SLED DOG HARNESS DESIGN
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

Many of us as a child had the experience of tying a rope or leash to our pet dog’s collar and feeling the thrill as “old Rover” pulled us along the sidewalk as we sat in our wagon or on our bicycle. In a very basic and somewhat primitive way we had succeeded in harnessing our dog and in the process we had “harnessed” the power of our pet and utilized the resulting energy in a productive manner (i.e. the dog pulled us from our house to the house next door). It is possible to imagine that somewhere back in prehistory, after man had succeeded in domesticating what we now know as the dog, that he had the exact same experience.

In virtually all primitive hunter-gatherer societies, the domesticated dog was to some degree a liability. The dog and its owner competed for the identical food source, essentially meat-based protein. In times of scarcity, when he and his family were facing starvation, the hunter (man) would certainly think twice about sharing this food with his “pet” dog, and yet he did. The dog was domesticated for very good reasons, there had to be an overall benefit for man.

At some point this early hunter conceived of the notion that his dog’s strength and agility could be used to meet man’s needs in ways that even man himself was incapable of. No doubt these dogs of prehistory provided companionship, they offered some degree of protection, but they were also work animals. These dogs were trained/used to hunt and to track and to pack and to pull, and the benefits clearly outweighed the liabilities. In the process the hunter must have tied a piece of sinew or leather thong around his dog’s neck and experienced the benefit of having that dog help him as the hunter himself was struggling with a heavy load. The dog had been “harnessed” and was now pulling.

As the fog of prehistory began to dissipate, there emerged essentially two foundation harness styles or types that have continued to evolve until the present day. From the Paleoeskimo and the Eskimo background comes the absolutely incredible example of form-follows-function, the untanned sealskin harness that has spawned scores of variations and yet in itself is essentially unchanged today from what it was two thousand years ago and is still being used exactly as it was in Inuit prehistory. From the Native background evolved what we have come to call the chest or breast harness, made of tanned hide, usually moose or caribou. This harness style has also evolved and yet it also is still being utilized in its original form.

Generally these harness types were shaped by two influences:

· cultural sophistication and
· environmental/geographical factors.

Let us look at the two harness types from each of these perspectives.

When Captain John Ross became the first white person to have contact with the Polar Eskimo in 1818 off the coast of Greenland near Savissivik, he was connecting with a very isolated people who were still living in a prehistoric stone age culture (1). These people fabricated everything they needed and used to survive out of skin or hide, bone, ivory and rock (it is true they also had an extremely limited supply of wood and meteoric metal). Think of how limiting it would be to have only these materials to work with. When Ross established contact with the Polar Eskimo, they had sled dogs and these dogs were pulling a sled fabricated virtually entirely out of small pieces of bone and ivory lashed together with strips of seal skin (2) The dogs were harnessed with the trademark harness made of untanned or “green” sealskin and they were tethered to the sled by individual traces made of strips of hide, possibly from a square flipper seal or even a walrus.

The hide for the harness was untanned probably because of the lack of knowledge of the tanning process. The seal skin would be scraped and dried and then softened by repeated working of the hide or even chewing. With the colder often freezing climate of the polar regions, the need to tan the hide was not as pressing. The hide was cut with razor sharp stone microblades that were really flakes of rock that had been chipped from a larger stone. Alternately the hunter may possess a piece of meteoric iron salvaged from a meteorite. This would have been pounded and shaped and then hafted to a bone handle and then sharpened and used as a cutting tool (3). With these raw materials and tools, the harness was cut from the hide, it was shaped and fastened with pieces of rawhide (sealskin), any sewing would be done with sinew from the seal using a needle made of bone and the toggle to fasten the harness to the trace would be made of ivory. The end result was an absolutely amazing product, a harness ideally suited for the task at hand.

When describing this harness it is tempting to write in the past tense for this is a description of what is probably the original sled dog harness. Yet the amazing thing is that it is also possible to write in the present tense for these harnesses are being made and used even today, essentially unchanged over hundreds and possibly thousands of years. The sealskin harness is really the template for what is now referred to as the “siwash” or “web” or “X back” or “H back” harness and the Guard or Long Distance harness.

The sealskin harness fits the dog snugly, there is no need for padding with the thickly –furred double coated Eskimo Dog and the design eliminates any problem of rubbing or chafing because the harness is designed in such a way that it moves with the dog. The harness is often made from a single piece of hide that is ingeniously cut in a way that eliminates the need for extensive sewing. The design starts in the middle of the dog’s back, the hide is cut so that two strips cross the dog’s flank on each side and then through the dog’s front legs, around the neck and then back to join the hide along the dog’s flanks. At the chest, the two strips are tied using small pieces of hide but they are tied in such a way that as the dog’s right front leg moves forward, the right front part of the harness moves with the leg and it is as though the harness is “hinged” at the chest. Similarly when the left front leg moves forward, the “hinging” action allows the left front part of the harness to move with the dog. The snug fitting harness also becomes shaped to the contours of the dog’s body, much as hockey skates or ski boots are moulded to the shape of the owner’s foot. Further, the hide will roll over on itself, creating a smooth surface with no rough or raw edges that could chafe the dog, especially under the front legs. The harness is completed by sewing a cross piece over the dog’s back and attaching an ivory toggle to the harness at the middle of the dog’s back. The toggle is fastened to a loop made of hide and this loop might be of any length. One other ingenious feature of some of these harness is that they are adjustable and by changing the placing of the ties across the chest, the harness can be made to fit a smaller or a larger dog.

The fact is, there are many other groups of Inuit throughout the Arctic. While we have been referring specifically to the Polar Eskimos, many of the same comments would apply to Inuit throughout the Arctic, with some modification. In many ways the Polar Eskimos were the most culturally impoverished. Elsewhere throughout the Arctic their cousins were using kayaks and were able to hunt on the water, they had the snow house which they heated with lamps made of soapstone burning oil rendered from seal fat, they had access to predictable supplies of wood for fabricating a variety of tools such as spear handles and dog sleds, the Copper Eskimo “discovered” by Stephannson in 1915 used tools made of native copper. But all of these groups had the same harsh climate and unforgiving topography in common. All lived above the treeline, all travelled on the sea ice which became jumbled as huge ice blocks crashed and crushed one another and rose into massive walls and pillars making travel extremely difficult.

The ideal way for dogs to be harnessed in such topography was in a manner that would allow each animal to pick it’s own way through the ice blocks. Rather than having the dogs tied to a central tow line or harnessed together, it made much more sense for each dog to be fastened on it’s own individual lead, fastened to a common spot at the front of the sled. This manner of fastening dogs to the sled became known as the fan hitch. It is ideal in the frozen Arctic for use in large barren treeless areas. In order to harness dogs in this manner, the sealskin harness described above was ideal. Each dog on it’s own trace with the trace running from the sled to a harness, pulling from a point on the harness located roughly in the middle of the dog’s back

“The Cree Indians of northern Quebec belong to the Algonquian linguistic group. Their ancestors are thought to have first settled on the east side of James Bay some 4,000 years ago. These early settlers lived as nomads, eking out an existence from the sparse resources that the taiga had to offer, by hunting, trapping and fishing (4)”. It was in this cultural context that we find the origins of the second type of foundation sled dog harness, the breast or chest harness with side traces.

The Cree are used here to illustrate an evolutionary process that was taking place with other aboriginal groups resident in the Canadian Boreal Forest or Sub Arctic or the Taiga. Those Native groups surviving with the realities of a climate that included harsh, cold winters with significant snowfall, and terrain that was generally hilly or rolling forested land. Certainly compared to the Polar Eskimo, their culture was quite sophisticated. Probably the most significant difference was the presence of unlimited supplies of wood as well as the availability of large land mammals. These people were hunters, they used bows and arrows, spears and deadfalls to kill animals. They had a technology that allowed them to travel on water (canoes made of wood and tree bark). For cutting they also used flaked microblades, they also had access to meteoric iron and native copper. These Native groups were traders and precious commodities would find their way from one group to the other from west to east. One such commodity was obsidian, a volcanic glass that, when flaked, produces microblades that are among the sharpest cutting edges on the earth. Even today obsidian microblades are used by surgeons to perform delicate eye surgery.

These people also developed a unique technology, a means of preserving the hides of the large mammals like moose, caribou, deer and elk through a process known as tanning or smoke tanning or brain tanning. Brain tanning allows the fibres of the hide to be broken down causing the hide to become soft, pliable and free from rot. It could then be cut and sewn and made into a host of useful items to ensure survival. Much of the existence of these people depended on the use of tanned hides. They were used for clothing, shelter, footwear and many other uses. They were also a valuable trade item with other aboriginal groups living further to the west where the large mammals were not as plentiful.

“The seventeenth century brought to this area the first European explorers such as Henry Hudson, who arrived in 1610. These were followed by traders who were keen to exploit the furs that the region had to offer. These traders relied on close collaboration with the Cree. The traders would have found it very difficult to survive without assistance from the Cree who knew the land and were excellent trappers. Both sides benefited from the relationship. The fur-traders introduced [countless items including] guns, metal objects and string which were useful to the Cree, while they themselves were quick to adopt certain aspects of Cree technology, such as snowshoes and canoes [and toboggans and sled dogs] (5)”.

These people have had domesticated dogs for hundreds of years. One of the first documented records of this fact occurred in Samuel Hearne’s 1769 book A Voyage From Prince of Wales Fort. Hearne travelled from Fort Prince of Wales on Hudson Bay in a circuitous route to the mouth of the Coppermine River and back again. He travelled with the Dene people and visited with other Aboriginal groups over the course of almost three years.
“Their (Dene) tents, kettles and some other lumber are always carried by dogs which are trained to that service and are very docile and tractable. These animals are of various sizes and colours, but all are of the fox and wolf breed, with sharp noses, full bush tails and sharp ears standing erect. They are of great courage when attacked and bite so sharp that the smallest among them will keep several of our largest English dogs at bay. These dogs are equally willing to pull a sledge (6)”.

These aboriginal groups had developed the wooden toboggan as a means for pulling heavy loads over snow and ice in winter. At first these toboggans were pulled by hand and were designed to travel or track behind the puller who would probably be wearing snowshoes to travel through the deep snow. This meant that the width of the toboggan was limited to approximately 16 inches and the length was limited by the strength of the puller. At some point it made sense to train their domesticated dogs to pull these toboggans and in order to facilitate this, the dog harness was developed.

The harness was cut from tanned hide or skin, and sewn or tied together using sinew or special knots. Originally there would be no metal or wooden parts to this harness. The harness design had to reflect the realities of travel through deep snow in a forested land. This meant that the dog would have to pull immediately in front of the toboggan and in turn would have to follow directly behind the hunter who would be “breaking” the trail in the deep snow using snowshoes. These requirements dictated the style of the breast or chest harness. This type of harness consisted of a single strip of hide that went across the dog’s chest and extended down the sides of the dog for a distance of two or three feet behind the dog, essentially creating two traces or pulling straps, one on each side of the dog. The sides of this central piece of hide were connected by a small strip of hide that ran behind the dog’s head while a second strip connected the two sides of this central piece of hide running underneath the dog’s belly. The two traces were fastened to the toboggan, one on each side of the front of the toboggan. In this way the dog would follow along in the hunter’s snowshoe trail with the toboggan tracking perfectly behind.

For a variety of reasons, many of them related to the fur trade, it became desirable to pull heavier loads over longer distances. This necessitated using more than one dog in order to have more power for pulling heavier loads. The second dog was simply placed in front of the first dog and the traces of it’s harness were fastened to the traces of the harness of the dog behind it at a point just behind the rib cage of the dog . This allowed for two dogs to join forces in pulling the heavy load, still in single file following the snowshoe trail of the hunter, with no danger of getting caught up on the many trees along the trail. It was possible to add more and more dogs in this manner and this style of harnessing and running sled dogs is now referred to as the tandem hitch. In reality, such dog teams rarely were large than four dogs and usually smaller. Initially the hunter would snowshoe ahead of the team and if the conditions permitted he would run behind the team while holding on to a rope fastened to the toboggan. This led to the whole concept of a lead dog trained to follow commands and eventually the development of the traditional wooden dog team toboggan and the ability of the hunter to actually ride on the toboggan behind his team of dogs (7).

As indicated above. The amazing thing about both of these “foundation” harness styles is that they were so perfect when first developed that they continue to be used in their original form even today. And yet they have also evolved and changed and this will be the focus of the second part of this article. The evolution of these foundation harness types has been influenced by one or a combination of the following factors:

Technological changes/advances/influences
Developments in understanding of dog anatomy and physiology
The type of sled dog being bred
Changes in how sled dogs are being used
Economic factors
Personal preference

When one cultural group interfaces with another cultural group, changes in technology are inevitable. This was certainly true of the aboriginal people of North America. As indicated above, the technology used by the Polar Eskimo was essentially that of a stone age people and that of the Native inhabitants of the boreal forest was not significantly more advanced. With the coming of Europeans came iron and steel and cloth and in some cases wood....the list is a long one.

The Inuit sealskin harness resisted change for many years, the original design was so perfect. With the chest harness however there was room for significant change. Not necessarily improvements, just change. In Europe of course the main means of land transporation was the horse and wagon. The draft horse harness was common and had evolved to a state of sophistication. It was not a big step for the Europeans to suggest modification of the draft horse harness for use with other draft animals, notably sled dogs.

The chest or breast strap was replaced by a fitted and padded leather collar. This collar was made of soft tanned leather, sewn with linen thread and padded (stuffed) with either rye straw, cork or animal hair. This padded collar fit snugly over the dog’s head but not too tightly that the dog would choke. The side straps or traces of the original breast harness were retained but were fastened to the sides of the padded collar using metal hardware from Europe, most notably buckles or other metal connectors adapted from the draft horse harness that would allow for some adjustment. In this way one harness could be used to fit more than one dog. The back band was retained however it was padded with a heavy felt fabric. The belly band was also retained but it was fastened to one trace while on the other side a clasp or “snap” was incorporated to fasten to a metal ring that was sewn to the trace. The leather used in the manufacture of this harness was often European-tanned cow hide, heavier and thicker than the brain-tanned moose hide. The leather was sewn using linen thread and metal sewing needles. The traces were fastened to the sled or toboggan again using metal clasps or snaps. Along the traces, just behind the backband, metal rings were sewn. The traces from the harness of the dog running in front were snapped or fastened to these rings and so the dogs were fastened in line, running in single file or tandem.

The frontpiece of the 1976 publication Racing Alaskan Sled Dogs by Bill Vaudrin is a reproduction of a drawing of a “different” type of sled dog team. The musher is sitting on a sled with two runners, a sled that looks very different from an Inuit komatik. There are five dogs “marching” in front of the sled and these dogs are lined up in two pairs of two dogs each with a single dog in front. They are all fastened to a single line that comes from the front of the sled and the musher appears to have a set of reins in his hands. This drawing is labelled “A simple leather thong around a dog’s neck served as the original harness” and the drawing is attributed to “J. Webber, the offical illustrator for Captain Cook” and it is dated 1778. It states that this drawing is taken from “Ledyard’s journal”.

This drawing might be the very first record of sled dogs “harnessed” side-by-side pulling from a central tow line. The drawing was made at a time when Captain Cook was travelling up the west coast of North America, before he undertook a similar journey up the east coast of Australia. It would seem that this drawing captures the influence of the Russian method of harnessing and running sled dogs, an influence that was unique in North America but which eventually was to spread throughout all of the dog mushing world. While the drawing states that the “harness” consisted simply of a “thong around a dog’s neck”, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how this thong evolved into what is now called the “siwash” harness which is turn was an evolution of the Inuit foundation harness described above.

At the turn of the 19th century, there were therefore two distinct influences on Alaskan dog harness technology. The collar harness strongly influenced by the Klondike Gold Rush which very quickly spilled into Alaska from the Yukon and the long-standing influence of the Russian and the Alaskan Eskimo dog drivers. Over the next fifty years, a rapid series of changes in dog harness design and use took place in Alaska. This process of change is, in fact, something that is still going on. It is interesting to note how “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

In Bill Vaudrin’s book, an article by Earl Norris about the “History of Modern Sled Dog Racing in Alaska” comments on the evolution of not just equipment but also of the types of dogs being used in Alaskan sled dog races. Only Earl Norris would have been able to provide such a valuable record.

“A regular mail team, with freighting harnesses and sled, won the first All-Alaska Sweepstakes; but before the following spring, a great deal of experimenting with sleds and harnesses took place. Various designs were tried, but it was Scotty Allan who had a sled weighing only 31 pounds built for the 1909 race. Current racing sleds are modeled closely after this type of sled with varying basket lengths.

The old style of leather harness with collar and singletree was discarded for a simpler one, which also permitted better freedom of movement. Ironically, some designs were borrowed from the very type used by the original inhabitants of the Arctic before the days of the gold rush. The Siberian dogs were worked in harnesses native to the areas in Asia where they came from. A few, like the Seppala harness, were adaptations of the leather work harness, which was the result of the white man fashioning a horse’s harness to fit a dog.

The experimentation that took place with equipment also went on with the dogs. Bird dogs, trail hounds and sight hounds were bred into the Native husky strains in attempts to produce better and faster dogs. Late in the navigation season a Russian fur trader, Goosak, arrived in Nome with a team of 10 Siberian huskies to enter the 1909 All-Alaska Sweepstakes race. After having led most of the way, he fell off the pace toward the end and finished third”.

Initially all harnesses were made from leather. It seemed obvious that dogs would be able to move more freely if harnessed to a central towline and this led to the development of what Norris calls the Seppala harness. This harness consisted of the horse collar of the tandem harness however there were no side traces. Instead, the straps from the padded collar came to a leather pad located in the middle of the dog’s back. Other straps fastened to this pad ran through the dog’s front legs and were also fastened to the collar with adjustable buckles. An adjustable belly band was also an integral part of this harness. A metal ring was fastened to this leather pad and the tug line, which in turn was fastened to the centre line, was fastened to this metal ring with a spring-loaded snap. These harnesses were still quite heavy and cumbersome but they allowed the dogs to be able to be harnessed side-by-side. This in turn allowed for much larger teams as the length of the string of dogs was cut in half. The length of the tug line was relatively short and the dogs were pulling from the centre of their backs.

This Seppala harness in turn was modified in many different ways. Photos of early Alaskan sled dogs show harnesses with leather straps running every which way around the dogs, through their legs, some with padded collars and some without.

There is a school of thought that believes that if a dog pulls down from the middle of the back, it will cause irreparable damage. Remember, the early 20th century was the time of heavy freighting with sled dogs in the north. An obvious evolution therefore was the development of a harness that still utilized the padded collar but which saw the leather straps run from the collar crossing over the dog’s back and dropping down below the dog’s hips where they were kept from rubbing the dog’s hind legs through the use of a “spreader” bar. A metal ring or hook was attached to the middle of the spreader bar and this in turn was fastened to each dog’s tug line. This became the classic freight harness and was used by Amundsen on his 1912 journey to the South Pole, it was used by many of the Klondike freighters and mail carriers, and it was used by the American military with the dog teams that were created for rescue work during World War II. A modified form of this harness is still widely used in modern weight pulling competitions.

Interestingly, this harness design crept westward and became very popular among mushers in the Mackenzie Delta area of the Northwest Territories. This area was a true “melting pot” of sled dog technology as influences from Alaska (and Asia) to the west, from the Inuit to the east and from the Dene to the south all came together. Smart mushers chose those aspects of each influence that worked for them and so it was not uncommon to see teams pulling komatiks using the Alaskan spreader-bar freight harness while others would be pulling basket sleds while still others would be pulling wooden dog team toboggans with a traditional tandem harness arrangement.

It is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned article concerning Alaskan sled dog racing, Earl Norris also refers to the way in which dog driving ideas from one area spread to another….

“Many of the entrants in the Ruby races had colorful names: The Dago Kid, the Minto Kid, and the Going Kid. It is interesting to note that the latter subsequently moved to the Pas, Manitoba, where he revolutionized driving dogs, introducing the Alaskan hitch and basket sled to an area in which dogs had been driven in tandem hitch only in front of toboggans”.

It was only a matter of time before harnesses would be fabricated from a material other than leather. No-doubt harnesses had long been made of rope or thongs, but with the advent of cotton canvas they were made of folded canvas fabric, then of specially-made cotton webbing and then cotton webbing reinforced with polypropylene and then of either poly or nylon webbing of all widths and strengths. In cotton webbing’s early days, it was often referred to as “lamp wick” because that is exactly what it was. This flat, relatively strong cotton wicking was used for snowshoe harness as well as for making dog harness.

Today these harnesses are referred to simply as webbing harnesses however their roots are in the leather harnesses described above. Webbing has the advantage of being much cheaper, much more widely available, more easily shaped and sewn into a finished harness form, much lighter and not nearly as palatable for a dog that might choose to try and eat the harness. Webbing harnesses are lightweight, they can be easily dried after use, they are much simpler to repair and it is much easier to use harnesses that fit each dog properly. The advent of these materials led to the development of even more harness styles.

A related development was the elimination of the padded leather dog collar. At one time, padded dog collars were sold by the thousands throughout the north. With the advent of the web harness, the designs eliminated the padded collar and the padding was added instead to the webbing itself. Remember that the Inuit harnesses addressed this issue by actually incorporating a “hinged” design into the manufacture of the harness such that the harness actually moved with the dog. Of course the Eskimo Dog used by the Inuit has a thick double coat akin to a grizzly bear, so the need for any padding was essentially minimal. As the northern breeds were crossed with other lighter-coated breeds, the need for some kind of padding to prevent chafing was obvious. Also, all synthetic webbing is not created equal, some is flexible and forgiving while other webbing can be very rigid and harsh to the touch. When this was combined with the fact that the web harness was sewn in a manner such that the flexible movement of the Inuit harness was not a design feature, the use of padding was necessary. Initially padding consisted of heavy wool blanketing not unlike a 4 point Hudson’s Bay blanket and this was supposed to prevent the dog’s neck and the area between the front legs from rubbing and chafing. Padding evolved to include a myriad of fabrics including polarfleece and high density foam covered with a waterproof nylon fabric. Other technological changes included the use of synthetic thread that resists rot, velcro fasteners, elasticised webbing, plastic fasteners and buckles, metal hardware including rings and buckles, metal rivets and wire.

Just as all web harnesses are not equal or the same, this is also true of the variety of gangline hookups used with these harnesses. It is appropriate to talk about ganglines for the design of the harness usually influences the design of the gangline. The classic gangline is fastened to the front of the sled and essentially consists of multiples of two dog sections culminating with either a single or double lead-dog section. The two dog sections consist of a centreline, with lighter weight tuglines fastened to the centre line and running to the back of the dog to be fastened or “snapped” to the loop or metal ring which is at the back of the harness. This is the point from which the dog pulls. Two much shorter lines are fastened to the centre line just ahead of the dog’s neck and each neckline is in turn fastened or “snapped” to the dog’s collar. Each two dog section is in turn fastened to another similar section and so on until the whole team is in place with each dog essentially transferring it’s pulling power to the main line or centre line with each dog pulling from a point at the base of the tail or just below the tail if a freight harness with spreader bar is used. This hookup allows for each dog to follow behind the dog in front, lateral movement is restricted by the neckline. If desired, it is also possible to hook the dogs up in single file rather than side-by-side. This usually would happen if the trail was extremely narrow or if, for some reason a dog should be run on its own without a partner.

This style of gangline hookup works well in areas that are relatively open, with a clearly defined trail and terrain that is not too rough. In the arctic, where the sea ice rises and falls and creates difficult barriers with no clear path or trail, a much different type of gangline hookup is required and this is called the fan hitch. Again, the dogs pull from the centre of the front of the sled (or komatik), but each dog is pulling on it’s own line and instead of running behind each other, each dog is free to pick it’s own way through the jumble ice of the trail. The individual tugs are of different lengths, and the musher or hunter will usually give a trusted lead dog the longest trace while the slower slackers or trouble makers are usually given the shorter traces that keep them closer to the sled. The individual traces are usually fastened to the harness at a point that is just back of the middle of the dog’s back and often the traces are fastened to the harness using an ivory or bone toggle rather than a metal snap. Each dog is free to run where it wishes, there are no necklines that restrict lateral movement. Inevitably this means that the traces become quite tangled and so the Inuit musher must take time to intermittently untangle these traces. This is facilitated by an ingenious way of fastening the traces at the front of the komatik using a heavy hide loop fastened with an ivory or bone toggle. The Inuit mushers, just like the Russian dog drivers sit on their sleds or komatiks as they drive their dog teams. The Inuit musher uses a long braided whip to control his animals and he becomes very adept at flicking this whip right next to the ear of a dog that isn’t pulling it’s weight.

An interesting variation of these two gangline hookups evolved in the Antarctic, particularly with the British. Originally the British explorer Robert Scott obtained his dogs from Russia and he also used Russian dog drivers to care for the animals and to teach the expedition members how to run a dog team. Photographs taken during his 1912 attempt to be the first to the South Pole show a clear Russian influence in terms of the dogs used, the type of sled and the type of hook-up, which is not unlike the classic Alaskan gangline hookup. Later British expeditions in the Antarctic, particularly with the BAS or British Antarctic Survey show a unique modification to this style of gangline hookup.

The main hazard for sled dogs in the Antarctic are large crevasses. The fear was that if the dogs were all fastened closely together, if one dog fell into a crevasse, it would take all of the other dogs with it as well as the sled. The BAS devised a hookup with each dog on an individual trace of varying lengths, some longer than the others, but all fastened along a central towline. Again there were no necklines so that the dogs could pick their own route however the dogs tended to follow behind each other in pairs, benefiting from a fairly well defined and packed trail, the jumble ice in the Antarctic is not as extreme as in the Arctic. If a dog did fall into a crevasse, the others would not be pulled down with the dog. Usually it was a simple matter for the dog driver to run to the unfortunate dog down the crevasse and pull it up to safety by it’s tugline. The individual traces in this hookup tended to by fastened at the back of the dog at the base of the tail, there didn’t seem to be a preferred method of hooking up the dog to the trace.

There is ongoing debate about just where on the dog harness the tug-line should be fastened. Similarly, there is debate about just how long the tugline should be.. The concern is that if the tugline is too short and the dog is pulling from the base of the tail, the force will pull downwards on the dog, putting great pressure on the hind legs and back. It is also felt that if the tugline is too short, it will force the dog’s hind end into the centre line, causing the dog to run in an uncomfortable “crabbing” motion. The physicists among the dog drivers are continually concerned about lost power due to lines that are too long or forces that are not being applied in a straight line. It isn’t clear if there is a right or wrong way to hook up dogs using a gangline. Certainly there is no perfect way. One recent development is to place a spreader bar right into the main centre-line. The result of this innovation is that the dog is pulling from a point that is approximately 10 inches out from the centre-line. The dog is essentially pulling in a straight line from the point where the tugline is fastened to the end of the spreader bar. The theory is that the hind end of the dog will not be pulled off to the side towards the centre line in an unnatural and painful manner. Proponents of this method also utilize a modified harness that has the dog pulling from underneath the base of it’s tail, however there is no spreader bar in the harness as there is with the traditional freighting and weight-pulling harness.

Web harnesses have taken on innumerable design shapes but probably four designs dominate the sled dog world.

The X Back Harness- Also referred to as the Siwash Harness or the Fishback Harness. This is really the most common and universally popular of the web harness designs because of it’s simplicity. Much of this popularity is probably due to Mel Fishback who owned a business known as Zima Harnesses and who was probably the first to mass-produce (by hand) a quality product that was accessible to virtually all mushers. The harness design consists of a padded neck section as well as a padded piece along the dog’s chest. Two pieces of webbing run through the dog’s front legs, along the dog’s sides to the base of the tail where the loop for pulling is fastened. From the point just behind the dog’s head in the centre of the neck, two other webbing pieces cross to intersect with the webbing that runs along the dog’s sides at a point approximately in the middle of the ribcage, again on each side of the dog. Generally the angle at the point where two pieces of webbing meet is 60 degrees. An additional two pieces of webbing are shaped into an “X” and these are sewn to the other parts of the harness so that the “X” is in the middle of the dog’s back, keeping the harness from sliding from side-to-side.

There are various variations to this basic harness design. This harness may be made with several pieces of webbing or with one continuous piece of webbing. The “X” on the back may be replaced with a single piece of webbing running across the dog’s back very close to the tail. The chest piece may be made wider or narrower by using more than one width of webbing. The weight of the webbing may vary from extremely lightweight polypropylene to heavier (and wider) nylon. The padding generally runs around the dog’s neck and chest but for long distance mushing, the padding is often extended to cushion other areas of the dog’s anatomy, especially the flanks. These harnesses are generally made in standard sizes and dogs are measured so that they use the right-sized harness. Usually the loop at the dog’s tail is made of rope but occasionally it will be a metal ring. This loop varies in length so that the overall length of all harnesses, no matter what size, is the same, which is usually 32 inches. This means that a small harness would have a longer loop than a large harness but the overall length of both would be the same.

When fitting these harnesses, it is important that (to quote Mel Fishback) “measure the dog and not the coat”. The measurement around the dog’s neck is taken from a slot or depression just behind the head between the scapulas to a point or notch just above the dog’s breast bone and then doubled. This should allow for a harness that will not choke the dog but will also not be so big that it will pull back on the dog’s shoulders thus restricting movement. The measurement between the dog’s front legs is crucial for if it is too long, the harness will rub under the dog’s front legs and cause severe rubbing and even bleeding. The finished harness should be perfectly symmetrical, it is actually quite beautiful to look at.

The H Back Harness is probably most like the traditional Inuit sealskin harness in design. Proponents of this harness design maintain that when sized properly there is absolutely no chance of it rubbing or chafing the dog. Essentially the H Back harness consists of a chest piece not unlike the X Back harness and the webbing does run around the dog’s neck however at the back of the head at the base of the neck, the webbing does not cross over, rather it runs in two parallel lines beside the dog’s spine to the base of the tail where it is joined and where the rope for attaching the harness to the tugline is located. Two pieces of webbing run through the dog’s front legs and joint with those pieces running parallel, to the dog’s spine at a point approximately midway down the ribcage or it is possible to extend these two pieces of webbing so that they don’t join until much closer to the base of the dog’s tail. Three additional pieces of webbing are used. One short piece joins the two pieces of webbing directly behind the dog’s neck, one longer piece of webbing runs across the dog’s back and connects the four pieces of webbing running back towards the dog’s tail (thus the name “H Back”) and a third piece of webbing connects the same four pieces of webbing close to the base of the dog’s tail. The harness is padded much like the X Back, around the dog’s neck and chest and if desired, underneath the dog’s flanks.

The H Back harness is harder to fit for the dog than the X Back...it is not quite as forgiving. However when it does fit correctly, it fits straight and is less prone to pulling off to the side than the X Back harness.

The Collared Harness is a relatively new design that appeared when traditional northern “husky” dogs were being increasingly crossed with hounds and other finer-boned short-haired dogs. Essentially the size and shape of the sled dog was changing and the traditional harnesses like the X Back and H Back weren’t doing the job....they didn’t fit properly, usually they were too big in the neck and were restricting movement in the front end. With the Collared harness a separate collar, not unlike the traditional padded leather sled dog collar is fabricated out of webbing. It is well padded, often with a dense foam that doesn’t absorb moisture and this in turn is often covered with a nylon fabric. This collar fits over the dog’s head snugly but it doesn’t choke the dog. It has many of the advantages of the traditional padded leather collar in that it doesn’t pull back on the dog’s front shoulder blades, restricting movement. From this collar at the base of the dog’s neck (behind the head), there is a piece of webbing (or two pieces sewn together) approximately 2 inches long that runs through the notch between the two scapula bones of the front shoulders. At the end of the 2 inches, the harness more or less takes the shape of an X back harness that is sized to fit a finer-boned dog. The webbing running through the dog’s front legs is not unlike an X Back harness. Care must be taken with narrow-chested dogs to ensure that this part of the harness does not rub the front legs or does not lie on one side or the other of the chest bone. These harnesses are padded much like the X Back or H Back harnesses.

The Long Distance Harness (also called the Guard harness) is a fascinating new (old) development in harness design. For years those who have trained and used dogs for tracking have used a modified form of sled dog harness with their dogs. The tracking harness is either (1) a type of chest harness made of webbing and fastened and adjusted using buckles, sometimes padded and at other times it is not or (2) a variation of the design is to use a modified X Back harness that is sized to fit the dog so that the harness pulls from the middle of the dog’s back. In both cases the tug line is fastened to a ring that slides or moves from side to side. This harness design is said to reduce the downward pressure on the hindquarters of the dog, the sliding “O” ring also allows the dog to be able to pull in a straighter line, thereby reducing “crabbing” and pressure on the dog. This style of harness is often used without a neckline.

There is an uncanny resemblance between this harness style and the traditional Inuit sealskin harness. Eskimo Dogs running in the fan hitch wore harnesses that were designed to pull from the middle of the dog’s back. The individual traces were fastened to the harness with a bone or ivory toggle placed through a thong loop that was part of the harness. Because each dog was fastened to it’s own line, it would sometimes pull from the right and at other times from the left (from side to side). Of course, animals fastened in a fan hitch were not hooked to a neckline. There is also a similarity between this harness and the Seppala harness that was popular during the early days of the Nome to Candle Sweepstakes races.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This type of harness is now being used very successfully by mushers in long distance racing.

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(1) The Polar Eskimos were cut off from southern Greenland by more than a hundred miles of barren ice, with the coastline buried under the continental ice cap. Their nearest Canadian cousins were some five hundred miles to the southwest, near Igloolik. Lacking good means of transport, the Polar Eskimos (who were sop miserly with their dogs that it was only with the greatest difficulty that Ross was able to procure even one) were never able to go very far north, south or west of Ellesmere Island, according to the geographer H.P. Steensby, writing in 1910. “We are alone in the world” they told Sacheuse [Ross’s interpreter}. Yet they had a vague notion that there were people living to the south of them....The Polar Eskimos had practically no wood or telluric metal; no kayaks; no bows or spears (with the exception of narwhal tusks); no leisters (three-pronged spears) for catching salmon. Apparently the only tools they needed were small knives, and raw materials such as bone and stone. Ultima Thule, Explorers and Natives in the Polar North, Jean Malaurie, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2003.

(2) “The runners of the sled [qaamutit ] are constructed of fragments of bone (walrus?), lashed together with thong (15 fragments on the left and ll on the right). The running surface is made of strips of walrus ivory (10- on the left and 14 on the right). The sled, closely examined by British Museum curator John King (see Inter-Nord no. 16, CNRS, Paris, 1982, pp 278-281), contains a small amount of wood, contrary to Ross’s observations. Length of the runners : 56”; width at the rear (base): 22”; height of the handles: 27.5”. In 1950-51, sleds were longer (13 feet), wider (3 feet), and higher (2 ft. 10 inches), and built of wood with steel runners. Teams had increased from three or four dogs to between ten and fourteen”. Ultima Thule, Explorers and Natives in the Polar North, Jean Malaurie, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2003

(3) Ross collected some artefacts from the Polar Eskimos and presented these to the Lords of the Admiralty in 1819. A test conducted by the British Museum in the late 1980’s determined that the “meteoric iron” of one of the blades was in fact of European origin. This would invalidate Ross’s conclusion that this population was totally isolated. At the very least it had occasional access to drifting ship’s timbers carrying nails and other iron. It is also a fact that the Norse (Vikings) had colonized southern Greenland before the year 1000 and the technology of smelting iron ore was known to them. It is not a big jump to suggest that over time the Polar Eskimos would have access to some of this metal

(4) Quoted from The Vanishing Arctic by Bryan and Cherry Alexander. Blandford, CASSELL PLC, Wellington House, 125 Strand, London, WC2R 0BB, 1997

(5) ibid

(6)Empire of the Bay, an Illustrated History of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Peter C. Newman, Madison Press Books, 40 Madison Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5R 2S1

(7) See a related article to this one entitled The Traditional Wooden Dog Team Toboggan, written by Jeffrey Dinsdale and appearing on the Mushing Past blog (www.mushingpast.blogspot.com)