t6 explorations in the far north 



nose before they can be harnessed. All are accustomed to 

 fight their way through summers of starvation and winters of 

 ill-treatment, hunger and the whip. Frost or the teeth of foes 

 mark their ears early in life. Their heads are battered with 

 the whip stock or "willow" — any convenient club. Not unfre- 

 quently they are killed in harness and thrown out with brutal 

 indifference by the wayside. The method of harnessing renders 

 them more easily controlled than are the Eskimo dogs. A 

 dog may tug wildly aside to escape the descending lash but he 

 is too closely held to escape and is soon lying prostrate, his 

 head under his fore-legs, howling until the driver's feelings are 

 relieved or he is beaten into insensibility. 



The Indian dogs haul much heavier loads than would be 

 thought possible from their appearance. A team of four dogs 

 which I drove the following winter, hauled a load of over five 

 hundred pounds across four hundred miles of hilly country, 

 without a track for the sled and with a short allowance of food. 

 On November 6th, 1857, Mr. Lawrence Clark brought eight 

 hundred and fifty-two pounds of meat into Rae with three 

 dogs; this was on a level, beaten track. At Simpson, one 

 thousand pounds were hauled by four dogs, but it was merely 

 a trial on a good track to see if the team could haul half a ton, 

 and three men were required to manage the sled. One hundred 

 pounds for each dog is considered a maximum limit on hard 

 snow. 



The harness used by the Company in the Northwest may be 

 either of imported leather or moose-skin. The Indians use 

 moose- or caribou-skin, often without either buckles or the rod 

 of quarter-inch iron for stiffening the circular collar. A band 

 over the back holds up the traces and another under the breast 

 is intended to prevent the dog from escaping from the harness 

 which he sometimes succeeds in doing, upon catching sight of 

 caribou or in struggling to avoid the whip. The traces, of three 

 thicknesses of moose-skin, are long enough to allow a space of 

 a foot between the dogs. The collars are surmounted by varie- 

 gated pompons and the dog blankets or tapis, are elaborately 

 beaded or embroidered. From one to one hundred bells are 

 attached to the collars and back straps of the team; even the 

 northernmost Indians manage to secure two or three bells for 

 each dog. 



