Jason E. Andersen

Bonus Fun Fact: The name ‘reindeer’ has nothing to do with reins like you would find attached to Santa’s sleigh. The name is actually derived from the Norse words ‘hreinn’, meaning reindeer, and ‘dyr’, meaning animal. So I guess that means a ‘hreinndyr’ is a ‘reindeer animal’.

Bonus Bonus Fun Fact: The names ‘reindeer’ and ‘caribou’ refer to the same species of animal, Rangifer tarandus. However, often the term ‘reindeer’ is used to refer to domestic animals while ‘caribou’ is reserved for their wild counterparts. Some sources also say that ‘reindeer’ are from Russia, and ‘caribou’ are from North America, but they are still all the same species.

Bonus Bonus Bonus Fun Fact: Reindeer (or caribou, if you prefer) have one of the longest migrations of the land-dwelling mammals. Each year, they travel between their wintering grounds in the boreal forests of Canada to their summer feeding ranges in the Arctic, and back again. The distance between these areas can vary between herds, with some distances being as high as 600 miles or more between their summer and winter ranges. That’s like walking from Des Moines to Denver, except through freezing snow. The really astounding thing about their migration distance is that they don’t do it in a straight line — they meander around. Some herds have been recorded as travelling nearly 3,100 miles per year. That’s a long ways!