SLEDGE-DOGS.
The inestimable value of the dog, which, as Sir Charles Lyell informs us, has been the companion of man ever since the Neolithic age, is nowhere more apparent than in the countries encircling the Arctic Ocean. Besides exercising his powers in the chase, and defending his master’s person and cabin from the attacks of rapacious animals, he fulfils the laborious duty of a beast of burden, performing the task with an intelligence not displayed by any other draught animal. Attempts were formerly made to utilise dogs in this capacity in various parts of Europe; and it is well known that in London and many of our provincial towns, certain breeds were once harnessed to butchers’ carts, costermongers’ flats, and other light conveyances, until the cruelty involved in compelling soft-footed quadrupeds to draw laden vehicles along macadamised roads was at length recognised, and the evil suppressed.
The legitimate sphere for the employment of our canine friends for the purposes of draught is undoubtedly to be found over the frozen wastes of northern latitudes, where the summer shows too brief a sun for the growth of much fodder, and the yielding snow is incapable of supporting heavier animals. Endowed with remarkable intelligence, with great powers of endurance, and with the capability of adaptation to extreme conditions of climate and various kinds of food, they seem peculiarly fitted to aid man where his existence is attended by the severest hardship. Dogs will exist and labour where other quadrupeds would perish, and their marvellous instinct often proves the means of saving life amidst the dangers which beset the inhabitants of those inhospitable regions. In Northern Siberia, Kamtchatka, Greenland, and countries of a similarly rigorous climate, they are essential alike for the transport of articles of commerce and for procuring the necessary means of subsistence. As early as 1577, Frobisher recorded the fact that Eskimo sledges were drawn by teams of dogs, and they have repeatedly proved the indispensable reliance of modern explorers.
Both the Eskimo and the Siberian sledge-dogs are large and powerful animals, and, while differing sufficiently to constitute separate varieties, they agree in bearing a close resemblance in their aspect, the tone of their howling, and in other characteristics to the wolves of the arctic circle. They stand from thirty to thirty-one and a half inches in height at the shoulder, possess a pointed muzzle, sharp and erect ears, and a bushy tail. Their compact and shaggy coat forms an admirable protection against the cold, and is therefore much prized among the Eskimo for clothing. Their colour is variable, the Eskimo dog presenting almost all shades; but the predominating hue of this and also of the Siberian variety is gray or a dingy white.
They subsist principally on fish, walrus-hide, the flesh or the refuse of seal, and all kinds of offal. On the arctic shores of Asia, small fish, cleaned and dried in the open air, are reserved for the dogs, and form an excellent spring diet. During winter journeys, the food is usually served on alternate days, and consists of fresh frozen fish, or about two pounds of seals’ flesh, or its equivalent in walrus-hide, which is often frozen like plates of iron, and has to be chopped or sawn to pieces. They are never permitted to eat salt junk, except through dire necessity, and then only sparingly, for a full meal of it would in many cases be fatal. In summer, they are turned loose to shift for themselves, and live partly on field-mice.
Before entering on long expeditions, sledge-dogs require a careful preparation, very similar to that which the plundering Turcomans give their horses. For some time beforehand, their food, exercise, and rest are strictly regulated. In the last fortnight, they are driven from seven to twenty miles daily, halting at stated intervals, until, like the Turcoman steeds, they are capable of running from seventy to a hundred English miles in a day, if the cold be not very intense and the strain of brief duration. Wrangell states that when the dogs are pursuing game, they will cover fifteen versts, and even more, in an hour, a verst equalling two-thirds of an English mile. This is confirmed by the experience of Dr Hayes, who occasionally amused an enforced leisure by taking an excursion with a team of a dozen dogs, which would traverse six miles in twenty-eight to thirty minutes. Their performances over long distances are even more surprising. On one of his return journeys, Wrangell sometimes accomplished a hundred versts per day, and maintained a mean daily speed of thirty-four miles over a distance of two hundred and fifty leagues, despite the fact that the dogs went several days without food, the stone-foxes and wolverines having destroyed the provision depôts. Dr Kane’s team, although worn by previous travel, carried him, with a fully burdened sledge, between seven and eight hundred miles in a fortnight, at the astonishing average rate of fifty-seven miles per day!
When subjected to severe and protracted exertion, the dogs are liable to become footsore. They should then be protected by fur-boots, the paws being washed frequently in strong brandy, and if the weather be sufficiently mild, bathed in sea-water. A similar foot-covering is necessary when the snow is frozen into hard crystals, which cut the feet; or when a team is driven rapidly over sea-ice formed at a low temperature, which, besides cutting the paws, occasions acute pain from the brine expressed, sometimes even causing the animals to fall down in fits. When the cold is unusually severe, the dogs require clothing for the body.
Living almost entirely in the open air, these useful assistants give their masters little trouble in the provision of kennels. During summer, they scratch holes in the ground for coolness, or lie in water to escape mosquitoes. In winter, when the thermometer is exceptionally low, they are occasionally sheltered in an outhouse adjoining the cabin; but even then are more frequently tethered outside, and curl themselves up in their burrows in the snow. For the comfort of the dogs attached to the Fox, while engaged in the search for Sir John Franklin, some twenty-five holes were excavated in the face of a snow-bank alongside the vessel, and ‘in them they spent most of their time. Under the lee of the ship, they could, when their fur was thick, lie out on the snow without apparent inconvenience, although the temperature was minus forty degrees, and the mists gave a raw and keen edge to the cutting blasts.’ Dr Kane erected a doghouse on Butler’s Island; but the animals would not sleep away from the vessel, preferring the bare snow within sound of human voices to a warm kennel on the rocks. Wrangell says that they relieve their solitary watches and interrupt the arctic silence with periodical howling, which is audible at a long distance, and recurs as a rule at intervals of six or eight hours, but far more frequently when the moon shines.
The narti or sledge of Northern Siberia is nearly two yards long, about twenty-one inches broad, and ten high. The best are built of seasoned birchwood, free from knots, except the bed, which is formed of woven shoots of the sand-willow. No iron is used in the construction, all the parts being bound together by thongs cut from the skin of the elk, ox, or walrus, of which a great number are required. Eskimo sledges vary considerably both in form and material, and are from four to fourteen feet in length; an ordinary specimen measures ten or twelve feet, and weighs upwards of two hundred pounds. A large party of Eskimo who once visited Dr Kane arrived in sledges ‘made of small fragments of porous bone, very skilfully fastened together by thongs of hide; the runners, which shone like silver, were of highly polished ivory, obtained from the tusks of the walrus.’ One of Dr Kane’s sledges, named ‘Little Willie,’ was constructed of American hickory, thoroughly seasoned, and well adapted for strength, lightness, and a minimum amount of friction. Another, styled the ‘Faith,’ which was built in a stronger fashion, after models furnished by the British Admiralty, measured thirteen feet long, and four broad, and would carry fourteen hundredweight of mixed stores. The natives moisten the soles of the runners with water, often obtained by dissolving snow in the mouth, which insures a thin shield of ice that glides over a frozen surface with incredible ease.
When the sledge is laden, the whole is covered by thin sheets of deerskin, so as to prevent displacement of the load by the rapid speed or the frequent overthrows. Under favourable circumstances, a team will draw from a thousand to twelve hundred and sixty pounds, or from nine to eleven and a quarter hundredweight, in addition to the driver, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour; but during intense frost, when the snow is rendered granular, and ‘almost as gritty as sand,’ the load may have to be limited to three hundred and sixty pounds.
A good team consists of about twelve dogs. Their harness is composed of bearskin, and when tethered, it is by bear or seal skin traces fastened to spears plunged into the ice. The foremost sledge is furnished with an additional dog to act as leader, which receives a careful training, for on him the safety of the whole party frequently depends. If reliable, no difficulty turns him aside, but he selects the track which presents the least danger. On dark nights, or when the wild waste is obscured by a tempest, an impenetrable mist, or a blinding snowstorm, and the sheltering powarna is scarcely discoverable by man, a good leader will be sure to find it, if he has ever crossed the plain before, or once rested at the habitation; while, if the hut be buried in snow, he will indicate the spot where his master must dig. When successfully trained, he rarely runs astray on scenting game; and often excites the admiration of travellers by his persistent efforts to keep the rest of the team to their work, barking and wheeling round at intervals, as if he had come upon a new scent, in order to induce them to follow him. If the leader swerves from duty, the driver not unfrequently finds himself powerless on such occasions to prevent them from rushing madly off in pursuit of prey.
At all times, the task of driving these half-tamed wolfish dogs is one of considerable difficulty, requiring both skill and determination. The sleighman seats himself on one side of the sledge, with his feet on the runner, and must be ready to spring off at any moment when his safety may be imperilled, or to dig his heels into the snow, if the fierce and unruly animals refuse to stop when they are required. A long staff, furnished with iron at one end and bells at the other, serves the double purpose of assisting him to maintain his precarious seat on the rocking sledge, and aids his voice in giving animation to the team by the tintinnabulation of the bells. A far more formidable instrument is the driver’s whip. The lash measures twenty feet in length, or four feet more than the traces, and is made of raw seal or walrus hide, tipped with a ‘cracker’ of hard sinew. Attached to a light stock only two and a half feet long, no little practice is necessary to roll such a lash out to its full length, and when blown in all directions by an arctic gale, will tax the powers of the most experienced hand.
But sledge-dogs need no urging with the whip when their instinct informs them that they are on unsafe ice. They flee onwards at the speed which alone can save, and, as was experienced repeatedly by Dr Hayes, instead of keeping the sledges together in a compact body, they diverge and separate, so as to distribute the weight over as large an area as possible. When they begin to find themselves menaced by this danger, and the prospect ahead appears to them unusually threatening, ‘they tremble, lie down, and refuse to go further.’ Most arctic explorers tell of hairbreadth escapes from treacherous ice, when they have owed their preservation to the sagacity of their dogs. Wrangell relates an incident of this nature: ‘Our first care was to examine the possibility of further advance; this, however, could only be done by trusting to the thin ice of the channel, and opinions were divided as to the possibility of its bearing us. I determined to try; and the adventure succeeded better than could have been hoped for, owing to the incredibly swift running of the dogs, to which doubtless we owed our safety. The leading sledge actually broke through in several places; but the dogs, warned, no doubt, of the danger by their natural instinct, and animated by the incessant cries and encouragement of the driver, flew so rapidly over the yielding ice, that we reached the other side without actually sinking through. The other three sledges followed with similar rapidity, each across such part as appeared to be the most promising; and we were now all assembled in safety on the north side of the fissure. It was necessary to halt for a time, to allow the dogs to recover a little from their extraordinary exertions.’
Some authorities, including Dr Hayes, pronounce these dogs to be insensible to kindness; but the assertion has been stoutly disputed. The fact appears to be that sledge-dogs, like all others, bark as they are bred, or, in other words, are what their masters make them. When they receive humane treatment, instead of the systematic and revolting brutality which is too commonly their portion, they rarely fail to evince a warm attachment to those with whom they are associated. ‘Daddy,’ the Eskimo dog which served for three years in the search for Sir John Franklin, ‘won all hearts by his winning manner both afloat and ashore.’ A lithograph of this cherished animal is preserved in the British Museum. Similar testimony in proof of the friendly and often affectionate disposition of these dogs, when properly treated, is borne by various explorers.
No greater calamity could befall the inhabitants of such regions than to be deprived of the services of the dog. To avert such a disaster, human mothers will nurse pups with their own offspring, if, through the death of the natural mother, there appear danger of the family being left without the preserving dog. It was once proposed in Northern Siberia to prohibit the keeping of dogs, because their large consumption of food was believed to lessen the quantity available for the inhabitants; but the enforcement of such a prohibition would have robbed the people of one of their chief means of subsistence.
The reindeer may be turned to a greater variety of uses than the dog, but, on the other hand, is more difficult to maintain. Over immense tracts of country, almost all articles of food and of commerce, together with the abundant supplies of fuel and oil necessary to impart warmth, light, and cheerfulness to the hovels in which the inhabitants seek refuge from their inconceivably severe and sunless winters, are obtained by the help of dogs. They convey their masters to and from fishing-grounds more distant than could otherwise be visited. They discover the lurking-places of the wary seal. Harnessed to light sledges, and guided by keenness of scent, or by visible traces on the freshly fallen snow, they fly over hummock and hollow in pursuit of the elk, the reindeer, the fox, sable, squirrel, the wild-sheep, and the bear, thus bringing hunters within reach alike of the fleetest, the craftiest, and the most formidable prey. In a word, the dog is as indispensable to the settled inhabitants of such climes, as the reindeer is to the nomad tribes, as the horse is in England, the sure-footed mule on the mountain-paths of Spain, the llama on those of South America, or as the camel in the sandy deserts of Africa and Arabia.