ARCTIC AND OTHER DRAUGHT DOGS. 
tion in circumstances which made the use 
of the sailing boat impossible, and the 
modern explorer into Arctic regions regards 
his teams of sledge dogs as being as much a 
SAMOYEDE CH. OLAF OUSSA. 
PROPERTY OF MRS, FREDERIKA RINGER. 
necessary part of his equipment as fuel and 
provisions. 
It was in Siberia that the sledge dog 
was first applied to the service of Polar ex- 
ploration. Already in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries the Russians undertook 
very extensive sledge journeys, and charted 
the whole of the Siberian coast from the 
borders of Europe to Behring Strait. But 
this means of covering great distances with 
dog-drawn sledges attained its highest de- 
velopment under McClintock. While the 
Russians, however, travelled with a large 
number of dogs and only a few men, 
McClintock and other adventurous Britons 
used few dogsandmany men. The American 
explorer, Lieutenant Peary, saw the wisdom 
of employing as many dogs as possible, often 
having a hundred and more together. 
Nansen, who knew the utmost importance 
of having good sledge haulers, took as large 
a kennel as he could accommodate, and 
added many of his own later breeding to be 
527 
ready for his great drive in search of the 
Pole. Thirty of them were Ostiak dogs, 
but as many more were of the East Siberian 
breed which are better sledge workers than 
those of the West. Nansen owed the success 
of his expedition to his canine companions ; 
without them his memorable journey with 
Johansen would have been impossible. The 
hardships of this adventure into the polar 
loneliness were severe upon the dogs, and 
many had to be killed in turn to provide 
food for their comrades of the trace. 
“On Wednesday evening Haren was killed ; 
poor beast, he was not good for much latterly, 
but he had been a first-rate dog, and it was 
hard, I fancy, for Johansen to part with him ; 
he looked so sorrowfully at the animal before 
it went to the happy hunting-grounds, or 
wherever it may be that draught dogs go to; 
perhaps to places where there are plains of 
level ice and no ridges and lanes. There are 
only two dogs left now—Suggen and Kaifas— 
and we must keep them alive as long as we can, 
and have use for them.” * 
A HARD-WORKING ESKIMO FOREGOER. 
PROPERTY OF THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY. 
* The quotation is from Nansen’s ‘“ Farthest 
North,” and the implication in the last phrase 
is a doubt as to whether the two travellers or 
the two dogs would be the survivors. 
