Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled Part 22

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TAN," OF MIXED BREED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MUK," A PURE MALAMUTE.]

Then the familiar feature of the draped aurora was introduced, always a beautiful sight to watch. Slowly and most gracefully issued out of the north band after band, band after band of pale-green fire, each curling and recurling on itself like the ribbon that carries the motto under a shield of arms, and each continually fraying out its lower edge into subdued rainbow tints. Then these bands, never for a moment still, were gathered up together to the zenith, till from almost all round the horizon vibrant meridians of light stretched up to a crown of glory almost but not quite directly overhead, so bright that all the waving bands that now a.s.sumed more the appearance of its rays paled before it.

Then the crown began to revolve, and as it revolved with constantly increasing speed, it gathered all its rays into one gigantic spiral that travelled as it spun towards the east until all form was dissipated in a nebulous mist that withdrew behind the mountains and glowered there like a dawn and left the skies void of all light save the stars. It was a fine instance of the stupendous sportiveness of the aurora that sometimes seems to have no more law or rule than the gambolling of a kitten, and to build up splendid and majestic effects merely to "whelm them all in wantonness" a moment later. A particularly fine and striking phase of an aurora is very likely to be followed by some such sudden whimsical destruction. It was as though that light hidden behind the mountains were mocking us.

Then from out the north again appeared one clear belt of light that stretched rapidly and steadily all across the heavens until it formed an arch that stood there stationary. And from that motionless arch, the only motionless manifestation that whole night, there came a gradual superb crescendo of light that lit the wide, white river basin from mountain top to mountain top and threw the shadows of the dogs and the sled sharper and blacker upon the snow,--and in the very moment of its climax was gone again utterly while yet the exclamations of wonder were on our lips. It was as though, piqued at our admiration, the aurora had wiped itself out; and often and often there is precisely that impression of wilfulness about it.

All night long the splendour kept up, and all night long, as the dogs went at a good clip and one of us rode while the other was at the sled's handle-bars, we gazed and marvelled at its infinite variety, at its astonishing fertility of effect, at its whimsical vagaries, until the true dawn of Easter swallowed up the beauty of the night as we came in sight of Eagle. And we wondered with what more lavish advertis.e.m.e.nt the dawn of the first Easter was heralded into the waste places of the snow.

[Sidenote: SOUND AND SMELL]

There are men in Alaska, whose statements demand every respect, who claim to have heard frequently and unmistakably a swishing sound accompanying the movements of the aurora, and there are some who claim to have detected an odour accompanying it. Without venturing any opinion on the subject in general, the writer would simply say that, though he thinks he possesses as good ears and as good a nose as most people, he has never heard any sound or smelled any odour that he believed to come from the Northern Lights. Indeed, he has often felt that with all the light-producing energy and with all the rapid movement of the aurora it was mysterious that there should be absolutely no sound. The aurora often looks as if it _ought_ to swish, but to his ears it has never done it; so much phosph.o.r.escent light might naturally be accompanied by some chemical odour, but to his nostrils never has been.

Queer, uncertain noises in the silence of an arctic night there often are--noises of crackling twigs, perhaps, noises of settling snow, noises in the ice itself--but they are to be heard when there is no aurora as well as when there is. It is rare to stand on the banks of the Yukon on a cold night and not hear some faint crepitating sounds, sometimes running back and forth across the frozen river, sometimes resembling the ring of distant skates. Without offering any p.r.o.nouncement upon what is a very interesting question, it seems to the writer possible that, to an ear intently listening, some such noise coinciding with a decided movement of a great auroral streamer might seem to be caused by the movement it happened to accompany.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ALASKAN DOGS

[Sidenote: MALAMUTE, HUSKY, AND SIWASH]

THERE are two breeds of native dogs in Alaska, and a third that is usually spoken of as such. The malamute is the Esquimau dog; and what for want of a better name is called the "Siwash" is the Indian dog. Many years ago the Hudson Bay voyageurs bred some selected strains of imported dog with the Indian dogs of those parts, or else did no more than carefully select the best individuals of the native species and bred from them exclusively--it is variously stated--and that is the accepted origin of the "husky." The malamute and the husky are the two chief sources of the white man's dog teams, though cross-breeding with setters and pointers, hounds of various sorts, mastiffs, Saint Bernards, and Newfoundlands has resulted in a general admixture of breeds, so that the work dogs of Alaska are an heterogeneous lot to-day. It should also be stated that the terms "malamute" and "husky" are very generally confused and often used interchangeably.

The malamute, the Alaskan Esquimau dog, is precisely the same dog as that found amongst the natives of Baffin's Bay and Greenland. Knud Rasmunsen and Amundsen together have established the oneness of the Esquimaux from the east coast of Greenland all round to Saint Michael; they are one people, speaking virtually one language. And the malamute dog is one dog. A photograph that Admiral Peary prints of one of the Smith Sound dogs that pulled his sled to the North Pole would pa.s.s for a photograph of one of the present writer's team, bred on the Koyukuk River, the parents coming from Kotzebue Sound.

There was never animal better adapted to environment than the malamute dog. His coat, while it is not fluffy, nor the hair long, is yet so dense and heavy that it affords him a perfect protection against the utmost severity of cold. His feet are tough and clean, and do not readily acc.u.mulate snow between the toes and therefore do not easily get sore--which is the great drawback of nearly all "outside" dogs and their mixed progeny. He is hardy and thrifty and does well on less food than the mixed breeds; and, despite Peary to the contrary, he will eat anything. "He will not eat anything but meat," says Peary; "I have tried and I know." No dog accustomed to a flesh diet willingly leaves it for other food; the dog is a carnivorous animal. But hunger will whet his appet.i.te for anything that his bowels can digest. "Muk," the counterpart of Peary's "King Malamute," has thriven for years on his daily ration of dried fish, tallow, and rice, and eats biscuits and doughnuts whenever he can get them. The malamute is affectionate and faithful and likes to be made a pet of, but he is very jealous and an incorrigible fighter. He has little of the fawning submissiveness of pet dogs "outside," but is independent and self-willed and apt to make a troublesome pet. However, pets that give little trouble seldom give much pleasure.

His comparative shortness of leg makes him somewhat better adapted to the hard, crusted snow of the coast than to the soft snow of the interior, but he is a ceaseless and tireless worker who loves to pull.

His p.r.i.c.k ears, always erect, his bushy, graceful tail, carried high unless it curl upon the back as is the case with some, his compact coat of silver-grey, his sharp muzzle and black nose and quick narrow eyes give him an air of keenness and alertness that marks him out amongst dogs. When he is in good condition and his coat is taken care of he is a handsome fellow, and he will weigh from seventy-five to eighty-five or ninety pounds.

The husky is a long, rangy dog, with more body and longer legs than the malamute and with a shorter coat. The coat is very thick and dense, however, and furnishes a sufficient protection. A good, spirited husky will carry his tail erect like a malamute, but the ears are not permanently p.r.i.c.ked up; they are mobile. He is, perhaps, the general preference amongst dog drivers in the interior, but he has not the graceful distinction of appearance of the malamute.

The "Siwash" dog is the common Indian dog; generally undersized, uncared for, half starved most of the time, and snappish because not handled save with roughness. In general appearance he resembles somewhat a small malamute, though, indeed, nowadays so mixed have breeds become that he may be any cur or mongrel. He is a wonderful little worker, and the loads he will pull are astonishing. Sometimes, with it all, he is an attractive-looking fellow, especially when there has been a good moose or caribou killing and he has gorged upon the refuse and put some flesh upon his bones. And if one will take a little trouble to make friends with him he likes petting as much as any dog. Most Indian dogs "don't sabe white man," and will snap at one's first advances. On the whole, it is far better to let them alone; for, encouraged at all, they are terrible thieves--what hungry creatures are not?--and make all sorts of trouble with one's own team. The pure malamute and the pure husky do not bark at all, they howl; barking is a sure sign of an admixture of other strains.

[Sidenote: DOG BREEDING]

Here it may be worth while to say a few words about the general belief that dogs in Alaska are interbred with wolves. That the dog and the wolf have a common origin there can be no doubt, and that they will interbreed is equally sure, but diligent inquiry on the part of the writer for a number of years, throughout all interior Alaska, amongst whites and natives, has failed to educe one authentic instance of intentional interbreeding, has failed to discover one man who knows of his own knowledge that any living dog is the offspring of such union.

While, therefore, it is not here stated that such cross-breeding has not taken place, or even that it does not take place, yet the author is satisfied that it is a very rare thing, indeed, and that the common stories of dogs that are "half wolf" are fabulous.

Indeed, it seems a rare thing when any sort of pains is taken about the breeding of dogs. In a country where dogs are so important, where they are indispensable for any sort of travel during six or seven months in the year over by far the greater portion of it, one would expect that much attention would be paid to dog breeding; but this is not the case.

Here and there a man who takes pride in a team will carefully mate the best available couple and carefully rear their offspring, but for the most part breeding seems left to chance. A team all of malamutes or all of huskies, a matched team of any sort, is the exception, and excites interest and remark.

The market for dogs is so uncertain that it is doubtful if there would be any money in scientific breeding for the trail. When a stampede to new diggings takes place, the price of dogs rises enormously. Any sort of good dog on the spot may be worth a hundred dollars, or a hundred and fifty, and the man with a kennel would make a small fortune out of hand.

But at other times it is hard to get twenty-five dollars for the best of dogs.

The cost of maintenance of a dog team is considerable. When the mail-routes went all down the Yukon, and dogs were used exclusively, the contracting company estimated that it cost seventy-five dollars per head per annum to feed its dogs; while to the traveller in remote regions, buying dog feed in small parcels here and there, the cost is not less than one hundred dollars per head. Of course, a man engaged in dog raising would have his own fish-wheel on the Yukon and would catch almost all that his dogs would eat. Fish is plentiful in Alaska; it is transportation that costs. Dogs not working can do very well on straight dried fish, but for the working dog this ration is supplemented by rice and tallow or other cereal and fat; not only because the animal does better on it, but also because straight dried fish is a very bulky food, and weight for weight goes not nearly so far. Cooking for the dogs is troublesome, but economical of weight and bulk, and conserves the vigour of the team. In the summer-time the dogs are still an expense.

They must be boarded at some fish camp, at a cost of about five dollars per head per month.

The white man found the dog team in use amongst the natives all over the interior, but he taught the Indian how to drive dogs. The natives had never evolved a "leader." Some fleet stripling always ran ahead, and the dogs followed. The leader, guided by the voice, "geeing" and "hawing,"

stopping and advancing at the word of command, is a white man's innovation, though now universally adopted by the natives. So is the dog collar. The "Siwash harness" is simply a band that goes round the shoulders and over the breast. In the interior the universal "Siwash"

hitch was tandem, and is yet, but as trails have widened and improved, more and more the tendency grows amongst white men to hitch two abreast; and the most convenient rig is a lead line to which each dog is attached independently by a single-tree, either two abreast, or, by adding a further length to the lead line, one behind the other, so that on a narrow trail the tandem rig may be quickly resorted to.

[Sidenote: THE DOCKING OF TAILS]

One advantage of the change from single to double rig is the decay of the cruel custom of "bobbing" the dogs' tails. When dogs are hitched one close behind the other (and the closer the better for pulling) the tail of the dog in front becomes heavy with ice from the condensation of the breath of the dog behind, until not only is he carrying weight but the use of the tail for warmth at night is foregone. So it was the universal practice to cut tails short off. But sleeping out in the open, as travelling dogs often must do, in all sorts of weather, with the thermometer at 50 or 60 below zero sometimes, a thick, bushy tail is a great protection to a dog. With it he covers nose and feet and is tucked up snug and warm. It is the dog's natural protection for the muzzle and the thinly haired extremities. A few years ago almost all work dogs in the interior were bobtailed; now the plumes wave over the teams again.

Five dogs are usually considered the minimum team, and seven dogs make a good team. A good, quick-travelling load for a dog team is fifty pounds to the dog, on ordinary trails. The dogs will pull as much as one hundred pounds apiece or more, but that becomes more like freighting than travelling. On a good level trail with strong big dogs, men sometimes haul two hundred pounds to the dog. These, however, are "gee-pole propositions," in the slang of the trail, and the man is doing hard work with a band around his chest and the pole in his hand. For quick travelling, fifty pounds to the dog is enough.

The most useful "outside" strains that the white man has introduced into the dogs of the interior are the pointer and setter and collie. The bird-dogs themselves make very fast teams and soon adapt themselves to the climate, but their feet will not stand the strain. The collie's intelligence would make him a most admirable leader, did he not have so p.r.o.nouncedly the faults of his good qualities; he wants to do all the work; he works himself to death. It is the leader's business to keep the team strung out; it is not his business to pull the load. But the admixture of these strains with the native blood has produced some very fine dogs. The Newfoundland and Saint Bernard strains have been perhaps the least successful admixtures. They are too heavy and c.u.mbersome and always have tender feet; their bodies and the bodies of their mongrel progeny are too heavy for their feet.

[Sidenote: DOG LOYALTY]

The last statement, with regard to Newfoundland and Saint Bernard dogs, has an interesting exception. There is a dog, not uncommon in Alaska, that by a curious inversion of phrase is known as the "one-man-dog."

What is meant is the "one-dog-man dog," the dog that belongs to the man that uses only one dog. Many and many a prospector pulls his whole winter grub-stake a hundred miles or more into the hills with the aid of one dog. His progress is slow, in bad places or on up grades he must relay, and all the time he is doing more work than the dog is, but he manages to get his stuff to his cabin or his camp with no other aid than one dog can give. It is usually a large heavy dog--speed never being asked of him, nor steady continuous winter work--often of one of the breeds mentioned, or of its predominant strain. The companionship between such a man and such a dog is very close, and the understanding complete. Sometimes the dog will be his master's sole society for the whole winter.

Indeed, any man of feeling who spends the winters with a dog team must grow to a deep sympathy with the animals, and to a keen, sometimes almost a poignant, sense of what he owes to them. There is a mystery about domestic animals of whatever kind. It is a mystery that man should be able to impose his will upon them, change their habits and characters, constrain them to his tasks, take up all their lives with unnatural toil. And that he should get affection and devotion in return makes the mystery yet more mysterious.

The dog gets his food--often of poor quality and scant quant.i.ty--and that is all he gets. Yet the life of a work dog that has a kind and considerate master is not an unhappy one. The dog is as full of the canine joy of life as though he had never worn a collar, and not only sports and gambols when free, but really seems to like his work and do it gladly. He will chafe at inaction; he will come eagerly to the harness in the morning; often will come before he is called and ask to be harnessed; and if for any reason--lameness or galled neck or sore feet--a dog is cut out of the team temporarily, to run loose, he will try at every chance to get back into his place and will often attack the dog that seems to him to be occupying it; while a dog left behind will howl most piteously and make desperate efforts to break his chain and rejoin his companions and his labour. And the wonderful and pitiful thing about it is that no sort of severity or brutality on his master's part will destroy that zealous allegiance. The dog in Alaska is absolutely dependent upon man for subsistence, and he seems to realise it.

There is a great deal of cruelty and brutality amongst dog drivers in Alaska. At times, it is true, most dogs need some punishment. Dogs differ as much as men do, and some are lazy and some are self-willed.

The best of them will develop bad trail habits if they are allowed to--habits which will prove hard to break by and by and be a continual source of delay and annoyance until broken. But a very slight punishment, judicially administered at the moment, will usually suffice just as well as a severe one, and the main source of brutality in the punishment of dogs is sheer bad temper on the part of the driver, and has for its only possible end, not the correction of the animal's fault but the satisfaction of its owner's rage. To see some hulking, pa.s.sionate brute lashing a poor little dog with a chain, or beating him with a club; to see dogs overworked to utter exhaustion and their lagging steps still hastened by a rain of blows, these are the sickening sights of the trail--and they are not uncommon. The language of most dog drivers to their dogs consists of a mixture of cursing and ribaldry, excused by the statement that only by the use of such speech may dogs be driven at all. But there is little point in the excuse; such speech is, to an extent not far from universal, the speech of the country. Swedes who have little and Indians who have none other English will yet be volubly profane and obscene; in the latter case often with complete ignorance of the meaning of the terms. Yet it must be recorded not ungratefully by the impartial observer that the rare presence of a decent woman or a clergyman will almost always put a check upon blackguardly speech, even that of a dog driver; women and clergymen being supposed the only two cla.s.ses who could have any possible objection to foulness of mouth. To refer continually to the excrements of the body, to s.e.xual commerce, natural and unnatural, all in the grossest terms, and to mix these matters intimately with the sacred names, is "manly" speech amongst a large part of the population of Alaska.

[Sidenote: REINDEER]

[Sidenote: REINDEER AS DRAUGHT ANIMALS]

It has been claimed with justice that the introduction of the reindeer into Alaska has been highly successful; yet there is much misconception amongst people "outside" as to the nature of that success. Stimulated by the example of the United States Government, and urged thereto by Doctor Wilfred Grenfell and others, the Canadian Government is now introducing reindeer into Labrador; and the distinguished missionary physician, whose recent decoration gives l.u.s.tre to the royal bestower as well as to the recipient, has publicly announced his hope that these domesticated herbivora will "eliminate that scourge of the country, the husky dog."

To announce such a hope, based upon any results in Alaska, is to announce misconception of the nature of the success which has attended Doctor Sheldon Jackson's "reindeer experiment." There is not a dog the less in Alaska because of the reindeer, nor ever will be; in so far as similarity of conditions warrant us in expecting similar results, it is safe to predict that the reindeer will never "eliminate the husky dog"

in Labrador.

But before discussing the success of the reindeer experiment and its lack of any bearing upon the number or the usefulness of the dog, the writer would pause to take strong exception to the description of the husky dog as the "scourge" of Labrador, and would insist that any such wholesale condemnation is a boomerang that returns upon the head of the Labradorian who uses it. For, as the dog is one of the most adaptable of all domestic animals, and is, to an amazing extent, what his master makes him, to bring a railing accusation against the whole race of dogs is in reality to accuse those who breed and rear them.

Why should the dog have richly earned the grat.i.tude and affection of all the world except Labrador? Why should he be called the "Friend of Man"

everywhere except amongst these particular people? Far to the north of them the Esquimaux prize and cherish their dogs. Throughout the whole wide region to the west and northwest of them the dog is man's indispensable ally and faithful servant. The same husky dog has made good his claim upon man in Alaska. It is he and his brother, the malamute, that have opened up Alaska so far as it has been opened; without whom to-day the development of the country would suddenly cease.

And to the question that is often asked "outside," as to whether the Alaskan dog is not a savage beast, it is justly replied: "Not unless he happens to belong to a savage beast." Is it really otherwise anywhere?

Instead of the reindeer eliminating the dog, there is far greater likelihood of the dog eliminating the reindeer; and the professed dog lover, indignant at the opprobrious term applied to a whole race of dogs, may be disposed to echo Lady Macbeth's wish: "May good digestion wait on appet.i.te."

So far as subst.i.tuting another draught animal for the dog is concerned, if the whole equine tribe, even down to Manchurian ponies should for some strange reason be out of the question, the Canadian Government had better import the polar ox or the yak. It is only amongst a nomadic people, whose main quest is pasturage, that the reindeer is a satisfactory draught animal. When introduced into Alaska there was doubtless expectation that he would be generally useful in this capacity. For a while certain mail-routes on the Seward Peninsula were served by him, and here and there a deluded prospector put his grub-stake on a reindeer sled. It is safe to say that no reindeer are so employed to-day. They were soon abandoned on the mail trails, and the prospector, after one season's experience, slaughtered his reindeer and traded its meat and hide for a couple of dogs.

Consider that the reindeer feeds upon one thing alone, the moss that is named after him, and that while this moss is very widely distributed indeed, throughout Alaska, it is not found at all in the river valleys or the forests, but only upon the treeless hills at considerable elevation. Now the rivers are the highways. It is on their frozen surface, or on "portage" trails through the woods, that the greater part of all travelling is done and, in particular, that established routes of regular communication are maintained. To leave the trail after a day's journey, to wander miles into the hills, to herd the deer while they browse from slope to slope, digging the snow away in search of their provender, is wholly incompatible with any sustained or regular travel.

The reindeer is a timid and almost defenceless creature. Wolves and lynxes prey upon him. One lynx is thought to have killed upward of twenty head in one season out of the herd that was stationed at Tanana, leaping upon the backs of the creatures, cutting their throats, sucking their blood, and riding them until they dropped and died. A few dogs will soon work havoc in a herd. So the reindeer must be constantly protected and at the same time must have range over a considerable scope of country. The care of reindeer is a business in itself, not a mere detail of the business of transportation or travel.