Sled Dogs

Sled Dogs. . , Sled Dogs in Territorial Alaska , Sled dogs provided Alaskans their main method of winter travel in the 1800s and early 1900s. The Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute were preferred breeds. People traveled by dogsled to hunt, trap, and haul firewood. Dogs transported people, supplies, and mail to villages and mining camps. In emergencies, dogs raced sick and injured people to medical care. Walter Harper and Archdeacon Stuck traveled thousands of miles by dogsled each winter as Stuck oversaw Episcopal mission work., The care and feeding of sled dogs required much effort. Ideally owners caught and dried enough fish to feed their dogs year-round. Otherwise, they boiled large kettles of cornmeal or rice and animal fat over open fires to feed the dogs. During the summer, dogs suffered from heat and mosquitos. They loved winters when they could run again., Sled Dogs' Role in the 1913 Ascent of Denali , Sled dogs played a central role in the first ascent of Denali. Team members traveled by dogsled with their supplies from Fairbanks and Nenana to the Kantishna mining district, where Karstens had stashed provisions the fall before. Then the team relied on the dogs to relay their outfit to the mountain. On Denali, the dogs' work increased with the addition of wood and wild game to the load they relayed upward. After the team established a base camp at 4,000 feet, Esaias returned to Nenana with one dog team. Johnny and the second set of dogs assisted the ascent team to the head of Muldrow Glacier (11,500 feet). He then manned the base camp with the dogs until the men returned from the summit., "He is the hardiest, the thriftiest, the eagerest, the most tireless, the most resolute and the handsomest, if not of all the dogs in the world, certainly of all dogs used for [hauling freight], and his feet never grow sore." , -Hudson Stuck on his favorite sled dog, the malamute. , A Winter Circuit of our Arctic Coast, 1920, [Photo captions, clockwise from top right, read] , . Malamute Puppy, . On March 17, 1913, the expedition set out from Nenana toward the Kantishna mining district in the foothills of Denali. The expedition included six people, two sleds, and fourteen dogs., . Johnny cared for the dogs for 31 days at the base camp, hunting to feed them and himself., . Mail team, Fairbanks - 1917