Overland Relief Expedition

In 1892, the government began a project of importing reindeer from Siberia to Alaska, and teaching the natives how to raise the animals in order to have a steady and dependable food supply.

Sheldon Jackson, the General Superintendent of Alaska, used his influence in the United States Congress to raise funds to purchase and care for the animals, and was placed in overall charge of training the herders.

From 1892 to 1906, cutters would cruise up the Siberian coast and barter with Chukchi for reindeer, which were then transported to a station at Port Clarence, near Nome, Alaska.

[2][4] The statute reads as follows: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed to bestow a gold medal of honor,[4] of such design as he may approve, upon First Lieutenant David H. Jarvis, Second Lieutenant Ellsworth P. Bertholf, and Doctor Samuel J.

Call, surgeon, all of the Revenue-Cutter Service and members of the overland expedition of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven and eighteen hundred and ninety-eight for the relief of the whaling fleet in the arctic regions, in recognition of the heroic service rendered by them in connection with said expedition.