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Researcher wants to harness reindeer power

April 6, 2015

������ News

By Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042

If the idea of using reindeer to take science outreach to rural schools across Alaska sounds absurd, you don’t know Kenji Yoshikawa.

In the past, Yoshikawa built a sailboat and sailed from Japan to the Arctic Ocean, pushed a cart across the Sahara and skied to the South Pole. The University of Alaska Fairbanks research professor has taken the Permafrost/Active Layer Monitoring Program to 200 Alaska villages and 100 in Russia.

“I feel like it’s time to do this,” Yoshikawa said. “I can probably work 10 more years. If I don’t do this now I’m going to miss out.”

After planning and dreaming for 15 years, Yoshikawa drove to Palmer a couple of weeks ago and bought two reindeer cows, transporting them to his Birch Hill home in a horse trailer. He has his fingers crossed and is anxiously watching to see if the deer are pregnant.

Growing up in Tokyo, Yoshikawa was interested in travel and spent hours poring over a world atlas. He sailed into Barrow in 1994 and stayed two years, then came to Fairbanks to join the faculty of the engineering department at ������.

Traveling to remote areas of Alaska by snowmachine, Yoshikawa began researching reindeer as a method of transportation and became fascinated by Sheldon Jackson’s efforts to introduce reindeer to Alaska from Siberia in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Not long ago, Yoshikawa spent a year in Russia as a Fulbright scholar, traveling to areas not even accessible by airplane, with reindeer pulling sleds.

Yoshikawa was impressed that the reindeer didn’t need supplies for the long, arduous journeys; they ate snow and found food in nature. “I want to try to do this method,” he said. “It’s sustainable and environmentally friendly. You don’t even have to carry food for them. If they break through the ice they can swim.” The drawback is that reindeer are much slower than dog teams, he said. “Moving things from A to B; that’s what is interesting. And reindeer are an interesting way to go.

“Reindeer are an amazing animal for the Arctic.”

While he learned a lot through his experiences in Russia, he noted that his colleagues there seemed to have no connection to the animals. He prefers to work with his reindeer in a different way, so much that he has set up a tent in the corral, intending to sleep there sometimes so the new calves will be accustomed to him. He envisions a future of traveling with the deer and releasing them at night in camp, knowing they will return to him in the morning.

Yoshikawa figures it will take three or four years to build up the herd he wants. Before starting his project, he reached out to George Aguiar, ������ Reindeer Research Program research professional who also does outreach for the Cooperative Extension Service. Aguiar has been advising Yoshikawa on the best fencing methods and optimal reindeer nutrition.

Aguiar said he’s never heard of anyone using reindeer in Alaska for long-term transportation and doesn’t know anyone who has done so much homework to prepare for a project. “He’s a doer,” Aguiar said. “It’s wonderful working with him.”

“George has been very important for me,” Yoshikawa said. “And he’s going to help me make a mental connection so they trust me.”

For now, Yoshikawa is purchasing hay to feed the reindeer, but he has bought 80 acres on Chena Hot Springs Road where he hopes to start growing his own hay. “I will have a new fence and system there,” he said.

“It’s most exciting to focus on this project,” Yoshikawa said. “It’s a long shot but I’m going to give it a try.”

Aguiar noted Yoshikawa’s determination and dedication. “I never knew a guy to dig postholes in the winter,” he said. “Everything that we’ve discussed, he ran with it. He has a long-term goal. I want to help him get there with infrastructure design, logistics and nutrition. He’s been good at asking the right questions and following up with what he says he’ll do. I’m sure he’ll succeed.”

This column is provided as a service by the ������ School of Natural Resources and Extension and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer. She can be reached at ntarnai@alaska.edu. For more information on Kenji Yoshikawa, read, “Finding Mars,” by Ned Rozell (University of Alaska Press).