine stutters forward awkwardly—I even manage to flip it once. Finally, we make it to the designated spot and wait for Lalong to push the reindeer in our direction.

Reindeer in Canada's Northwest Territories. — Reindeer in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Photo: Karen Gardiner

We sit, hands gripping handlebars, until, suddenly, the thundering of 3,000 hooves shatters the cold stillness. That’s our signal: To follow him behind the reindeer and drive them toward the second group on the frozen lake.

For a moment, though, I hold back to watch them. Reindeer were domesticated around 2,000 years ago and, although these animals in the Northwest Territories were separated from their Siberian ancestors by decades and continents, they move forward as if propelled by an instinct they had long carried with them. I pulled the cord on my Ski-Doo and helped guide them toward where they needed to be.

Karen Gardiner

Karen is a freelance writer from Scotland, whose articles have appeared in publications including Condé Nast Traveler, BBC Travel, The Guardian and Canadian Geographic Travel. She is particularly drawn to remote places, the far North and cold islands.