Flight of the Reindeer
Page 9
The End
Credits
MANY THANKS are extended to the following contributors of artifacts and photography, listed by page. Pages 13, 14, 16, 40, 41 (2), 42, 44, 63, 67: The Stefansson Collection at Baker Library/Dartmouth College; 20, 26, 29, 73: Joe Mehling; 25: Leif Ericsson courtesy of Richard D. Bond, “Columbus Discovers America” courtesy of the U.S. Naval Academy Museum; 28: courtesy of Carlton Plummer; 30: courtesy of F. Forrester Church; 31: “St. Nicholas of Bari,” 1472 by Carlo Crivelli © The Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of the Hanna Fund; 33: “Another Stocking to Fill” and “Santa Claus’s Mail” by Thomas Nast, the Irving portrait from The Bettmann Archive; 34: courtesy of Regina Barreca; 35: William H. Johnson; 38: Per Breiehagan; 39, 46, 47, 55, back cover: Will Steger/Black Star; 48: Tony Stone Images; 52: courtesy of Jeff Blumenfeld; 58: Dana Smith; 60: courtesy of Bil Gilbert; 64: Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures; 68, back cover: Andrew Cornaga/Photosport, New Zealand; 69: The Royal Geographical Society, London (2); 71: Ned Gillete Photography (2); 72: Kathy Rae Chapman; 80: courtesy Weather Services Corporation; 81: Tony Stone Images; 82: ©Rankin-Bass Productions; 84, back cover: courtesy of NBC-TV Network; 86: courtesy of Melissa Franklin; 90, back cover: Michael Moore.
1 We often call these natives of northern Canada “Eskimos,” but they call themselves Inuit, which means simply, “the people.”
2 Each elf is between two and three feet tall; Santa himself is only an inch or two taller than the rest.
3 Peary caribou have been “the deer in question” for two thousand years, but of course they were not called Peary caribou until 1909, when American adventurer Robert Peary became the first man to travel overland to the North Pole and, subsequently, got a subspecies of deer named after him in tribute.
4 The other two types of palmated-antler animals—the moose and the fallow deer—are much too big for flying. As Gilbert says: “The Peary is the lucky one, with everything in proportion.”
5 This information derives from an experiment conducted by Oran Young of Dartmouth’s Arctic Institute, along with college photographer Joe Mehling, during Claus’s flyover of New Hampshire in 1991. Mehling’s photography and an explanation of the experiment can be seen on page 73.
6 In the 5th century, the Huns were centered in a region not far from where Moscow is today. (The Russian capital had not yet been founded.)
7 The brightness estimate is just that—an estimate. Steger says Santa Claus equated the nose’s effectiveness to that of “a hundred lighthouses.”