In all probability from 60,000 to 75,000 pounds of reindeer meat will be contracted for by the Alaska Railroad this summer and will be served on the river steamers, the Curry Hotel and dining cars of the Alaska Railroad, according to information obtained by the Anchorage Daily Alaskan.
For the purpose of locating suitable sites for corrals in the Broad Pass district, Louis Jensen, a former partner of Oscar Anderson, in the meat business in the early days, left Anchorage fully a week ago.
It is stated there are sufficient cold storage facilities along the railroad belt, to take care of the present needs of the new industry. Nenana has a fairly good sized plant besides a cold storage plant in Anchorage and there are two other private plants in the city.
The Alaska Railroad will be among the first in the Territory to put the reindeer meat on a sound commercial basis, furnishing a local market, which up to this time has been served by beef from the States.
The thousands of tourists who will visit Alaska this year, will be given the opportunity to partake of this palatable dish and many perhaps will be so favorably impressed that a more ready market will be created for the meat in the States.
The Broad Pass district is ideally situated for this industry, for thousands of acres of the land abound in the reindeer moss, the proper forage for the animals.
The U.S. Bureau of Education, of which Anchorage is headquarters in Alaska, has stated several times it is the intention to drive a number of the herds, now in remote sections of the Territory, to the Broad Pass district. Independent owners of herds who have been in Anchorage recently and those already in the city, have definitely stated they will move their herds to the district this summer.
As has been predicted many times the Alaska reindeer business promises some day to assume tremendous proportions and inasmuch as Anchorage Is the most advantageous port from which to ship the carcasses to the States, in time, the Alaskan states, that city will derive much good from the industry, once it becomes firmly established.
The Wrangell Sentinel, Wrangell, AK, May 8, 1924