WHEN DID MUSHERS START STANDING ON THE BACK OF A DOG SLED?

There are three designs that are the basis for all present-day “sleds” used with working sled dogs:
· The komatik
· The wooden dog team toboggan
· The basket sled...also known as the Nome sled, freight sled and racing sled

At what point did the dog driver or musher begin standing on the back of the “sled” when driving the dog team? In order to understand the answer to this question, it will be helpful to look at the history and evolution of each of the above “sled” designs individually.

The Komatik
The Inuit of North America and Greenland have traditionally used a heavy sled known almost universally as the komatik. These komatiks are still being constructed and used today in a manner that is essentially unchanged over two thousand years. With the Inuit, light weight was never really an issue. It was much more important that the sled be very strong and that it be capable of carrying all of the family’s hunting and living equipment and materials. The design of the komatik has proven to be ideal and perfect for the purpose for which it is still being used.

Typically, in addition to snow and ice-covered lakes and rivers, the Inuit also must drive their dog teams over sea ice that is comprised of fields of broken pack-ice. These are essentially huge blocks of ice that grow to a great height with alternate melting and freezing and the working of the tides. The Inuit also must drive his dogs over bare rocks and tundra, and often the komatiks would be left to plunge over ridges and drop-offs. The Inuit drive their dog teams in the spring and early winter when there are only marginal snow and ice conditions, often driving the dogs over bare ground and rock. The conditions under which the Inuit use sled dogs, dictate that a heavy, very strong yet flexible type of sled be used. In addition, the load must be securely lashed to the sled.

The komatik consists of two heavy runners, now each made of a single piece of wood but originally, when wood was not available these runners were made of small pieces of bone and wood lashed together. These runners in turn are connected by cross pieces, again now made of wood but originally made of wood or animal bone. In extreme emergencies the Inuit hunter would use pieces of frozen hide (soaked in water and frozen) and even frozen fish as temporary structural members in their komatiks. These cross pieces are lashed to the runners using seaskin. This allows for strength but also flexibility.

To promote an easy glide, the bottoms of the runners were originally covered with pieces of ivory that were ingeniously lashed to the runner. This was to reduce friction when the komatik was being pulled by the dogs over the snow and ice. Later, the bottom of the runner was covered with mud which was then scraped or planed smooth and covered with a thin layer of ice, again to facilitate a smooth gliding surface. Eventually the bottom of the sled runners came to be sheathed with a piece of steel, which in turn would be covered with a thin sheeting of ice when sliding conditions warranted. Now, sled runners are almost always covered with a high molecular weight plastic which is screwed to the runners and which facilitates travel over all types of conditions.

Almost universally the Inuit hunter or musher either runs beside his komatik or rides seated on the komatik, often on top of the load. The Inuit dog driver does not stand on the back of the komatik as is typical with the basket sled and in some cases the wooden dog team toboggan. The Inuit hunter drives his dogs with the use of a long whip (as well as voice commands) and running beside the komatik or sitting near the front, greatly facilitates the manner in which this whip is used to control the dogs.

In Greenland, the komatiks are manufactured with a set of upright stanchions or handlebars on the back of the komatik. These are used for pushing and guiding the komatik, they are not used to enable the hunter to stand on the back of the komatik as he would on a basket sled or wooden dog team toboggan. The runners of the komatik do not protrude back past the bed of the komatik.

Komatiks range in size depending on the number of dogs being used to pull and the purpose for which the komatik is being used. It is important to remember that traditionally the Inuit hunter was not interested in speed but rather in endurance and capacity. Usually everything that he and his family needed to survive was on the komatik with him. The Inuit hunter was “at home” wherever he was, so the concept of making speed towards a final destination is not the same for the Inuit as it is for the non-Inuit. Occasionally however, smaller komatiks would be used either for children or to facilitate travel that was just a little bit faster.

It is true that traditionally, when the Inuit kept small numbers of dogs (remember that the dogs and their human masters competed for the same animal protein food source....they both ate the same thing), often the adult members of the family would also harness themselves in with the dogs when pulling the family belongings on the komatik from place to place.

With European contact and the evolution of the fur trade economy, the size of Inuit dogteams became larger and larger. This was to facilitate travel in order to be able to check a long trapline. It was also a reflection of the relative wealth of the hunter as he was able to generate money from trapping. This enabled him to purchase time saving items that would make his life much easier (metal pots, firearms, cloth fabric, etc.) In turn his lifestyle and dietary habits changed. He was no longer exclusively dependent on hunting in order to feed his family. Hunting seals and caribou became much easier with the use of firearms and so it was possible to feed larger numbers of dogs. But with all of these changes the method of dog driving has not changed. The hunter still either runs beside the komatik or rides on the komatik when trail conditions permit and when it is not possible to keep up with the dogteam by running. Given the realities of driving sled dogs in the harsh arctic environment, there would simply be no advantage to standing on the komatik.



The Wooden Dogteam Toboggan
It is not too difficult to imagine how Aboriginal groups living in those areas where cold winter weather conditions associated with heavy snowfall, ice and difficult winter travel conditions conceived of the idea to pull their heavy loads rather than carry them on their backs. At first it might simply have been a matter of binding their load in leather wrappings and pulling the frozen hide over the snow behind them. Very quickly it would be apparent that the shape of the leather covering would determine the ease with which the load could be pulled. The traditional upturned front or “toboggan” shape made pulling much easier. Experimentation would show that the hide could be frozen into this shape and the result was much easier pulling of heavier loads. Probably the original toboggan was just the hide of a recently killed animal on which a load was placed and dragged (by women). For woods travel however this method would not be efficient, not only would it track poorly, but it would be too bulky to slip between trees.

In some areas, wider pieces of birchbark could be used for this purpose and it would then be a small step to realize that upturned pieces of wood could be fastened together and the load could in turn be lashed to these wooden pieces to create a less bulky, stronger and more efficient “toboggan” to carry even heavier loads with relative ease. Traditional Native builders would use straight-grained wood that was relatively easy to split using the technology available to them. While hardwoods like birch or ash would be ideal and more durable for toboggan building, it would be very tempting to use a soft but easily worked wood like white cedar for toboggan construction. Using wooden wedges and stone mallets it would be possible to split an average sized log and then in turn to split off a relatively flat board that could be smoothed and trimmed with a cutting tool made of flint or obsidian. By boiling the wood and using leather thongs to hold it in place, it would be possible to create the characteristic curve in the front of the toboggan. Of course, until the white man appeared with metal tools and hardware, there would be limits to just how this wood could be worked and shaped.

The toboggan evolved and lent itself for use in areas where there was deep snowfall and light fluffy snow which often meant that the areas tended to be forested and hilly. We are talking about central and north central Canada and parts of the U.S. When the conditions were predominantly hard frozen and icy, another type of snow vehicle, the sled, which consisted of two wooden runners and cross members, not unlike the Inuit komatik but much smaller and lighter, was developed. On the frozen lakes and rivers of the boreal forest, a light version of the sled was often employed. The treeless high arctic has very different climactic conditions with lots of windswept ice and the toboggan is not indigenous to these areas. Here, as indicated above, the Inuit developed a more solid kind of sled for heavier loads, known as the komatik.

At some point in the evolution process, and as alternatives presented themselves, the matter of personal preference also played a role. This accounts for the fact that in some very similar geographic areas, the toboggan remained the “sled” of choice while elsewhere different types of “sleds” evolved.

It is suggested that the toboggan technology may have originated with the Cree people of Hudson’s Bay and then spread westward. The Anishinabe (Chippewa, Ojibwa or Saulteaux) called it nobugidaban, a possible source of the English word toboggan. As it evolved the toboggan came to be made of thin hardwood boards, which were curved up at one end using heat or steam. The number of boards would be determined by the size of available trees and the overall width of the toboggan was limited to the width of the packed trail, usually no more than 16 inches in width. The strength of the person doing the pulling was also a factor and this usually determined the overall length of the toboggan. Hand drawn toboggans were usually only under six feet in length.

Cleats of wood were attached across the boards to hold them together. These cleats or crossmembers were originally fastened with sinew or rawhide. Two holes would be drilled through the crossmember and the toboggan board and then a small groove was cut between the holes on the bottom of the board. The rawhide running from one hole to the other would lie in this groove and therefore be protected from the abrasiveness of the snow. The thong would then be fastened on the top of the crossmember. This would be repeated at each point where one of these cleats crossed over the edge of a toboggan board.

Cleats or cords were also fastened along the sides, providing side-rails through which a cord could be passed back and forth across the load to secure it in place. Another cord was attached to the front of the upturned boards for pulling the toboggan over the snow.

How old is this technology? Certainly reports from the very earliest contact between North American aboriginal people and European explorers make reference to the toboggan (and the snowshoe and the canoe). The earliest artwork depicting life in North America from the 1700’s clearly shows toboggans in use.

Just when dogs were first used to pull toboggans is unclear. Native people probably used dogs to pull heavier loads, certainly dogs have been domesticated in North America for thousands of years. Dogs were certainly being used as pack animals and it is known that they were also used to pull toboggans before the coming of the Europeans. Samuel Hearne makes mention of this fact in his book A Voyage From Prince of Wales Fort about his 1769 journey to the mouth of the Coppermine River:

“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(l).”

As Hearne points out, in the summer, dogs were also used as pack animals and in other areas they were used in the summer to pull and drag loads piled on a wooden device know as a travois. Certainly the beginning of the fur trade era in the late 1600’s, with the associated requirement that heavier loads be transported over longer distances in shorter periods of time in winter conditions necessitated the use of sled dogs as we know them today. Perhaps the most important point for our discussion is not simply the fact that dogs were used to pull toboggans and sleds but really the manner in which these dogs were put to this use.

It was the fur trade that triggered changes in the construction and use of the wooden dog team toboggan. With the fur trade came wholesale changes in the lives of Aboriginal people living in Canada. Very quickly Native people developed a dependency on the trade goods that the fur traders had to offer. Why wouldn’t they? A sharp metal axe for cutting and shaping wood, a metal knife for working with wood and skinning animals, a sharp-pointed metal sewing needle, a metal pot for boiling water and cooking food...all of these items made life so much easier and freed time for other important tasks. This list could go on and on, with the coming of the fur trade the aboriginal way of life was changed permanently. The one item that the traders wanted in return for these goods was the pelt of the wild animals that lived in the forest. To cover the territory required to trap these animals in the numbers need to obtain the trade goods, the Native hunter had to devise a way to travel longer distances in a shorter period of time and this had to be done in the winter when the pelts of these animals were in their prime.

The fur traders also had the same transportation needs. As fur trade posts developed throughout central and northern Canada, a very sophisticated supply network had to be maintained. In the summer months, the obvious way to do this was on the waterways and the voyageurs in their birch bark canoes and the Hudson Bay Company traders in their York Boats were instrumental in covering thousands of miles each paddling season, carrying trade goods westward and fur pelts back on the eastward journey. In the winter however, canoes and York Boats were useless, it was necessary to depend on the sled dog to maintain transportation links. This was all the more important as the number of competing traders and trading companies grew in number. There is nothing like competition to encourage innovation.

By looking briefly at the history of the fur trade therefore, it is possible to develop a time line for these changes in the use of the wooden dog team toboggan. The Hudson Bay Company was granted a charter to trade in and around Hudson’s Bay in 1670. Originally their plan was to have the Native trappers come to them so they established a series of forts around the perimeter of Hudson Bay and James Bay, the greatest of which became known as Fort Prince of Wales. This plan did work for a relatively brief period of time and some of the Native hunters living relatively close to the forts on Hudson’s Bay fairly quickly became middlemen and the Cree hunters would trade with the members of the Beaver tribe (for example) living further to the west.

However competitors, most significantly the Northwest Company had a different philosophy. Based in Montreal, their plan was to take the trade goods to the Native trapper directly, thereby intercepting these trappers as they made their way each season to the trading posts that were established around Hudson’s Bay. It became obvious that the Bay had to change their trading practices.

Samuel Hearne was an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company and in 1769 he set out from Fort Prince of Wales on snowshoe with Native guides to travel to the mouth of the Coppermine River and back. The trip took him a few years. He learned a great deal about the different Northern Athapaskan groups, he saw how they lived and where. Samuel Hearne went inland again in 1774 and established the very first inland Hudson’s Bay Post at Cumberland House located at a strategic navigational crossroads in north central Saskatchewan. From this point on it was nothing but expansion until the various trading empires stretched north to the small islands of the high Arctic, south to the Gulf of Mexico and west to the Pacific ocean. In 1821 the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company amalgamated and became one and throughout the North the Hudson’s Bay Company enjoyed what was essentially a monopoly until near the end of the 19th century.

To adapt the traditional hand-hauled toboggan for use with sled dogs required a few changes. The toboggans became larger and this was essentially accomplished by making them longer. Over time the width of the toboggan was governed by the width of the snowshoe trail and then the width of a dog team running in single file. This width was essentially 16 inches. There was no point in making the toboggans wider for they still had to track in a relatively narrow trail left by either snowshoes or a team of sled dogs or both. The nature of the boreal forest was also a factor that determined the width of the toboggan as trees were relatively close together. Because of the terrain to be travelled, it made sense to have the dogs travel in single file, one behind the other, what is today referred to as the tandem hitch.

With metal woodworking tools, it became much easier to produce the required toboggan boards. With metal or copper bolts, wire and nails, it became easier to fasten the cross members to these toboggan boards. Eventually a more-or-less “standardized” toboggan shape and size evolved for use with sled dogs.

A board (known as a toboggan board) was usually 8inches wide by 1 inch thick by 10 or 12 feet long, meaning that there would be from 7 to 9 feet of board on the snow. Two of these boards fastened side by side offered a 16 inch wide toboggan. Occasionally three boards would be used. The hood or front of the toboggan was bent in a full curl, almost a 360 degree bend. The front of the toboggan board was usually trimmed narrower to 6 inches in width, approximately three feet of the board would be thinned with a wood plane, a draw knife or even a crooked knife. This end of the toboggan board would then be boiled in hot water until the wood was pliable. Some toboggan builders would add motor oil or lye to the water as the board was boiling, claiming that it made bending easier. An alternative method would be to steam the wood for bending, but in Canada’s rural north, boiling was a much simpler procedure. Once ready, the board would then be wrapped or bent over a form or jig of the correct shape. Once the bend was in place, the bent board would be tied in place and left to dry for several days. Each builder would have their favourite bending form but in some isolated communities like Old Crow Yukon, there existed in the centre of the village a communal bending form made of a large section of a log and virtually every toboggan made in that community, no matter who the builder was, was bent over that same form.

In Canada’s North, the preferred wood for making dog team toboggans was “imported” from the south. The various trading companies would do a brisk business in oak, ash or hickory toboggan boards “brought in” from the eastern part of Canada and the U.S. Sometimes the traders would “bring in” pre-bent toboggan boards and a trapper/musher would simply buy the pre-bent boards and would fasten them together to make his own toboggan. Sometimes a pre-bent toboggan board would be purchased to repair a broken toboggan and this is one reason why the size of the boards became standardized. The traders also did a brisk business in selling complete toboggans to trappers and mushers. One area for further research is to document the source of these toboggans. One can surmise that over the years of the “heyday” of the fur trade, thousands of traditional wooden dog team toboggans were sold by traders throughout the Canadian north.

Birch was a hardwood species indigenous to the boreal forest and birch was also used for toboggan construction. The birch trees tended to be smaller and so sometimes it was possible to use several narrower birch boards in the construction of a sled dog toboggan.

Traditionally (pre-fur trade), aboriginal people did not keep large numbers of dogs for working purposes. This is readily understandable when one considers the fact that the people of the boreal forest and areas further north lived by hunting and fishing. The food that they sought for their own sustenance was also the exact same food source that their dogs required for survival. It becomes evident that hunting for a large number of domesticated dogs, no matter how well they could pull, would be out of the question. So traditionally, what we have come to call dog teams would be very small and usually the hunter and his wife would also be harnessed to any toboggan along with the available dogs as they family moved their belongings from one location to the other in order to pursue hunting and fishing.

However, the traditional wooden dog team toboggan continued to evolve as new needs surfaced. As indicated, the fur trade brought with it the increased need to transport traders from one location to another. A unique adaptation to the toboggan appeared, known by the french word cariole. The wooden toboggan was modified with a wooden backboard looking very much like the back of a chair approximately 25 inches high, fastened to the rear of the toboggan. Along both sides of the toboggan from the top of the backboard to the hood or front of the toboggan and enclosing the open sides of the hood, coverings made of untanned hide were fastened, therefore creating an enclosed area that could be kept clear of snow. With the addition of a soft pad to sit on and warm furs for cover, this presented as an ideal single person vehicle for travel from one post to another. The cariole would be pulled by a team of three to five dogs harnessed in tandem. The musher (or marcheur) would usually run along beside the cariole, holding on to a rope or line fastened to the hood of the toboggan. If necessary he would break trail for the dogs by travelling in front of the dogs on snowshoes and at these times he was referred to as the foregoer. Often several toboggans would travel together in single file in what was termed a dog train.

At some point, the dog driver realized that it might be possible for him to also ride on the toboggan when trail conditions permitted. To accomplish this, he simply moved the backboard forward about one foot, thereby creating a small area where he would be able to stand behind the passenger. When the going was really good, he could jump on to the small area behind the backboard and ride on the toboggan itself while holding on to the backboard. Inevitably the musher realized that more dogs would give more power to pull the heavier load and so the size of the dog teams increased. The notion of a trained lead dog that would respond to voice commands was a final part of the evolution in dog driving, making it unnecessary for the musher to run beside or in front of the dog team in most conditions.

When carrying freight, rather than a passenger, the musher would often run along side the loaded toboggan with the load securely wrapped in canvas and lashed to the toboggan bed, not unlike the Inuit method of lashing goods to the komatik. Increasingly however the need to carry even heavier loads and also for the musher to be able to ride on the toboggan became evident. It was necessary to develop some way to carry a large load of equipment and supplies in a manner that would allow the musher to quickly transfer goods into and out of the toboggan without having to unwrap a complicated system of lashing and at the same time allowing him to travel on the back of the toboggan when conditions permitted, over increasingly long distances.

The toboggan wrapper along with the backboard is probably the single development in the evolution of sled dog equipment that most nearly attains functional perfection. The wrapper is essentially a piece of canvas folded and sewn roughly in the shape of a canoe. In its finished dimensions it is approximately one fort shorter than the length of the toboggan and about 2 ½ times as wide as the toboggan’s width. The canvas is sewn into the “canoe” shape by folding the fabric in half lengthwise and sewing the front and back seams. Along the edges of the sides, metal grommets or canvas or webbing loops are fastened about 12 inches apart. The wrapper is then placed onto the toboggan with the centre seam on the front directly in the middle of the hood and the wrapper is fastened to the front of the toboggan hood at the highest point of the bend on both sides of the toboggan hood.

The backboard or handlebar is not unlike the back of a chair. It is the width of the toboggan at the bottom and usually increases in width towards the top to approximately two feet in width and it is usually about 25 inches long or tall. The backboard may be simple or fancy. Typically it is essentially two handles fastened together with cross-members, it is something for the musher to hang onto as he rides the toboggan. The handlebar or backboard may be as simple as a piece of plywood with holes cut into the top for gripping or metal hoops bolted to the top to hang on to. The handles may be shaped from the curved root of a tree and finished to perfection.

The backboard is placed inside the canvas wrapper about one foot from the back of the toboggan, snug against a crosspiece that has been bolted or wired to the toboggan for this purpose. As with the cariole, this leaves room for the musher to stand at the back of the toboggan. A tie-down rope is then run from the side of the toboggan hood, wrapped around the handlebar and then down and back to the very back corner of the toboggan (a perimeter rope has been run around the perimeter of the toboggan through holes drilled into the crosspieces and the tie-down ropes are looped through this perimeter rope). From the back corner of the toboggan the tie-down rope is then run back to the top of the handlebar and then down to the perimeter rope approximately a foot in front of the base of the handlebar. The rope is then run back to the handlebar and then the tie-down rope is tightened and tied. This is done for both sides of the handlebar, the handlebar is now very snugly in place without using any bolts. The canvas wrapper is then pulled up and the sides are folded over the tie-down rope running from the hood and another rope is laced through the grommets or loops and down to the perimeter rope running from front to back. This rope is then tied at the handlebar.

The wrapper is now in place. This method of fastening the backboard-wrapper allows it to flex and move with the toboggan. There is no danger of breaking or splitting any of the wood. The resulting carrying capacity is very significant, allowing the musher to carry quite bulky items like a canvas well tent or a tin stove and pipe. There is also a small area behind the handlebar for the musher to carry personal items, his axe or gun for quick and easy access. Typically toboggans were run without a brake but occasionally a hinged brake or some form of drag is fitted to the back of the toboggan. Dog teams used with toboggans are typically no larger than six or seven dogs, usually no more than five and the dogs would be trained to stop on command, the toboggan would then be turned onto its side, a snow hook was seldom required. A rope would run from the centre of the hood back to the point where the musher stood. He would hold onto this rope to help him maintain his balance as the toboggan was moving. A drag rope was also usually fastened to the front of the toboggan and would trail approximately 20 feet behind. This would be used for tying the toboggan down, but more importantly it was for the musher to grab onto if he fell off the toboggan or if the dogs started without warning

The Basket Sled
What is the origin of what is known in dog mushing circles as the basket sled? Some refer to this type of sled as the Nome sled, still others have referred to this sled as the freight sled and the racing sled. It would appear that the basket sled, which is most commonly associated with Alaska, is something that evolved from a type of sled that was “imported” from Europe, most probably from Siberia.

A 1778 drawing by J. Webber, the official illustrator for Captain Cook and entitled “A simple leather thong around a dog’s neck” shows a dog team of five dogs harnessed in pairs with a single lead dog. The team is pulling a sled that consists of two narrow runners with stanchions and a bed, the dog driver is sitting on the sled with his legs over the side, from his hand a dog whip, not unlike that used by the Inuit, is trailing in the snow. This drawing dates to the time of Cook’s third expedition along the western coast of North America, more specifically along the coast of what is now Alaska.(2)

Of course, this part of North America was largely controlled and influenced by Russian fur traders at this time, Alaska was not purchased by the U.S. until the late 1800’s. It would stand to reason therefore that Siberian methods of driving sled dogs would be introduced to this part of North America. This drawing is evidence that this was, in fact, the case, and that in the 1780’s, the dog drivers in Alaska were still sitting on their sleds.

There is a striking similarity in construction between the Siberian pony sled of the Yakut region of Siberia, the sleds used by the nomadic Even people of Siberia who travel with great herds of reindeer and the wooden dog sleds used by the Siberian dog mushers. All of these sleds continue to be constructed and used even to this day.

All of these sleds consist of two wooden runners that are bent upwards. Fastened into the tops of these runners are wooden stanchions which are mortised into the runners and fastened to the wooden runners with wooden dowels or leather lashings. These stanchions vary in height from 12 inches to approximately 24 inches depending on whether the sled is for use with dogs, ponies or reindeer. The stanchions are fastened together with wooden cross-pieces, again using wooden dowels or thongs. Along the top of these cross-pieces running the length of the sled, long wooden slats are fastened (again using dowels or lashings), creating a bed on which the sled driver will sit and upon which a load will be fastened and transported.

For reindeer these sleds are up to 10 feet long and two feet wide. With ponies, these sleds are smaller with the ponies pulling loads of about 200 pounds. With sled dogs, these sleds are smaller still, approximately 20 inches wide, the bed is lower to the snow and on some sleds a cross piece or hoop is fastened near the front of the sled, affording the dog musher a place to hang on when travelling seated or kneeling on the dog sled. With reindeer and ponies, reins were used to guide or control the animals. With sled dogs it would appear that in past this might also have been the case, but voice commands and the use of a whip were the method by which sled dogs were driven. In 1910, Sir Robert Scott made his attempt at the South Pole. Scott used both sled dogs and Manchurian ponies in his ill-fated attempt. His dogs and the ponies were obtained from Siberia and the equipment used reflects this fact. Both the pony sleds and the dog sleds are very similar in construction with the dog sleds being slightly smaller and made of lighter materials.

Some time after 1780, this type of sled began to evolve or change in Alaska. When one looks at the early photographs of dog sleds in Alaska, going back to the 1850’s, as well as the illustrations in some of the early books about dog mushing in Alaska (i.e. Frederick Whymper dating to the 1860’s) the evolution has already taken place. In order for this evolution to take place, several influences had to be in play. There would have to be an identified need to stand on the runners of the sled rather than to ride on the sled and there would have to be the technology (including raw materials) available to implement the changes. The concept of a trained lead dog so that the dog team could be controlled from the rear of the sled was also part of this evolutionary process.



One thing is clear from the photos, the evolution in sled design was initially made for working or freighting dogs. The first basket sleds were definitely built for carrying heavy loads, the smaller racing sleds came later. This fact is confirmed by Earl Norris, quoted in Bill Vaudrin’s book

“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.”(3)

This quote is very interesting in that the All-Alaska Sweepstakes were centred in Nome Alaska. This may account for the name Nome sled being applied to the smaller racing sleds referred to above (4)

The initial development of the larger freight sled would suggest that there was an economic basis for this evolution in sled design. There was a need to move larger quantities of goods (freight) and the traditional Siberian- designed sled wasn’t effective for this task. To move larger quantities of goods meant that the dog teams had to be more powerful (i.e. larger) and to control these larger teams with the traditional sled was very difficult. Similarly the larger loads made it increasingly difficult to drive the sled from a sitting position. It was necessary to change the method of dog driving. However, up to this point dog mushers or drivers didn’t ride, they ran beside or in front of their teams. The evolution we are talking about also had to accommodate dog musher’s egos...Real dog men don’t ride, they run!

Actually, as part of this evolutionary process, there was experimentation with having the dog driver actually situated in front of the sled, either walking or travelling on skis or a small board. The musher would be travelling between the sled and the dogs and the dog musher would control the sled by using a wooden pole called a Gee Pole that was hinged to the front right hand side of the dog sled. This method of driving dogs is described in the classic book about Alaskan and Yukon Dog Mushing in the late 1800’s entitled A Dog Puncher On The Yukon by Arthur T. Walden:

“The sleds were of the so-called ‘Yukon type’ seven feet long, sixteen inches wide on the runners, so as to be able to follow the narrow trails, and clearing the ground by about four inches. The top overhung two inches along each side, making it twenty inches wide. On the sides were lash-ropes, like inverted V’s, extending about eighteen inches above the sides. Two long lash ropes were fastened to the front end.....

The ordinary freight outfit consisted of three full-sized sleds, one behind the other, drawn up close and connected by cross-chains, making each sled follow exactly in the same track as the sled ahead of it. The sleds had to be so strongly made and heavily braced with iron that each weighed from sixty to eighty pounds, the front one being the heaviest. They were loaded for the average team with six hundred, four hundred, and two hundred pounds apiece, thus making a total of twelve hundred pounds, or about two hundred pounds per dog.

On one side of the leading sled was what would correspond to a wagon-pole, called the ‘gee-pole.’ It was lashed to the side, was about six feet long and three inches thick at the butt end, and extended upward from the runners at an angle of fort-five degrees, almost to the height of a man’s shoulder.

The driver walked in front of the first sled with the tug-rope between his feet, and the gee-pole in one hand. This gave him a leverage of about five feet, so that in steering a heavily loaded sled he could do it easily and accurately and stand upright. If the sled started to tip over in either direction, he could throw his weight on the pole and right the sled. He could also steady it on \side-hills, and swing around corners making a wide turn, while the sled-dog, who was almost as well trained as the leader, helped him by jumping out of the traces an pulling at right angles. The gee-pole was used to break the sled loose when frozen in, by swinging it from side to side, and to hold back on when going down mall hills”.(5)

But this manner of driving dogs lost favour and almost universally, the dog musher came to ride on the runners at the back of the sled, ego or no ego.

The method of hitching the dogs in tandem to a centre line remained the same. The introduction of the siwash or x-back harness was an evolution (based on a traditional Inuit design) that allowed the dogs to pull heavier loads. As it became impossible to keep up on foot with the larger and faster dog teams and as sitting on top of the load was no longer possible, it was necessary to devise a way for the dog musher to stand on the back of the runners. By standing on the back of the runners it would be possible for the dog driver to steer the sled by shifting his weight, it would be possible to push the sled on uphills, it would be possible to easily jump on and off the sled when conditions warranted and with the addition of a hinged metal “brake”, it would be possible to slow down the sled on downhill sections.

The basic design of the sled was gradually altered. The bed was lowered from approximately 12 inches to six inches above the snow. The bed of the sled stopped about 1 ½ feet short of the back of the runners, giving the dog driver a place to stand. The handle for holding on while moving, which had been located near the front of the Siberian sled was moved to the rear of the sled and became a handlebar that the dog driver could hold on to while the dog sled was moving. Pieces of wood were fastened along the side of the sled and when these side rails were combined with the bed or platform, it gave the appearance of a wooden basket, hence the name basket sled. (It should be noted however, early photos show that as part of this evolutionary process, before the dog driver’s ego allowed him to ride on the back of the runners, there was no back handlebar or driving bow, rather the wooden slats were bent upwards at the back of the sled, thus giving the appearance of an actual basket).

In terms of technology, the fact is, the Eskimos along the Bering Sea were excellent woodworkers who had been building kayaks and baidarkas for generations. They possessed the specialized skills to shape and bend wood, they also had the expertise that allowed them to fasten wood together with wooden pegs and to lash pieces of wood together to ensure strength and flexibility. In addition, the knowledge required to bend wood had been perfected in the art of building both kayaks and umiaks. With the traders came access to a larger selection of hardwoods that could be more easily worked. At the same time, metal woodworking tools made the task of working with wood that much easier.

In his self-published publication series called the Sled Dog Bulletin, Raymond Thompson devotes one issue to Sled and Harness Styles. Thompson describes the evolution in sled design. He refers to the Siberian sled as:

“ the ‘Samoyede Sledge’ .....the Siberian reindeer herder almost always rode his (sledge) whether he used deer or dogs. For a long trip, he would even lash himself down in his sleigh and (we presume) hope for the best. It was double-ended so that in a bad place, he could simply unhitch his deer, attach the traces to the other end and move along. Fridtjof Nansen borrowed the idea for his “Nansen sledge” [Note: the Nansen sled was used by polar explorers, a particular supporter for this sled design over the traditional Inuit komatik was Robert Peary as he attempted to reach the North Pole]. In such flat country as the area of origin of this sleigh, manoeuvrability mattered little. The driver’s feet were the usual brake. If he had a heavy load and was walking, he controlled the sled and dogs with ropes; he could also help pull if necessary.

When white men began hauling freight for profit in the north, they designed sleds for both strength and convenience. The first freight sleds had no provision for the driver to ride, but later ones did, and the foot brake became standard equipment. Sleds ranged up to 15 feet and 200 pounds. With stanchions as thick as a man’s arm and steel runners. Freight trails were usually kept packed, so such a heavy sled slid freely, with huge loads and a dozen or more dogs.

The Alaskan Sweepstakes races caused revolutions in sled designs. For many years the long, slim light racing sleds behind each team looked practically identical. The length was needed to combat the hummocks and bumps that plagued the trails, but these graceful sleds weighed as little as 30 pounds for all their 8-foot runner length. Careful selection of wood and weeks of painstaking shaving and shaping were necessary to produce a perfectly balanced sled. Dog sleds for the first time became a ‘work of art’. The slender runners were gently bent to attack deep snow easily, yet bent far back so that there would be as little friction as possible in fast conditions. A slightly upswept basket encouraged the sled to ride up out of deep snow, while the sled was kept generally low for stability.” (6)

By the turn of the 20th century, basket sleds were almost universally used. There was one interesting exception that was popular during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. The wooden sled dog toboggan was popular across the taiga area of North America. When the toboggan made an appearance in Alaska and Yukon during the Gold Rush, rigid side rails that were incorporated into a type of handlebar were fastened to the wooden toboggan using nails. This hybrid “sled” was easy to make but was totally rigid and prone to damage. Also during the Gold Rush, a modified form of the basket sled which incorporated the runners and raised bed of the basket sled but the rigid handlebar of the modified toboggan was introduced.. These sleds were mortised and tenoned and fastened with nails, they were not lashed with rawhide. These sleds were fairly quick and easy to build and could be produced in large numbers. However, they were not flexible and were also very prone to breakage.

The Evolution Continues
So that is how dog mushers came to be standing on the back of their sled runners......or is it? In the September/October issue of Mushing Magazine, an article written by Tracy Tollett appears entitled “King Sits Down on the Job...A not-so-newfangled sled from an old pro”. Famous sled dog breeder, musher and innovator Jeff King, winner of both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod was on a training run one day and decided “...I’ve gotta work on a sled that allows me to sit”. (7) This he did and his now infamous and successful Tail Dragger sled model is being copied by other mushers. But that is another story.

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REFERENCES

(1) A Voyage From Prince of Wales Fort, Samuel Hearne, quoted in the book Trapline to Finish Line by Fran Hurcomb, published by Outcrop Ltd., The Northern Publishers, Box 1350, Yellowknife, NT, Canada, X1A 1V6


(2) Racing Alaskan Sled Dogs, Bill Vaudrin, 1976 Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, Box 4-EEE, Anchorage, Alaska, 99509

This book is an invaluable resource for historians and researchers. Bill Vaudrin has brought together references to many sources of information regarding the history and evolution of dog mushing in Alaska. In this book he quotes Robert Kennicott, H.M. Bannister, F. S. Pettyjohn, Gus Jensen and Earl Norris. Also included is the artwork of Frederick Whymper, clearly depicting the evolution of the basket sled.

(3) ibid.

(4) Quoted in Bill Vaudrin’s book, Norris makes reference to Scotty Allen who was a resident of Nome Alaska. He was “...a veteran Alaskan dog racer, had been in eight of the All-Alaska Sweepstakes, and never out of the money, having finished three times first, three times second and twice third. Allen was selected by the explorer Stephanson to buy the dogs for his Canadian Arctic Expedition (1915-1919)” (p. 17)

Note:....any of the books published about Stephanson’s expedition contain photos of these dogs as well as of the sleds that Allan also provided to the expedition)” Also resident in Nome at this time was the most famous dog driver of them all, Leonhard Seppala. While Norris refers to the innovations of Scotty Allen, it is no-doubt a fact that Seppala was also making innovations of his own.

(5) A Dog Puncher on the Yukon, Arthur T. Walden, copyright, 1928 by Arthur T. Walden, All Rights Reserved..originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company, the Riverside Press, 1928...Wolf Creek Books Inc., Box 31275 211 Main St., Whitehorse, Yukon, Y1A 5P7, www.wolfcreek.ca

(6) Sled Dog Bulletin, Sled and Harness Styles, published by Raymond Thompson Company, 15815 2nd Place West, Lynnwood, Washington, 98036

(7) Mushing A Magazine of Dog-Powered Sports, September/October 2004, P:OI Box 149 –C Ester, Alaska, 99725-0149, U.S.A.