The Nenets of Siberia ensure the annual reindeer migration

Using their skills as hunters and fishermen, the indigenous people of northern Russia preserve the tradition of herding reindeer across the forbidding Arctic.

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The Nenets have two types of sledges: Larger ones are driven by the women, and men handle smaller sledges, which travel faster. Men are responsible for regrouping reindeer around camp each morning and keeping the herd moving in one direction throughout the day.

The Nenet diet is based on reindeer meat and fish. Every three or four days, they kill a reindeer through strangulation. They then remove the entrails, drink the warm blood and eat the uncooked organs. The rest of the meat, easily preserved in the cold, is left on a sledge, along with fish caught in ice holes, to be consumed when necessary.

The portable shelter of the Nenets is a chum. During the day, chums are not heated, but at nightfall, Nenets use a wood-fired stove to cook their only hot meal of the day and to warm their chums.

After spending a day moving north along the Yamal Peninsula toward the Kara Sea, the Nenets set up camp. First, they put all their belongings in a circle on the ground, then they erect wooden supports that will be covered with reindeer skins.

Sled dogs must withstand an environment where fierce winds blow constantly.

A girl wears a coat made of reindeer skins with a hood of blue fox fur.

Depending on the weather, the Nenets may spend several days in one place, repairing sledges and chum coverings to keep busy. When they are ready to move, caravans of up to 10 sledges will be led by one female driver.

The Nenets' livelihood is tied to the reindeer. Every spring, the Nenets move enormous herds from winter pastures on the Russian mainland, traveling more than 600 miles north to summer pastures in the Arctic Circle.

For their long journey, the Nenets carry much of the wood they will need to cook and heat their chums.

The Nenets lasso reindeer needed to pull sledges as they prepare to continue their journey. They never break camp before noon but will then travel for seven or eight hours.

The Nenet migration usually starts in mid-March, when temperatures are still freezing, because part of the journey involves crossing a wide expanse of the Ob River.

Nenets survived early Russian colonization of Siberia but are threatened by development of oil and gas fields in the far north.

Men on sledges keep the reindeer moving, often with the help of dogs.

Crossing the Ob River to enter the Arctic Circle includes a 30-mile-long ice-covered expanse.

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