Image of the Week: Reindeer, Real & Imaginary
© Durga Yael Bernhard
In 1994 my ex-husband and I co-created this non-fiction picture book about reindeer – one of six non-fiction books we wrote and illustrated for Holiday House, our first publisher and one of the last family-owned, independent children's book "publishing houses" in the industry. Our other non-fiction titles were about ladybugs, dragonflies, salamanders, prairie dogs, and eagles of the world. Each book focused on the life cycle, biological attributes, ecological impact, and cultural significance of the animal.
There was certainly a lot of folklore to include in this book, ranging from the old myth of reindeer pulling a sleigh across the Arctic sky, to the caribou-skin frame drums played by shamans to summon animal spirits. There was also a lot of biological information to provide for young readers, such as migratory patterns, mating rituals, defensive behavior, and the important place of the great reindeer herds in the food chain.
Every book has its special challenge for an illustrator, and Reindeer was no exception. In addition to depicting these gentle herbivores as both mythical and real, I also had to negotiate their uniquely irregular coloring. Reindeer have hollow fur (that is, each shaft of hair is hollow) for retaining heat, and that fur manifests in each animal as gradients that vary from white to grey to brown to black, and everything in between.
To make these fine gradations of color appear natural, I had to articulate the texture of the fur in detail, compelling me to paint more realistically than I normally do. That wasn't easy, especially under deadline pressure. I burned a lot of midnight oil, thinking about the dark winter skies of the far North.
The most interesting part of this book was learning about the Laplanders' unique relationship with reindeer. These nomadic people of northern Scandinavia began domesticating reindeer centuries ago, following the herds that provided their food, clothing, and shelter. They caught the reindeer cows and milked them. They protected them from wolves. They trained them to pull sleighs across the snow.
In modern times, reindeer have faced increased hunting and the loss of their wide open ranges. Highways, dams, and oil pipelines have all diminished and degraded their environment. Over ten million reindeer once roamed Scandinavia, northern Russia, Alaska, and northern Canada. Today there are fewer than 500,000 left.
As with all my picture books, I learned a lot in the process of researching and creating the illustrations. As always, most of what I learned is fascinating – and some of it is sad. My job is to complement the book's writing, and to help teach kids about the world we live in – the good and the bad, the wondrous and the ordinary, the real and the imagined.
The word caribou, by the way, is simply the word for a North American reindeer, derived from the native Micmac language of eastern Canada. There's no biological difference between caribou and reindeer. Neither has an "s" in its plural form.
Wishing you hearty holidays and good winter cheer!
D Yael Bernhard