As Profits Drop, the Last Great Reindeer Herd in Canada’s Arctic Goes Up for Sale : Ranching: William Nasogaluak has legal troubles and is plagued by poachers. But he says someone could do well selling horns to Chinese herbalists.

For sale: last great reindeer herd in Canada’s Arctic, price negotiable. Might suit Asian marketer of aphrodisiac potions made from horns. Owner must unload due to legal troubles.

If Eskimo herder William Nasogaluak were to run a classified ad, that is more or less what it would say.

A man on the horns of a dilemma, Nasogaluak owns Canada’s largest and oldest reindeer herd but says neither he nor the animals will survive unless a buyer is found.

“There is no future for me as a reindeer owner. I have no choice but to sell. The reindeer are in danger of disappearing if I don’t sell. It’s not a threat but a reality,” he said.

The crux of Nasogaluak’s problem is that the reindeer--which government officials say numbered 13,000 in 1987 but are down to about 2,500 now--are essentially homeless.

Nasogaluak, who bought the herd in 1978, was granted grazing rights for the reindeer on a huge 18,000-square-mile reserve in the Northwest Territories of western Arctic by the government. But a land claim agreement signed with the Eskimo--or Inuvialuit, as they prefer to be called in this area--threw that deal into limbo in 1984. The Inuvialuit who now control the land have tried to charge Nasogaluak grazing fees, but he refuses to pay, saying it would bankrupt him.

The dispute has left him with nowhere to park his herd.

While a tangle of lawsuits wend their way through the courts, the animals remain on a barren expanse near the ice-covered Beaufort Sea, but their numbers have been declining due to hunters.

Nasogaluak says he cannot fight the poachers since he is unable to enforce his claim to the land. Opponents say hunters are unable to distinguish the reindeer from the nearly identical caribou that roam the area.

After a decade of vigorously pursuing his legal battle, Nasogaluak says he no longer has the will or the money to continue to press his claim to the grazing area.

He is negotiating with the organization representing the Inuvialuit to sell the herd to the local community. Competing bids are considered unlikely.

Meanwhile, Nasogaluak’s herders mount their snowmobiles every day just like Texas cowboys. They travel 30 to 40 miles across the frozen tundra from the village of Tuktoyaktuk to tend the animals.

Nasogaluak says there’s still good money to be made selling the reindeer horns to Asian herbalists, who dry them and grind them up into love potions.

This market is easily tapped and supply is no problem since the horns grow back every year like clockwork. The horns, cut in a round-up every spring, sell for $20 to $50 a pound, Nasogaluak says.

“There’s always a market for velvet reindeer horn in Oriental medicine. There’s demand and the buyers will find you,” he said.

Reindeer meat is also popular as a specialty dish, and Nasogaluak believes the herd could support a lucrative live animal trade as well as attract tourists.

“We have nothing in the north . . . except a lot of empty land. We should pursue new avenues with the herd,” he said.

Although he says he is barely staying afloat, some locals claim that Nasogaluak still manages to book nice profits thanks to the horn sales.

According to local gossip, Nasogaluak made $1 million Canadian ($714,000) a year during his peak and is easily a millionaire. During his heyday, he used a helicopter and remote satellite-sensing to herd and manage the animals.

He won’t comment on this speculation, saying many of his neighbors are jealous of his success. But he admits he is the only man in town to own a Cadillac, a powder-blue 1979 Sedan de Ville that was shipped to him by barge.

Nasogaluak’s attempt to sell the reindeer is just the latest chapter in the curious saga surrounding the animals.

Reindeer are not native to Canada’s Arctic, but the government decided to import a herd in the early part of the century as a source of food.

Laplander Andrew Bahr, nicknamed the Arctic Moses, set off from Alaska with 3,000 reindeer in 1929. He planned to cover the 1,500 miles to Canada’s western Arctic in 18 months but the journey, beset by blizzards, wolves and uncooperative reindeer, took more than five years.