The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens

by Barbara Sjoholm

Norwegian-born Dagny Bergland and her husband arrive in turn-of-the century Port Townsend, Washington after years of sailing their merchant ship around the globe. They’re just in time for the Yukon Gold Rush and the arrival of a group of Sámi reindeer herders from Lapland on their way to Alaska to supply the ill-prepared miners. Dagny’s journals, beginning in 1897, tell a fresh and riveting history of the Pacific Northwest and its immigrants. A novel of friendship, love, loss, and motherhood, The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens is the story of a remarkable woman who learns to steer a new course in a new country.

Genres: Historical Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

Published January 6, 2025

About the author

I’m a writer of nonfiction, including memoirs (Blue Windows) and travel books (The Pirate Queen). As Barbara Sjoholm I have published essays and travel articles in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Slate, and American Scholar, as well as many other publications. My focus as a nonfiction writer has been on Scandinavia and the Indigenous Sami people of the Nordic countries (Black Fox, Palace of the Snow Queen). I also translate from Danish (By the Fire: Sami Folktales) and Norwegian (Clearing Out by Helene Uri).

As Barbara Wilson I have a long career as a mystery writer, with two series featuring lesbian sleuths, Pam Nilsen, a printer in Seattle, and the globe-trotting translator Cassandra Reilly. Gaudi Afternoon, with Cassandra, and set in Barcelona, was awarded a Lambda and a British Crime Writers Award and made into a film with Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Harden. After a bit of a hiatus, I've resumed writing mysteries with Cassandra Reilly. The latest is Not the Real Jupiter, with more to follow.

Reviews

[Carolinecarver · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barbara Shoholm’s “The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens” is historical fiction that reimagines a moment in Port Townsend, Washington, at the end of the 19th Century when the Reindeer herders, the Sami people, and their remarkable reindeer were brought to town.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The American Writer Barbara Sjoholm based her novel on The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens on the local history of Port Townsend, a city in Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. Sjoholm writes that in 1898, a large group of Sami herders were employed to travel by ship and train from Northern Norway to the United States and up to Alaska. Their mission was to supply the Yukon gold miners with food and other supplies” (Sjoholm 357). The American government also wanted the Sami herders to teach the Indigenous people in Alaska “to herd reindeer” (Sjoholm 357). While researching the book, Sjoholm discovered that the women and children of the Sami herders who the American government employed stayed in “a decommissioned fort miles outside Port Townsend” (Sjoholm 357). While researching the book, Sjoholm also studied the history of the Chinese population of Port Townsend in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Sjoholm 357). Sjoholm incorporates the history of the Chinese population of Port Townsend in the novel. The novel's title comes from the area near Fort Townsend, which was called “the lagoon and fields near North Beach and Fort Worden, where the immigrant truck farms thrived, remain only in name: Chinese Gardens” (Sjoholm 357). One of the female Sami characters has a reindeer named Leksu, who was a “wedding present and the reindeer had always brought her luck” (Sjoholm 116). Leksu feeds at the Chinese Gardens. I enjoy The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens.
Works Cited:
Sjoholm, Barbara. 2025. “About Barbara Sjoholm.” Barbara Sjoholm, Writer and Translator. Effective May 24. About | Learn More Today — Barbara Sjoholm, Writer and Translator
Sjoholm, Barbara. 2025. “Author’s Note.” In The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens by Barbara Sjoholm. Port Townsend, Washington: Cedar Street Editions, pages 357-360.

[Meepspeeps · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is written in journal format, recording the mundane things of life such as food eaten, but also the fascinating tale of the narrator, a sea captain’s wife who wants a writing career despite the restrictions on her gender in the early 1900s. Along the way, as she copes with her own losses, she befriends a Chinese person, and a Sami person, both of whom have experienced prejudice and loss. Descriptions of rape and consensual sex, and the gross things that happen aboard ship.

[Rene' · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book especially for those who live in the Pacific Northwest