In the early 1900s, the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie Delta faced desperate times.

Depended on caribou meat and fur for thousands of years, they found that herds no longer behaved in a

predictable way.

With the change in climate, hunters were forced to travel several miles east in search of caribou.

In order to stave off famine, the United States and Canadian governments joined together to launch the Alaskan Reindeer Experiment and the Canadian Reindeer project.

These programs sought to mitigate the food shortage by importing and herding reindeer from

Scandinavia.

With the reindeer came the Saami, a reindeer herding culture indigenous to Scandinavia, whose

job was to teach the Inuvialuit their successful herding techniques.

The Pulk family of Saapmi, Norway and the Binder family of the Canadian Arctic were joined

together in both marriage and in the difficult task of introducing reindeer husbandry to a new country.

This is the history how it started.