• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Team Ineka

Mushin Down a Dream

  • The Dogs
  • Mushers
    • Michele Forto
    • Nicole Forto
    • Robert Forto
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Home

forto

The Gold Rush

July 20, 2010 by teamineka

The Gold Rush

The Alaskan gold rush offered bigger stakes to many mushers.  Men either went after the precious metal directly or they hauled supplies to miners, their camps and the settlements springing up across the region.  Gold was first discovered in 1880 in Sitka, but was soon eclipsed by the Klondike Rush, which was on the scale of the California gold rush a half a century earlier.  In California, mule and oxen transported supplies overland.  In Alaska and the Yukon the method required riverboats in the summer and dog sleds in the winter.  There were no roads or railroads in this land.  The horses that were brought were extremely difficult to feed, and bogged down in the soft, deep snow.  It was therefore left to the dog driver to tame this wild land.

Hauling freight became a booming business, a man could find work easily, but finding good dogs to haul the freight was a more difficult endeavor.  The mushers were called “freighters” or “dog punchers” and they carried everything one could imagine.  Gold if you were lucky, you if you were not.  The “dog puncher” hauled his cargo on up to three of what were referred to as “Yukon” sleds, hitching one after another with heavy chain.

“The Yukon sled measured seven feet long and 16 inches wide, was braced and shod with iron and weighed as much as 80 pounds.  For a good trail, a driver would load his three sleds with 600 pounds on the front sled, 400 on the middle one, and 200 on the rear.  The team: six or seven large dogs, strong and hardy.”

These first mushers, the explorers, the hunters, and the “dog punchers” were the early professionals of the arctic region.  They set high standards for all of their combined endeavors.  These brave pioneers proved their worth time and time again in the opening up and settling of the arctic regions.  These early professionals and their dogs were now ready for their next step in the journey from Siberia to sport racing: “assimilation into the developing modern society.”

___________________

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

Filed Under: Ineka, Mushing, Team Ineka Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, dog doctor radio, dog doctor radio show, Dog Sledding Examiner, dog training denver, forto, Iditarod, ineka, ineka project, Mushing, robert forto, sled dogs, team ineka, the gold rush dog sled

Mush! You Huskies Radio: The Lombards

July 18, 2010 by teamineka

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.

__________________

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

Filed Under: Ineka, Mushing, Team Ineka Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, Doc Lombard, dog doctor radio, dog sledding, Dog Sledding Examiner, dog sledding history, Dog Sledding Legends, dog training denver, forto, Iditarod, Igloo Pak Kennels, ineka, Mushing, robert forto, sled dogs, team ineka

The John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon

July 14, 2010 by teamineka

The longest dog sled race in the Lower-48 is the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon that is often used as a proving ground for many long-distance mushers looking to run the Iditarod or as a training/qualifying race for the big one!

The John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon runs annually. Currently beginning in Duluth, Minnesota and traveling through Minnesota’s north woods to Trail Center (Poplar Lake) on the Gunflint Trail where Marathon musher’s and their teams turn around for the return leg. The race originated in Grand Portage, Minnesota. The annual event also includes a mid-distance race which also begins in Duluth and ends in Tofte, Minnesota.

The “Beargrease” is named for John Beargrease a Grand Portage Chippewa who was one of many individuals who carried mail to the developing communities of Minnesota’s north shore in the late 19th century and early20th century. In recognition of their efforts the Beargrease has recently added Trail Mail which allows individuals to have mail carried by dogsled as part of the regular mail.

The “Beargrease” trail is considered among the toughest there is. Though considerably less distance than the famed Iditarod or Yukon Quest, the terrain of the north shore provide considerable challenges as teams face a rapid series of ascents and descents as the trail winds through Superior National Forest and the “Sawtooth Mountains”. Though the race doesn’t travel along the lakeshore, Lake Superior’s effect on weather is far reaching. Musher’s can face wind chills as low as -70 and temperatures exceeding -35. In the same day they may experience weather well above zero and precipitation ranging from rain to near blizzard conditions.

Few good maps of the trail exist though snowmobile trail maps of the region provide some information. Visit http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snowmobiling/maps.html access sections 19,25 and 26. The Beargrease Trail follow trail 60 till it intersects with 110 which brings teams into Trail Center at Poplar Lake.

Citation: Beargrease.com

___________________

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.

Filed Under: Mushing Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, dog doctor radio, dog sledding, Dog Sledding Examiner, Dog Sledding Legends, dog training denver, forto, Iditarod, John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, robert forto, sled dogs, team ineka

The Mail

July 13, 2010 by teamineka

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.

___________________

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

Filed Under: Mushing Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, dog doctor radio, dog sledding, Dog Sledding Examiner, dog sledding history, Dog Sledding Legends, dog training denver, dogd doctor radio, forto, Iditarod, ineka, mushing and mail, sled dogs

Emile St. Godard

July 12, 2010 by teamineka

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.

_________________

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

Filed Under: Mushing Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, dog doctor radio, dog doctor radio show, dog sledding, Dog Sledding Examiner, dog sledding history, Dog Sledding Legends, dog training denver, emile st. godard, forto, Mushing, robert forto, sled dogs

Rupert Sheldrake by Al Magaw

July 11, 2010 by teamineka

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of works on telepathy research, and morphic resonance that explains the ability of dogs and other animals to communicate by a term he calls “Morphic Resonance” . He uses that term to explain many behaviours that others put down to genetics, or family or species memory. I like the term “Learned instinct” to explain behavior that is passed from one generation to another for as long as the instinct is needed or cultivated. Examples of Learned Instinct have included pair bonding in humans when that behavior was needed for species survival. When human ancestors first walked upright and hunting became the main way of life, society went through major changes. Previous to the hunting lifestyle, so research claims, our ancestors lived in close knit groups where the group was responsible for the safety and teaching of the young. Pair bonding was unnecessary and even detrimental to the groups survival. Once hunting became a way of life, the group was no longer viable because of the distances traveled for successful hunting. Pair bonding became necessary for the upbringing of the slow to mature human offspring and the assured return of the hunting male to the homebound female. Todays society is changing in such a fashion that the community offers the support to the mother and offspring that hasn’t been available for 10’s of 1000’s of years. Some researchers give that reason for todays high divorce rates and the seemingly lack of strong pair-bonding is given as the reason for the high incidence of divorce. My question is this, are the specific behaviors bred into dogs, genetic or are they a learned instinct? Will the behavior of dogs that were bred for a specific purpose that are now bred for show alone, lose the natural desire to do the job they were specifically bred for? Does a specific behavior, not required when dogs were wild, become a genetic trait, a family memory, or a learned instinct? Will the siberians and other working type dogs lose their true desire to do a job when the family has no job?

____________________

Al Magaw is a musher from Salmo, BC. Al keeps a medium sized kennel of 20 – 45 alaskan huskies as well as several pet dogs of various breeds. Al has been training and racing for the last 33 years. Before becoming involved with sled dogs, Al, along with his family, kept and competed with horses for many years. Al can be reached through his website athttp://www.spiritofthenorthkennels.com Al is a guest blogger for Denver Dog Works and can be reached through our website athttp://www.denverdogworks.com

Filed Under: Mushing Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, Al Magaw, denver dog works, dog sledding, Dog Sledding Examiner, dog training denver, forto, Iditarod, Mushing, siberian husky, sled dogs, spirit of the north kennels

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 12
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Join us on Facebook

Join us on Facebook

Dog Training

Dog Training

Trips

Trips

Listen to our Podcast

Listen to our Podcast

Copyright © 2023 First Paw Media