Sami from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia traveled all the way to Alaska and Canada to teach the local indigenous tribes how to keep reindeer in order to save them from starvation — and many settled down there.
Adventurers and pioneers
Many Scandinavians had emigrated to US in the late 19th century, and reached the gold rush in Alaska in hope to get wealthy. Famous names such as Jafet Lindeberg who co-founded the town Nome, as well as Siberian Husky musher Leonhard Seppala and Gunnar Knudsen with their dogs Balto and Togo who saved the aforementioned town from a disaster. Adventurous Norwegians, Kven (Finnish) and Sami settlers from the arctic regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland ended up in geographical areas that matched what they came from, but the Sami ended up in a special position where they were picked out by the American government in an aid program.
The priest and General Agent of Education in Alaska, Sheldon Jackson, traveled around Alaska to preach to the Inuits, but discovered them living near starvation as colonists were expanding in their areas. He figured that the Inuits needed food as much as they needed Christianity, but they had to find other ways for the Inuits to survive. With the help from William T. Lopp, he first brought over tame reindeers from Chukotka in Siberia in 1891. This experiment was not satisfactory enough as the Russians failed to teach the indigenous how to handle the reindeer, so Jackson turned his head to Scandinavia where he placed ads in the local newspapers looking for reindeer herders. At the same time the Gold Rush in Klondike exploded and attracted thousands of immigrants, which made Jackson fearing a potential hunger crisis. So he solicited the Congress and got $200 000 to buy and ship extra reindeers from Scandinavia in 1894, together with the first group of Sami.
The Help
Jackson had agreed with the Congress in the “Contract with the Laplanders” to provide for the Sami with salaries, free healthcare, education and no taxes for their time in Alaska. Jackson also agreed with the Norwegian government to help him find reindeer to buy, and assist with sending the Sami back to Norway when their job in Alaska was over. The first Sami group consisted of seven men, five wives and four children with their herding dogs and reindeer. They traveled from Kautokeino and Alta in Northern Norway and all across the sea to Alaska, which must have been a terrifying and long travel. The lack of food in Yukon and Klondike became a problem as expected, but when the Sami finally arrived in the summer of 1894 with whatever reindeer that had survived, the food situation was again stable. The first Sami group started to build up herding stations like Eaton, fences and taught the local Inuit tribes Yu’pik and Inupiaq everything about the Siberian reindeer. This project became a success, and four years later another group with Sami from Norway, Sweden and Finland followed.
The Kven William Kjellmann went back to Norway to gather up another group of reindeer herders in 1898 with the ship Manitoban. 113 people and 539 animals on board, including other passengers such as Jafet Lindeberg. He came from a mining family in Kvænangen in Troms, and his father were sure that Jafet would find gold in Alaska if he traveled there. So Jafet joined the “Lapland-Yukon Relief Expedition”, which first started from the far northernmost parts of Norway, then via ship from Trondheim, Norway, to New York, then take a train to Seattle and then a boat from Seattle to Alaska. Jafet jumped off the ship in Seward, and found gold in the rivers around Nome soon thereafter. He started the company Pioneer Mining Co., and became one of the wealthiest men in Alaska.
The other Sami were hired on a 2–3 year contract, and continued to help the indigenous Inuits the enormous transformation from coastal hunting to herding reindeer inland. The project grew and the Sami were successful in implementing and feeding the reindeer. In Alaska the Sami did not face the assimilation and discrimination they suffered back home in Scandinavia, as most other colonists had no knowledge of Sami culture.
Other Norwegians joined the reindeer production as well, with the Lomen family from Minnesota moving up to Nome to start a factory producing reindeer meat in 1913. The family business got slaughterhouses, freezes and distribution centers all across USA, and they were the first to connect reindeer and Santa Claus together with their commercials from 1925. This became a huge success, and the company owned more than 10 000 reindeer in that decade.
The indigenous Inuits could however not fully transform into reindeer herding, and so the long-term implementation did not succeed. Many Sami families traveled home or to other parts of Alaska after their contract was over. Some to look for gold, others to join the Norwegian community elsewhere like in Seattle. There were also some Sami that were hired for reindeer projects in Newfoundland, Canada, Greenland and the Northwest Territories, but there the reindeer projects failed as well The Sami went back home when the contracts were over, as they did not thrive in these places. In 1937, Sámi and all other non-Native Alaskans were banned from owning reindeer through The Reindeer Act. The act was passed by the Congress to make the indigenous people in Alaska self-sustained. The new group of Sami arriving in this decade were forced to sell their reindeer to the government, and most left Alaska. This also marked the end of reindeer ownership for Sami immigrants.
Today you will find Sami descendants all across US, although most have their relatives coming from Alaska or Seattle area. “Sami Cultural Centre of North America” and “Sami Siida of North America” is their main organizations of today.
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