A Typical Scene in the Arctic Regions
But the people look with kindly eyes upon them, and even listen with kindly ears—for they know that every letter, paper, and magazine from now till the middle of June, will be brought in over fifteen hundred miles of ice and snow and frozen sea, by the United States Government Dog Team Mail; and that, except for the wireless system, all of the news from the great world “outside,” from family and friends, depends upon these Postmen of the Silent Trails. They go where soft snow and other conditions make it impossible to use horses. No service is too lowly, no mission too high. They pull the baby in his tiny sled, are the means of delivery for the merchant, and they carry the doctor and priest to the bedside of the sick or dying in some lonely, distant cabin.
Eskimo family and malamute—At Home.
Owing to the prohibitive tax rate on railroads which traverse practically uninhabited districts in Seward Peninsula—a tax which has only been abolished within the past few months—dogs have become the motive power instead of engines; and in place of the “toot-toot” of the locomotive as it takes a freight train out to the mines with supplies, there is the “bow-wow” of the dog team “Kougarok Limited” or the “Little Creek Express” as it starts down the track with a loaded flat car.
As to “joy riding,” the “Pupmobile” has every automobile completely outclassed when it comes to the maximum of joy, and the minimum of danger. Given a winter night when the frosty air brings the tingling blood to cheek and finger tip, when the glittering stars seem close above one’s head in the clear sky, and when the trail glistens like a silver ribbon in the ghostly radiance of the Northern Lights, it is a phlegmatic person indeed who does not feel the thrill of excitement and delight that animates the dogs as they strain in their harness to be away for a spin across the snows.
Then there is the famous All Alaska Sweepstakes race each April from Nome on Bering Sea, to Candle on the Arctic Ocean and return, a distance of 408 miles; and the dogs as well as the men who have won their laurels in this contest are the sort of men and dogs who are making the History of Alaska—who are creating an Empire from a Wilderness.
There are two types of dogs used in the race. The Siberians, small, prick-eared, with bushy tails curled up over their backs, and with apparently decided traces of the fox; and the Alaskans who are of mixed breeds—setters, pointers, collies, hounds or what not—with a more or less pronounced wolf strain inherited from the McKenzie River Huskie or coast Malamute.
Both types have their staunch supporters, and for excellent reasons—for both possess wonderful qualities that endear them to dog users and dog lovers. The Siberians have not the speed, and many claim not the responsiveness and intelligence of the Alaskans—but they are gentle, tractable, easy to handle and are able to travel more steadily and with less rest than the others.
