MY DOGS

Mushing with dogs in Alaska is the worst and the best mode of traveling in all the world—the most joyful and the most exasperating—according to the angle from which you look at it.

Once I was preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments to the miners at Council, a town on Seward Peninsula eighty-five miles east of Nome. I had come to the Third Commandment; and I bore down pretty hard upon the useless and foolish habit of profane swearing.

When I was going home from the meeting, a group of young men stood on the corner waiting for me.

"Come over here, Doctor," called one of the men. "I have a bet with Jim, and I want you to decide it."

I crossed over to the jolly group. "What is your bet?" I asked.

"Why," he replied, "I've bet Jim five dollars that you have never mushed a dog-team."

"Well, you've lost," I answered. "I have driven dogs many times—and never found it necessary to swear at them, either."

Before I go on with my story, perhaps I would better explain that word "mush," as it is used in the Northwest. The word is never used in Alaska as you use it in the East, to denote porridge, or some sort of cereal. There we say "oatmeal" or "corn-meal," or simply "cereal."

In Alaska the word has but one use. It is a corruption of the French marchez, marche, which the Canadian coureurs du bois, or travelers of the woods, shout at their dogs when urging them along the trail. From marche to "mush" is easy. So now, throughout the great Northwest, Canadian or Alaskan, when a man is traveling he is "on a mush." When he is speaking to his dogs, either to drive them out of the house or to urge them along the trail, he shouts "mush!" If he be a good traveler, he is a "great musher." Of all the pet names they used to give me up there, the one of which I was proudest was "The Mushing Parson."

They tell a story, which has the ear-marks of truth, which illustrates this universal use of the word "mush" in the Northwest.

Two miners, who for years had been in the mining camps of Alaska, at last came "outside" to Seattle. In the morning they went to a restaurant for breakfast and took seats at a table. A rather cross-looking waitress came to take their order. "Mush?" she asked. The miners looked at one another in surprise and alarm. The woman waited a while, and when they did not answer she supposed they were deaf and had not heard her question. "Mush?" she screamed. The two men arose and fled. When they got safely to the sidewalk, one said to the other, "Now, what the Sam Hill did she fire us for?"

There are three principal breeds of native dogs found in Alaska—the Husky, the Malamute and the Siberian Dog—all descendants of wolves, with wolfish traits and the wolf's warm coat and powers of endurance. Of these the Malamute is the largest, descended, as he is, from the great gray wolves of the Arctic regions. The Husky seems to be derived from the red wolf of the McKenzie River Valley; while the Siberian Dog has for ancestor the smaller, shorter-legged, heavier-furred Arctic wolf of the Siberian coast. The smaller and more worthless dogs of the southern Alaska Coast, if descended from wolves, must have the coyote as their progenitor—having his lighter and slimmer body and his sneaking, thievish, cowardly disposition.

Everywhere, however, the dog is largely what his master makes him, and these northern wolf-dogs have greatly improved since they have fallen into the hands of white masters. More intelligent breeding, greater care in feeding and more careful training, have made them what they are—the finest, most enduring and most dependable sleigh-dogs in the world.

The dog is by all odds the most valuable animal of the Northwest to the white miner and settler. He is the miner's horse, bicycle, automobile, locomotive, all in one. Life in those wilds would be almost unendurable without him. The miners appreciate this, and cases of cruelty and mistreatment are very rare. In the days of the early gold stampedes the cheechackos or tenderfeet, who knew but little about life in the wilderness, and still less about the dogs of the wilderness, sometimes were guilty of abusing their dogs; but this very seldom occurred, and the old-timers always frowned upon, and sometimes punished, cases of cruelty. I remember once holding, with joy, the coat of one of these old-timers at Dawson in the strenuous winter of 1897-8, while he administered a very beautiful and artistic thrashing to a newcomer who was guilty of beating his dogs with a heavy chain and knocking out the eye of one of them.

But I cannot better give you an idea of what dog-mushing in the Northwest is than by sketching a trip I took to a meeting of the Presbytery of Yukon in March, 1912. I was at Iditarod, a new gold-mining town in the western interior of Alaska. The meeting was to be held at Cordova on the southern coast, seven hundred and twenty miles distant. To reach Cordova I must cross four mountain ranges—the Western, the Alaska, the Chugach and the Kenai Ranges; and traverse four great river valleys—the Yukon, the Kuskoquim, the Susitna and the Matanuska. There was first a very rough stretch of rudely marked trail five hundred and twenty miles to Seward. There I would take a steamboat two hundred miles to Cordova. Let us betake ourselves together to this big miner's camp, and talk the matter over in the free, familiar way of the Northwest:

A young fellow of Scotch descent hailing from the north of Ireland, William Breeze, known far and wide as an experienced "dog musher," is to be my companion on this trip. He is bound for Susitna, three hundred miles from Iditarod, on a prospecting trip, and will take care of my dogs, boil their feed at night and do the heaviest part of the work.

Dr. Young and his Dog Team

Iditarod, February, 1912

And now let me introduce you to my team. It is one of the finest teams in all the North. There are five pups of the same litter, now six or seven years old. They are a cross between the McKenzie River husky and the shepherd dog, and have the long hair and hardy endurance of the former and the sagacity, intelligence and affection of the latter. Being brothers, they know each other and are taught to work together, although this fact does not hinder them from engaging in a general free-for-all fight now and again. However, if attacked by strange dogs the whole five work together beautifully, centering their forces with Napoleonic strategy and beating the enemy in detail.

The leader is black, white and tan, marked like a shepherd dog. He has been named "Nigger," but I have changed his name simply to "Leader." It sounds enough like the original to please him and keep him going. He is a splendid leader. He has a swift, swinging pace, and can keep the trail when it is covered a foot deep by fresh snow and there is no external sign of it. He has that intelligence which leads him to avoid dangers, and he will stop and look back at you if there is a hole in the ice or a dangerous slide, awaiting your orders and co-operation before he essays the difficult problem. His knowledge of "Gee" and "Haw" is perfect, the tone in which you pronounce these words and the force with which you utter them telling him just how far to the right, or to the left, he is to swing. "Gee!" spoken in a short, explosive, loud tone will turn him square to the right, while "Ge-e-e, ge-e-e-e," in soft lengthened syllables, will make him veer slowly and gradually. His sense of responsibility is very great, and his censorship of the conduct of his fellow teamsters very severe. He will not tolerate any shirking on their part and takes keen delight in their correction when they deserve it. But he will fly at your throat if you touch him with the whip.

The "swing dogs" just behind him are "Moose" and "Ring," colored like Irish setters. They have exactly the same gait, are the same size, and almost the same coloring, "Ring" a little lighter than "Moose" and with a white collar around his neck which suggested his name. "Moose" is a little gentleman, the loveliest dog I have ever known. His traces are always taut, and when you utter his name he will jump right up into the air, straining on his collar. He knows the words of command as well as the leader, and has never, perhaps, been touched with the whip. I think chastisement would break his heart, for he would know it was unmerited. He is my pet, the one dog of the team that I allow in my cabin, and my companion in my short journeys through the camp. He is remarkably clean and dainty in his habits, his coat shining like polished bronze. He would guard my person or my coat with his life, the most faithful, intelligent and affectionate dog I have ever had. I love that dog.

"Ring" is also willing, but has not the intelligence or the good nature of "Moose." He is a scrapper and apt to embroil the rest of the team in a general fight. But he will work all day at his highest tension.

"Teddy" and "Sheep," the "wheel dogs," are not so valuable as the other three. "Teddy" has the longest hair and the lightest weight of any, and the least strength; but he is a willing little fellow and a very keen hunter. Make a noise like a squirrel or a bird, and he will prick up his ears and dash down the path after the game, and when a real rabbit or ptarmigan crosses his path he will tear madly along until the game is passed. You can fool him every minute of the day, and Breeze has a way of imitating the little birds that keeps "Teddy" working his hardest.

"Sheep" is a malingerer. He is a clown, and so comical that you cannot help laughing at him, even when you know he deserves a good thrashing. He is fat, heavy and awkward. In color he is a light, tawny yellow, with long hair like "Teddy," but labors under the serious disability of having a different gait from the others. They are pacers; he is a trotter. When they are swinging rhythmically along at a five-mile gait, "Sheep" has to lope, his trot not being equal to the occasion. He has a way of playing off sick or fagged; but if game appears, he forgets all about his pretenses, his lameness is all gone in a second and he is the keenest of the team. Also, when nearing the camp he forgets his weariness and pulls harder than any of the team. It is necessary to let him see the whip constantly, and occasionally to feel it, and he is the only one of the team that necessitates its use at all.

About once a day, on the trail, a funny scene has to be enacted. We may be laboring up a long hill, or wallowing through deep snow, the difficult ascent requiring every man and dog to do his best. "Sheep" will get tired, and, with a backward look at me to see if I am noticing, will let his traces slacken. I give him a touch of the whip, and, although he can hardly feel the lash through his thick coat, he yelps and pulls manfully for a short distance; but presently his trace chain sags again. Soon "Leader" notices the heavier pulling and, knowing where the blame lies, turns his head, shows his teeth and growls at "Sheep," who jumps into his collar and pulls like a good fellow. Soon he forgets and lets up again, getting a fiercer growl from "Leader." A third time he is a slacker. Then "Leader" stops and begins to swing around carefully so as not to tangle the harness. "Moose" and "Ring" and "Teddy" all stand still and look at "Sheep." That unfortunate trotter lies down on his back with his feet in the air and begins to howl in anguish. I sit down on the sled and wait—I know what is coming. "Leader" reaches "Sheep" and for about a minute there is a bedlam of savage growls from "Leader" and piercing shrieks from "Sheep." I notice that "Leader" does not take the culprit by the throat, but only pinches the loose hide on his breast and side. That cannot injure him, so I am not uneasy. The punishment over, "Leader" resumes his place. "Sheep" gets up and shakes himself with an air of relief. I take the handle-bars and call "Mush." For the rest of the day "Sheep" pulls for all he is worth; but the next day he forgets and has to be trounced again.

I am conscious that this story may have a "fishy" flavor for some of my readers, but I can assure them it is true.

But mine are all fine little dogs, not as large as the malamute, but with more courage, spirit and intelligence. The long hair protects them from the cold and they will cuddle down in the snow contentedly, curled up like little shrimps, and let it cover them.

We must take along enough feed for the dogs, to last them from salmon stream to salmon stream. The staple of their feed is dried salmon; it goes a long way for its weight. We start with a hundred pounds of it, and fifty pounds of rice and tallow. This, boiled into a savory mess and served once a day (when they stop for the night), keeps the dogs fat and hearty. We shall replenish the supply at intervals, for five dogs will eat an immense amount of food, and must have all that they can eat at their daily meal.

The sled is a basket-sleigh with handle-bars and brake at the back and a "gee-pole" in front, with an extra rope when we have to "neck it" to help the dogs. My wolf-robe is spread on the floor of the sleigh for my accommodation in the brief intervals of riding. For dog mushing in Alaska does not mean luxuriously riding in your sleigh wrapped up in your fur robe while the dogs haul you along the trail. When Dr. Egbert Koonce sledded twelve hundred miles from Rampart to Valdez in 1902 on his way to the General Assembly, I told the Assembly of the feat. A good friend from Philadelphia said: "It must after all be a really luxurious way of traveling, wrapped up in your furs and reclining in a comfortable sleigh behind your dogs." I turned to Koonce and asked him how much of that twelve hundred miles he rode. "About two miles," he replied.

I shall ride more than this on my way to Seward, but there will not be many places where I can ride half a mile at a stretch without getting out and running behind the dogs. The beauty of "dog mushing" is that you are compelled to work as hard as the dogs. You are not on a well-beaten boulevard; you are wending your way around trees and stumps, over hummocks, up and down hills, along the sides of the mountains, and must keep your hands on the handle-bars, lifting the sled on the trail when it runs off and often breaking the trail ahead with your snow-shoes. When the dogs are on fairly good roads they swing along uninterruptedly and you run your best behind. If there are two of you, one holds the handle-bars and the other sprints along, either in front or behind the sleigh. You will get pretty tired the first two or three days, but after your muscles become hardened and you get your second wind, you can run at your keenest gait two or three miles at a time.

But let us get started. All preparations are made, the supply of dog-feed loaded, our robes and blankets put aboard, heavy canvas corded around the load and our snow-shoes strapped on top. We shall not need a gun, for there will be plenty of game to be had at the roadhouses, and we shall not have time to bother with hunting. We have a long journey to make and everything must bend to getting over the ground. That "ribbon of the trail" must be unwound for five hundred and twenty miles. A company of warm and sympathetic friends foregather to bid us "good-bye," and off we go.

The trail is well beaten from Iditarod to Flat City, seven and a half miles, and I get aboard, with Breeze at the handle-bars. My huskies leap into the harness at the word of command and we make a flying start. They are just as keen to go as we are, and seem to enjoy it as well. I ride perhaps half a mile then jump off without stopping the team, and run ahead of the dogs up the long hill. I soon find my fur parka too heavy, and discard it for the lighter one made of drilling, in which I do the rest of my mushing to the end of the trail. Moccasins are on my feet, for the trail must be taken flat-footed if one is to have reasonable comfort.

After two or three miles we leave the broad road and strike the trail through the wilderness. Our sled is twenty-one inches wide, light and shod with steel, and the trail, henceforth, will be about twenty-four inches in width, sometimes sunken deep, where snow has not recently fallen and the trail has been well beaten, sometimes only a trace along the snow where the wind has blown it clean and where the trail is hard.

We soon begin to labor up the first divide. No more riding now. The trail is hard enough to dispense with snow-shoes, but heavy enough to make us both walk and labor. I strike the trail ahead, leaving Breeze to the handle-bars. I begin to feel the joy of it. The keen, light, dry air is like wine. The trail winds through the woods, along the edges of gorges, then up a steep mountain. Now the timber ceases and we have rounded, wind-swept summits. I leave the dogs far behind, for it is heavy pulling up the steep. Their bells tinkle faintly from below. I gain nearly a mile on them before they round the summit. I strike my lope down the farther side, but soon hear the bells as they charge down upon me and pass me, swinging on towards the roadhouse.

We only make twenty miles the first day, for it was nearly noon when we started, and we are glad to stop at "Bonanza Roadhouse" as dusk is coming on. How good the moose meat tastes! How sweet the beds of hard boards and blankets! The luxury of rest we enjoy to the full. The dogs are fed, our moccasins and socks hung up to dry, and we crawl in our bunks with sighs of relief. There is no floor in the roadhouse; all the lumber has been whipsawed by hand, the furniture manufactured out of boxes and stumps, the utensils of the rudest. But the luxury of splendid meat and good sour-dough bread and coffee makes us feel that we have all that goes to make life desirable.

An early morning start is necessary. We eat our breakfast by candle-light, fill up our thermos bottle with hot coffee, take a big hunk of roasted meat for lunch, and "hit the trail" by daylight. Twenty-six miles to-day—to "Moorecreek Roadhouse." Snow begins to fall, and soon the trail is obliterated by the fast-coming feathery flakes. Now the snow-shoes must be unstrapped and one of us break the trail ahead. We take turns and swing along at a three and a half mile gait. This is real work, and we reach the roadhouse in the middle of the afternoon, but not so tired as on the preceding day.

These are samples of the journey throughout; but oh, the variety!—no two miles alike—and the panorama of beauty that unfolds before us!

Notice the beauty of the frost sparkling on the trees. The wonderful law that gives its own distinct varieties of frost crystals to each species of tree, fir, spruce, birch, cottonwood or alder, is exemplified so plainly here that, after the first examination, you can tell the kind of tree under the frost crystals by the shade of silver. The mountains tower above you, wind-swept, waving snow-banners. The vastness of that white hush awes and thrills you. A rough sound would be blasphemy in the solemn silence. The whole landscape is a poem.

To relate even the leading incidents of this "joy-mush" of three weeks would take up too much space. The longest distance we traveled in any one day was fifty-five miles; while our hardest and longest day's struggle through drifted snow and over a steep mountain pass yielded us only twelve miles of trail. In most of the roadhouses I found old friends, and, in several of them, Christian people who had been members of missions I had established in new mining camps. What grand times we had together! No fellowship is so warm and sweet as that of the wilderness. Of many adventures on the trail I can give but two.

One morning, about half-way from Iditarod to Seward, we left the fine cabin of French Joe, on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim River, under the two beautiful peaks, Mts. Egypt and Pyramid. We were making for Rainy Pass over the Alaskan Range. What follows is an extract from an account I wrote at the time.

The day out from Joe's I meet with my first disaster. We have nineteen miles of absolutely clear ice on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim. The river is full of air-holes and open riffles. The dogs swing along at a ripping pace, digging their toe nails into the hard ice, the sled slipping sideways and sliding dangerously near to the open places. Breeze often has to run ahead at full speed to choose a route, for there is no trail on the ice. Half-way up the river I "get gay," as Breeze calls it. I leave the handle-bars to find a route, and fall down hard on the smooth ice. A sharp pang strikes through the small of my back as if from a spear-thrust. I get up and go along, thinking the pain will cease, but soon I realize that I am in the grip of an old enemy, lumbago.

From this point on to Seward I cannot make a move without pain, sometimes so great that I gasp for breath. At night in the roadhouse I have great trouble in getting into my bunk, and sometimes Breeze has to lift me out in the morning. Were I at home I would be in bed for a couple of weeks with doctors and nurses fussing over me, but it is just as well that I cannot stop. I take the philosophy of an old fellow in the "Rainy Pass Roadhouse" near the summit of the range, who says the best cure for a lame back is to "keep on a-mushin'"!

Beyond Rainy Pass we drop into the canyon of Happy River, and here we have our famous moose-hunt. Soon after we enter the gorge we come upon its tracks—a big bull-moose. We have already traveled nearly thirty miles to-day, and are anxious to make the roadhouse twelve or fifteen miles further on; and now, here comes this big, blundering beast to poke our trail full of deep holes and excite our dogs. He is running ahead of us. The snow is five or six feet deep and he goes in almost to his back at every step. The walls of the canyon are sheer and he cannot escape up its side. The river turns and winds, and here and there are little patches of level ground, thick with large spruce trees.

For three miles we do not catch sight of the moose, but our dogs show that he is on ahead. In spite of my lame back I have to struggle on in front of them and bat "Leader" in the face with my cap, Breeze standing on the brake to keep them from running away. The moose tracks fill our trail for a while, smashing it all to pieces, then veer sideways to a little patch of woods, and the dogs go pell-mell in the moose track, burying our sled out of sight in the deep snow. Then we have to haul them around and lift the sled on the track again, and try to get them along the trail.

Three miles down the river we catch sight of the big moose, and the dogs go wild. "Sheep," who has been disposed to malinger, is the worst of the lot. He forgets all his maladies and weariness and dashes forward, but "Leader" will not leave the track and swings along as best he can, except when the moose is in full sight. Then I have to bat him in the face to keep the team in bounds. Our bells are tingling, our dogs barking and we are shouting. It is a fearsome thing to the bull-moose, this animated machine that is charging down the river at him. So on he struggles through the deep snow, spoiling our trail and filling my companion's mind with blasphemous thoughts which occasionally break out in expression, in spite of his respect for my "cloth."

Four miles of this moose-hunt, with the big brute growing more tired and we more anxious to pass him. Instead of our hunting the moose he is haunting us. At last, around a little point of woods, we see him lying down in the middle of the river right ahead of us. The dogs break bounds and almost upset me as they dash down the trail with Breeze standing on the brake and yelling "Whoa!" The weary bull-moose staggers to his feet again and makes the edge of the woods, but there lies down again.

The trail veers right up to him. I run ahead and take "Leader" and "Ring," one in each hand, and Breeze does the same with "Teddy" and "Sheep." "Moose" is more tractable and we can control him with our voices. We drag the dogs bodily with the sled behind, pass the big brute, his long face not a rod from us, and then, setting "Leader" on the trail again, we urge them down five miles further to "Happy River Roadhouse." That was one hunt in which I was glad to lose the game.

Four hundred miles from our starting point we put up at the "Pioneer Roadhouse" in the little town of Knik at the head of Cook's Inlet. This was one of half a dozen small towns around Knik Arm and Turn-again Arm, the two prongs of Cook's Inlet. These towns had been in existence for fifteen or twenty years, with gold-miners and their families living there; and yet, here at Knik, I preached the first sermon that had ever been preached in a region larger than the state of Pennsylvania! This visit led to the establishment of a number of missions in that region, which is now traversed by the new Government railroad. The towns of Anchorage and Matanuska have sprung into existence and a thriving population of railroad builders, coal miners, gold miners, farmers and men of other trades and professions has settled there.

I left Iditarod on March fifth. I swung into Seward at nine o'clock on the morning of March twenty-eighth and was heartily greeted and entertained by Rev. L. S. Pedersen, pastor of the Methodist Church. He was a photographer as well as a preacher, and took the picture of my arrival. In spite of their hard work, my dogs were fatter and fuller of "pep" than when we started.

I fairly cried when I bade my team good-bye at Seward, taking each beautiful head in my arms and talking to them all. They seemed to feel the parting as keenly as I, for there was a general chorus of mournful howls as I turned away. I never saw my splendid dogs again, for the man who engaged to take them back to Iditarod failed to keep to his bargain, and I had to give them to the man who cared for and fed them at Susitna. I shall never find another team like them.

Notwithstanding the heaviness of the trail, the bitter struggles over mountains and through deep snows, not to mention the pains of lumbago, I look back upon that trip and other trips like it with joyful recollection and longing to repeat the experience. I would rather take a trip through that beautiful wilderness, with my dogs, than travel luxuriously around the world on palatial steamboats. There is more fun in dog-mushing.

---