SLED-DOG POPULATION 153 



cannot subsist in winter without dog- trains ; 

 dogs which are the means of gathering from 

 great distances, and long trap-lines, the choicest 

 furs for the markets of civilisation ; and that 

 gather also the fuel- wood and winter food that 

 keep alive the dusky- hued races that hunt through 

 the dark months of the year for treasures that 

 are coveted by cultured people. 



Let a stranger enter the North ; let him come to 

 a far-out fur Post, and he will be wonderstruqk 

 at the canine population ; for if a Post contain 

 ten hunting Indians it is highly probable that 

 the whole foreground will be dominated by some 

 120 to 150 sled-dogs. The proportion of man 

 to dog is usually on such an astonishing scale. 



It is certain that the stranger will wonder to 

 see such numbers of those uncommon beasts of 

 burden, and possibly he will be somewhat sur- 

 prised that the natives of the Far North so ex- 

 tensively rear dogs for utility, with much of the 

 same purpose as his own people would rear 

 horses in the civilised South. 



And he cannot but remark the striking 

 presence, and stalwart wolf-build of those dogs : 

 some half- wild, disdainful, powerful; beautifully 

 proportioned, beautifully coated ; others less 

 handsome cross- strains, rough- coated, unevenly 

 coloured, but brim-full of courage and strong to 

 endure. 



To find the true type of sled- dogs, or wolf- 

 dogs, or huskies, or malamoots — call them what 

 you will out of those names of the country — 

 one must come to the far-out fur Posts ; for good 

 dogs, like good Indians, lie nowadays beyond the 



