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dog sledding history

Charlie Belford on Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

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Dog Sledding Legends-Charlie Belford on Mush! You Huskies

On the radio program, Mush! You Huskies we are continuing our summer series on the Dog Sledding Legends that made this sport what it is. This week we talk about Charlie Belford.

Listen to Mush! You Huskies Radio Show: Charlie Belford

Doc Belford was one of the most influential of Siberian breeders and racers. He was a close friend of that OTHER racing vet, Doc Lombard. With Dick Moulton making a threesome, these men undertook to found SEPP– a move within the ranks of SHCA to retain the racing qualities of the Siberian Husky. Doc Belford lived much of the important racing history that we read about in books. He was a World Champion and raced Alaska shortly after Lombard initially went there from New England and came back with many tales of the tough trails, tough drivers, and tougher dogs. He started in Siberians when his father bought dogs from Seppala. He was a member of the newly formed NESDC Juniors. And he loved the sport. Dr. Belford was recognized for his authoritative knowledge of the racing Siberian and was asked abroad to speak and lecture in the Scandinavian countries.

Citation: http://www.GoMush.com

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner, and the host of the popular, Mush! You Huskies radio show.

Mush! You Huskies Radio: The Lombards

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Roland and Louise Lombard

On the Mush You Huskies Radio Show we continue to showcase the people that made the sport of mushing what it is today. It is called Dog Sledding Legends and we will be covering these amazing contributors to the sport all summer long.

Listen to Mush! You Huskies: The Lombards

If you are a musher and would like an excellent reference to your library check out Nancy Cowan’s The Training and Racing Journals of Roland and Louise Lombard. Self-Published 2004.

The following history is taken from Mrs. Cowan’s book and Roland “Doc” Lombard’s training journals to show a history of one of the greatest musher’s of all time. I hope that Mrs. Cowan and the late Doc Lombard to not mind my liberty.

Emile St. Godard’s flop-eared racing hounds may have looked like odd sled dogs to Siberian fans in New England, but as he raced them in the 1929 race in Laconia, an even odder-looking team was making a first mark in sled racing for its youthful owner, Roland “Doc” Lombard of Maine. Lombard, later to win time and time again in the biggest races with long teams of Siberian-Alaskan Husky crosses, was right on St. Godard’s heels with a motley five-dog crew. On lead was often a cocker spaniel-collie farm dog, behind the leader, a German Shepherd cross and a mixed husky, and filling out the team, two Siberians borrowed from Seppala. Lombard’s third place finish was fast enough to win him first-place handicap money, $1,000, which went along way in those Depression days towards his schooling for a career as a veterinarian.

Once his veterinary practice was set up near Boston, Massachusetts, Lombard returned eagerly to his sled dogs. His early teams were made up of purebred Siberians, which were the fruits of a half dozen New England kennels that had been breeding from Seppala stock for almost three decades.

In the late forties and well into the fifties, Doc and his wife, Louise, ran their Igloo Pak Kennel dogs in dozens of New England Races. By the mid-fifties Lombard, along with Charles Belford and Keith Bryar, were known as New England’s “big three,” and they represented the best the sport had to offer outside of Alaska. When the New England races could not hold up to their blazing teams, the three racers traveled to bigger events in New York, Canada and finally Alaska. Lombard was the first to take sled dog racing back to the state where it started, driving in his first Alaskan race in 1958 at the age of forty-six. He was also to be the most successful outsider in Alaskan championship races, giving every sled dog driver in the state a tough run for his money for many, many years. Although he remained an outsider in Alaska, his gentle manner, considerate words and fine racing record won him the respect of the farthest-north Americans.

Lombard won his first Alaskan race on his second attempt. This he did at Fairbanks, in the North American Championship, the first outsider to challenge successfully in the fifty years of Alaskan sled dog racing. From 1958 to 1975 Doc Lombard won six North American Championships, placing second in six others. Down in Anchorage at the Fur Rendezvous World Championships it took him until 1963 to win his first one, and he won the North American that year, and so added the coveted title of Dual Champion to his laurels. In the next twelve years Lombard kept returning to Alaska and kept proving his talents, winning eight more World Championships. In 1964 and 1967 he re-earned the Dual Championship an extraordinary second and third times.

Lombard’s lead dog in most of these victories was a 48-pound black and white Alaskan Husky named Nellie. Trained in Huslia, the little Alaskan town famed for its sled dogs and their drivers, Nellie attracted Lombard’s attention in 1962 while she was running on champion George Attla’s team. Lombard’s professional admiration for the dog resulted in the first sale of a sled dog for the then unheard-of price of $1,000.

According to Attla, “She just never made a mistake on commands. It was like driving a car; you made every turn you wanted to make.” Nellie had all of the good traits, she worked enthusiastically, and she had ‘heart’. She helped Lombard to his unprecedented fourteen Alaskan championships. The year that both “Doc” and his dog were elected into the Dog Mushers’ Hall of Fame, Lombard commented to the Boston Globe: “Nellie is very special. She not only has speed, courage and stamina—because these championship races are long distance—but Nellie is highly intelligent.”

Nellie represented the finest in canine evolution that had been occurring in Alaska since Seppala left with his Siberians. A purebred Siberian strain had been developed in Huslia, but so had a non-registered breed called the Alaskan Husky. The toughest of the survivors from the gold rush days, the fastest of the winners in the early races, were interbred with Siberians, with Malamutes, with Eskimos dogs and with wolves. When the New Englanders brought the best of their Seppala Siberians back to Alaska to race, it was the best of these husky-type dogs that beat them.

Roland Lombard’s contributions to sled dog racing extended far beyond his racing record or his abilities with dogs. During his career he aided more than one aspiring musher with dogs and advice, spending hours talking, explaining and teaching. The more serious new drivers who visited him were slowly included in the fall training activities; and several of New England’s better drivers learned the basics from “Doc.”

Another major contribution was his early belief in the idea of an international organization for the sport. Lombard served as the first president of the International Sled Dog Racing Association from 1966 to 1970, he and a small group of intensely dedicated people gave unselfishly of their time and money to make this infant idea into a reality.

Roland Lombard was a master at reading and communicating with his dogs. His race results represent this. Lombard’s evaluations of his dogs were very precise. As the date of the next racing event drew closer he had an astonishing perception of his team’s readiness. Lombard was adept at finding any and all faults or variation in his dogs’ behavior. Many mushers thought “Doc” was a perfectionist, and as such, overly critical of his dogs. Others maintained that Lombard knew his dogs so well that the type and intensity of the correction he administered to his dogs were perfectly suited to the incident, and even more importantly, to the individual dog.

If something wrong happened to a dog during a run, Lombard recorded the incident. These types of notes were recorded with the intention of curbing negative events and conflicts with that particular dog. Roland Lombard was an in-field researcher of his dogs. He kept training and racing journals that spanned decades.

Each and every dog on the Lombard team always had a clear understanding of what was expected of it. Lombard allowed all of his dogs to remain in a positive frame of mind when running in a team. Year after year he came to the racing circuit to learn, about his dogs and himself. He worked hard and the teams got better. He won his share and he lost some, but he always conducted himself with exemplary sportsmanship.

“Doc” was often asked to speak about sled dog racing. In the book, The Training and Racing Journals of Roland and Louise Lombard, it shows that for over thirty years he did not leave anything out, and did not leave anything unplanned. “Doc” listed some statements he called “one-liners” that he intended to make in order to encourage questions and discussions. Roland Lombard’s “one-liners” follow:

1. Break your dogs on opposite sides. When training, shift all dogs after a mile or so.

2. Start training dogs young, but don’t race them in long or fast races.

3. Try to accomplish as many corrections that you have to make, AWAY from the team (i.e. aggressive and NO.)

4. If you want your dogs to listen to you, keep your mouth shut unless you have something to command them to do.

In one speech, “Doc” used the words, “the numbers game” as a one-liner when speaking about the fact that a lower-48 [states] musher who was working with his kennel, then goes to Alaska to race, was taking a team made up from his limited resources. This musher had to go against teams made up from the pooled resources of native villages. Lombard’s point was that when he began racing in Alaska, the native Alaskans were assembling teams from the best of a pool of five hundred or more “best in the village” dogs, the best of thousands. The opportunity to assemble a superior team coming from a breeder choosing from fifty dogs of his own home-grown gene pool was nil to this prospect. “Doc” was using this one liner to illustrate to people why he had bought individual dogs in Alaska, and then to also explain why Alaskan Huskies were proving themselves superior on the race trail of the day, to any registered purebred team, of any breed.

“Doc” was an excellent communicator and trainer when it came to his dogs. He was considered a master trainer of his dogs, especially his leaders. As a trainer Roland knew, and he knew that the dogs knew, that if it was being just plain stubborn or disobedient, Doc dispensed criticism in a manner and at the moment that the dog would understand it best. In a few instances he whipped a dog, sometimes he urged a dog, at other times he “spoke to” a dog (a verbal reprimand) or else “jollied” the dog with happy words. Each correction was perfectly suited to the canine, to the moment and to the offense. Few trainers are able to achieve the level of performance and empathy that Lombard expected from, and gave to his dogs. In his journal an entry explains how he does it:

Attitude—prefer to train second year dogs because it has proven speed and lack of bad habits.

First teach “come.”

Second teach “line out.” If you have ever tried to get a team harnessed and get back to your sled while the young leader wants to come back to the sled with you, or to visit with the dogs in the team (you know the value of this lesson). After going up and straightening him out eight times, because of the delay, the other dogs are chewing their necklines etc. You might be tempted to get rough with him. DON’T. Put him back in the team and promise yourself that you will start training properly by teaching him to line out.

1. All leaders should be taught to go single. If you start out with double leaders, one will know “gee” and the other will know “haw”. Your young leaders want to have the confidence to push or to pull the other. If one makes a mistake, the other goes along.

2. We do not hook leaders in until last—usually.

3. Teach “NO!”

4. A good leader is a rare and wonderful thing. When you get one, take care never to do anything that might put a bad thought in her head.

5. Everyone should read the Mel Fishback article on leader stress in Northern Dog News.

  1. I don’t believe that you can successfully make a rigid training program at the beginning of the season. It is almost a day-to-day program. I do, however, think that it is probably wise to set some goals.

Roland Lombard was a rare entity, a master of masters at what he did, and who was also mentally and telepathically in tune with his team. He loved and understood his dogs. They loved and understood Lombard. Lombard’s labor made a science of sled dog racing, but it was his talented hands that made sled dog racing an art.

Citation: The Training and Racing Journals of Roland and Lousie Lombard edited by Nancy Cowan, 2004.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

The Mail

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The Mail

Lead Dog RevengeThe mushers carrying the mail packets were by far the most popular.  The Hudson Bay Company’s “Northern Packet” departed what is now Winnipeg on the Fort Garry dog train.  Eight days and 350-miles later, the Fort Garry dog train arrived at the Norway House, located at the north end of Lake Winnipeg.  Simultaneously, the York Factory on Hudson Bay sent a mail packet to Norway House.  After unloading, and then repacking, the two dog trains returned from where they came.  A new dog train departed Norway House and headed west to Fort Carlton, located on the Saskatchewan River.  The trip was 650-miles and took around twenty-two days.

The mail drivers were so adept at getting the mail in on time, that the men stationed at the old Swan River barracks made wagers every twenty-one to twenty-two days as to when the mail would arrive. “Bets would be passed at the noon meal as to what exact time Louis Laronde or Antoine Genoit would arrive with the mail.”

The importance of the mail was also prevalent in Alaska, and was one of the most eagerly awaited shipments of the dog trail.  It has been said that all sled dog trails lead to Nome, and on those trails the mail driver was treated like a king.  United States law actually required all other trail users give the right-of-way to the mail drivers.

“The mail driver was the single most important person on the trail, in the mail-station, or at the over-night roadhouse.  He was given the best seat at the table, the first service of hotcakes for breakfast, and the best bunk at night.  When the mail driver pulled into a station or the roadhouse at the end of a day’s run, he unhitched the team and turned all the dogs loose except the leader.  His leader, his parka, gloves and whip was brought into the roadhouse.  He put the leader under his bunk, hung his wet clothing on the best wire around the stovepipe…and woe to him who complained about the leader under his bed!”

At the turn of the century the mail driver received a salary of $2225.00 per year, and was required by the Postmaster General to deliver the mail “with celerity, certainty, and security.”

The United States Postal Service employed dog drivers until 1963.  Chester Noongwook, of Savoonga on Saint Lawrence Island, was honored in the same year.  With the retirement of his loyal dog team a century of sled dog tradition slipped into history.  Noongwook’s team, Spotty, Brownie, Mil-ko-lak and Donkey were replaced with an airplane, yet they remained at the ready, because there would be times and places that a dog team could make the trip and an airplane could not.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

Emile St. Godard

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Emile St. Godard

Lead Dog RevengeOn the Mush! You Huskies Radio Show we continue our summer series on the people that made the sport of dog sledding what it is today. This week we talk about Emile St. Godard

Listen to Mush! You Huskies radio show now

Emile St. Godard burst onto the racing scene in 1925. The Pas, Manitoba was his hometown, but for the next ten years he was the man to beat throughout Canada and the United States. Even Leonhard Seppala found it difficult to overtake the racy husky-hound crosses on St. Godard’s dog team. These dogs, sleek and long-legged, were bred for speed and intelligence. If the temperature did not plummet, or the snowdrift too deep, they were virtually unbeatable.  In 1925, he won two high profile races; the 200-mile non-stop race at The Pas, and the three-day, 40-miles-a-day Eastern International Dog Sled Derby at Quebec. St. Godard holds world records in the races at The Pas, having won five in a row. By 1928, he was a three-time winner of the Quebec Derby, and although Seppala beat him in 1919 and in 1930, he returned to the top and won the race the following years.

Competition in the eastern races heightened in 1927 when Seppala arrived, St. Godard had to keep himself and his dogs alert in order to stay ahead. The two champion mushers drew huge crowds of excited sled dog fans whenever they appeared in a race. In the 1932 Olympics, the St. Godard and Seppala rivalry caught the attention of Arthur Daley, sportswriter for the New York Times:

“Lake Placid, New York, February 8, 1932. In the colorful sled dog race it was a Canadian team that was victorious as Emile St. Godard, the veteran, Manitoba musher, emerged as the victor over Leonhard Seppala of the United States…these two keen rivals, less than a minute and a half apart after the first twenty five miles yesterday, again stages a bitter battle on the second twenty five mile route today. St Godard proved that his Russian Wolfhound-Malamutes were faster dogs when he finished first once more, compiling a total time of 4 hours 27 minutes 12.5 seconds. Seppala famous for his race with death to bring the antitoxin to Nome was clocked in at 4 hours 31 minutes 1.8 seconds for the fifty miles.”

During St. Godard’s brief racing career, he entered more than fifty sled dog races and won over half of them. He was never far from the top. Nominating him to the Dog Mushers’ Hall of Fame, Short Seeley comments that Emile St. Godard “was one of the most sports-minded sled dog racers ever.”

St. Godard learned his sport as a freighting driver, hauling supplies to trappers, traders and miners in the brush country of northern Manitoba. When he got serious about sled dog racing, he quickly switched from the working “scrub huskies” to the racing hound-husky crosses that had been the mainstay of Canadian teams for years.  St. Godard died young of pneumonia at the age of forty-three. Yet his solid success as a sled dog driver, his winning smile that made him a favorite, are still remembered by many of today’s great dog drivers who credit him for influencing them in the sport.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

Balto the Sled Dog

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Balto the Sled Dog

We mushers all have had a lead dog (or two, or three) that was of exceptional status on our teams. Many stories can be told how these dogs “saved the day”. Many movies and books have been written and shown of these courageous dogs with tremendous will and might. Many dog sledding fans know more about a musher’s lead dog than they do the (human) driver him/herself. The lead dog is often portrayed as the quarterback of the team. The one that all the other dogs listen to.

There is one dog that is probably the most widely known lead dog in the world. His name is Balto. There an animated movie about him (pretty good I might add) and he even has a statute in New York’s Central Park.

Let’s learn a bit about this famous sled dog: Balto
Balto (c.1919-14 March 1933) was a Siberian Husky sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Anchorage, Alaska to Nenana, Alaska by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease. The run is commemorated by the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Balto was named after the Sami explorer Samuel Balto.

1925 serum run

In January 1925, doctors realized that a potentially deadly diphtheria epidemic was poised to sweep through Nome’s young people. The only serum that could stop the outbreak was in Anchorage, nearly a thousand miles (1,600 km) away. The only aircraft that could quickly deliver the medicine was taken out of winter storage, but its engine was frozen and would not start. After considering all of the alternatives, officials decided to move the medicine by sled dog. The serum was transported by train from Anchorage to Nenana, where the first musher embarked as part of a relay aimed at delivering the needed serum to Nome. More than 20 mushers took part, facing a blizzard with −23 °F temperatures and strong winds. Katie Pryor interviewed the musher after he had finished. News coverage of the race was worldwide.
On February 2, 1925, the Norwegian Gunnar Kaasen drove his team, led by Balto, into Nome. The longest and most hazardous stretch of the run was actually covered by another Norwegian, Leonhard Seppala and his dog team, led by Togo. They came from Nome towards the end of the run and picked up the serum from musher Henry Ivanoff. The serum was later passed to Kaasen. Balto proved himself on the Iditarod trail, saving his team in the Topkok River. Balto was also able to stay on the trail in near whiteout conditions; Kaasen stated he could barely see his hand in front of his face. During a blizzard, Kaasen and his team missed the last sled dog team and had to take the medicine twice as far. At Nome, everybody wanted to thank Kaasen at first. He suggested giving fame to Balto as well.
Togo was the star dog for Leonhard Seppala even before the great 1925 Serum Run. Instead of celebrating the triumph together as one huge team, many became jealous of the publicity Balto received, especially from President Calvin Coolidge and the press. Seppala favored Togo, but the general public loved the story behind Balto, and so they would take a far different path after the celebrations were over. Balto was not welcomed at the ceremony in New York in which Seppala and Togo received awards from the explorer Roald Amundsen.

Citation: Wikipedia
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Dr. Robert Forto is the dog sledding examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the Mush! You Huskies radio show.

Europeans Learn Mushing

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Europeans Learn Mushing

Lead Dog Revenge“Mush” has been used for at least one hundred fifty years, but the phrase “dog musher” is quite recent.  Up until the first part of the twentieth century a dog musher was known as a “dog driver” or a “dog puncher.”  To him “mush” meant to move out, but the old sourdoughs often meant it to mean to travel by walking or snowshoeing.  Going from village to village on foot was referred to as “mushing.”  Travel by dog team was called “sledding”, “sledging” or “dog sledding”.  More recently it has been referred to as “dog mushing.”

Exploration, Hunting, and Trapping

Change comes slowly to the frozen North.  Harnesses were unknown in Alaska until the advent of the white man.  Captain Cook and his expedition of 1778 found the Eskimo dogs pulling sleds by the same leather thong around the neck that their predecessors had used thousands of years before.

The early explorers of the arctic region were required to learn “sledging” quickly; after all, falling below the learning curve in the northern environment often resulted in death.  These early explorers, along with hunters and trappers, were the first European mushers.  These men quickly discovered that the best way to traverse the arctic regions was the way the natives had traveled for centuries, by dog sled.

There is little doubt that the first modern contact of white men with native dog teams occurred during the sixteenth century, when explorers from European Russia forged east into Siberia.  These men traded with the friendly Samoyed tribes throughout the latter sixteenth century.  The exploration in the next two centuries brought the Europeans into contact with the less friendly tribes of Chukchi, as the explorers attempted to determine if their continent was connected to North America.

In 1820, Ferdinand vonWrangell, a Russian naval explorer, began the series of trips utilizing dog teams which ultimately proved that Asia and North America were indeed separate continents.  Before leaving the arctic vonWrangell decided on a final sledging trip.  It was nearly his last.  His group was traveling on solid ice an astounding seventy miles from shore, when a gale ruptured the ice they were traveling on.  The ice began to separate from the mainland, creating ever-widening lanes of black, icy water.  A frantic race for the shore ensued.  vonWrangell’s team persevered and won the race of survival, a feat that he attributed to the speed of his dogs, as well as, their ability to swim across the frigid leads of water.

Other voyagers were not as fortunate as vonWrangell.  Ill-fated expeditions were often ignorant of the natives’ survival techniques, and thus paid the ultimate price.  The 1845 Franklin Expedition was to be one of the ill fated, and arguably one of the most famous arctic disasters of all.

Twenty years earlier, Sir John Franklin had mapped hundreds of miles of the American arctic coastline by sea.  The British Admiralty again called on Franklin’s services and appointed him to sail again to search for the elusive Northwest Passage.  In September of 1845, Franklin’s ships were caught in the ice, and there they stayed.  After three winters, twenty-four men had perished, including Commander Sir John Franklin.  The remaining men began what was to be a death march into oblivion.  According to Coppinger, Lady Jane Franklin organized, and paid for “voyage after voyage to the Arctic, first to rescue her husband, then, despairingly, to learn of his fate.”

During the next thirty-four years there were an astounding forty-one excursions into the far north; all sponsored by Lady Jane in an attempt to wring the secret of her husband’s fate from the icy grip of the arctic.  Her due diligence was finally rewarded in

1859 when Leopold McClintock delivered precise information about the fate of her husband, and his crew. Coppinger writes the following about McClintock in The World of Sled Dogs:

“A careful observer of the Eskimo, McClintock is remembered as the master of arctic sledging, for he worked out detailed techniques which are still used by arctic explorers and scientists.  These tech-niques included the meticulous weighing of every single piece of equipment and calculating as closely as possible the amounts of supplies that would be needed.  In the autumn prior to the spring sledging trip he would cache food and equipment along the planned route so that in spring long distances could be covered with much lighter loads.”

The explorers of the icy regions of this planet began to depend more and more on the art of sledging to reach the North and South Poles.  When the brave men finally reached the poles, their courageous dog teams aided them.  These journeys to the very ends of the earth will be explored in more depth later in a different article.

The explorers may have explored for purely scientific reasons, but their financiers were often more interested in potential profits than in any scientific discoveries.  The early explorers located and documented an abundant source of wildlife.  The hunters and trappers quickly followed the explorers’ footsteps, with the hope of striking it rich in the fur trade.

Traders that belonged to the Hudson Bay Company adopted native systems of travel.  These traders became very adept at using dog sleds in the winter, and canoes in the summer.  By the 1840’s most traders were traveling by long birch-bark toboggans that were better suited for the soft, deep snows of the forests.  These sledges were often pulled by four dogs, and were in those days referred to as “dog trains”.  More than one “dog train” traveling together was referred to as a “dog brigade”.

A “ dog brigade” in the 1880’s was, by all accounts, a “sight to see”.  The dog driver was often clothed in beaded moccasins, leggings and mittens, a colored sash about his waist, and his head was adorned with a brightly colored, knitted cap. His colorful arrival was heralded in advance by the singing of brass bells that were attached to the harnesses of the dogs.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the dog sledding examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the Mush! You Huskies Radio Show