WAY up under the arctic circle | It is | is Santa Claus Land. the land of ice and snow, of . sleds and reindeer, of queer little hu people, the 1iskim There can be no doubt that this i: :ta Clans Land, because the old saint who comes down to the warmer and more lovely lands | of all the world cvery Christmas eve | and leaves many gifts for the children is himself dressed in heavy skins and furs, just as the Eskimos dress, and he rides in an arctic sled drawn by | swift little reindeer, i | Santa Clau: Land Is very unlike ours. It has no pre.ty gardens la summer nor | any green iiolls or forests. On the contrary, it is always bleak and bar- | ren. The winters are very long and very cold. In the northernmost parts | the sun is seldom seen in winter, the night being nearly six months leng. The people dwell in huts built of ice and snow during the winter and in tents made of the dried skins of seals and reindeer during the summer. The reindeer supplies them with their only means of “rapid transit” during the Hong arctic night when the sledge dogs grow sullen and drowsy. It travels in | the darkness as well as in daylight ! and gives rich milk, which may be made into butter or cheese. When ‘slaughtered the reindeer’'s meat is eat- en, and his hide is made into clothing for the Hskimos or stretched over poles and dried for use in making tents. i All the people of Santa Claus Land— men, women and children—are clothed in reindeer skins or sealskins. In summer they wear one suit and in win- ter two suits. All wear big hoods, call ed parkas, of fur, and in these hoods the mothers sometimes carry their ba- bles. In certain parts of the frozen regions the babies are carried on their mothers’ backs, next to the skin, for warmth, while elsewhere it is the cus- tom to carry the infant about in one of the big deerskin or sealskin boots of the mother. Reindeer, sure footed and fleet, are the motive power for freight snd pas- te in which live queer little CS express sled, wich travels ninety-five | miles a day all through the winter, The reindeer was introduced into . Alaska only about a dozen years ago by the Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who, under the authority of the United States government, brought a small herd from northern Siberia. Since then Dr. Jackson has brought thousands of reindeer into Alaska, and they have multinlied rapidly, They are now very generally employ- ed in earrying the mall, in the trans- | portation of supplies and in carrying | passengers between the various min- | Ing towns and camps. The native Es- kimos also find them very valuable as a food and clothing supply. In late years the Christmas tree has . been introduced among some of the Eskimos where the Christian religion is taught by missionaries. This makes senger trains in the great white north. They can travel from 50 to 100 miles a day, drawing laden sleds. In Alaska, which is Uncle Sam's section of Santa Claus Land, there is a reindeer mail and | it very handy for Santa Claus, who , lives there, of course, but usually it is © a most dificult matter to get tho tree. Sometimes a poor little bush is carried hundreds of miles on a reindeer sled ' to reach the hut, or igloo, of an Eskimo family. Eskimo children, however, are by no means lacking in merriment. have their games, quite different from ours, yet played with just as much zest. One of their favorite games is! football, though they play it in a man- ner quite different from the American college method. The children get a big old glove or boot, stuff it with waste fur or bits of skin, sew up the opening and kick and cuff the crude ball about over the frozen snow in great glee. Eskimo children also in- dulge in coasting. They use no little | sleds, however, but simply slide down the steep snow banks on their knees, which are well protected by the thick deerskin breeches worn by all. Some- times they tumble over and go down headforemost, but there is seldom any injury to their little bodics, owing to the remarkable thickness and softness of their garments. Sozotimen the iskimmo men step out- side the ht into an atmosphere many dogress below zero amd enjoy a wres- tlinz match, which keeps them warm enough, no doubt. Iuside the hut the men and women squat around the fire, telling tales handed down from ancient times or singing quaint songs of folk- lore. The Eskimo children, except at one or two points in Alaska, go to ne school. But from their infancy they are schooled in the various items of daily labor which it Is necessary for all of them to know. They learn how to gather and dry moss, to catch the scant driftwood that comes their way and to extract blubber. These three things are their only fuel. The boys learn how to fish and hunt and the girls, in a crude way, how to cook. One of the chief duties of the women is to tend the soapstone lamps, which both light and heat the huts in which the Eski- mos live. These must be well fed with hunks of blubber. The little girls learn lamp tending when they are scarcely old enough to toddle. Later they become proficient in the curing of walrus meats and the drying of fish. The girls also learn how to prepare the feathered skins of certain birds for fashioning into soft and com- fortable undereclnthine, i § They : - the Everyone has heard of them. them. Shoe known. always wear them. satisfactory Shoe—The Red Cross. HESRFUL NEWS. Travel slow but are here at last. THE RED CROSS SHOE FOR WOMEN. We have The most perfectly comfortable One trial and you will Call and examing merits of the well-known and ever A 1040 C 193 B 676 D 89 51392 YEAGER & DAVIS OPEN EVENINGS. mae CENTURY. 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