654 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Husky Dog—Beast of Burden of the North 
He is Often Maligned, Always Abused, But Without Him There Would not be so Much Civilization 
HE corporal swung around the 
corner of the barracks, the five 
dogs leaping hungrily at his 
heels. “Here’s the doctor’s team, 
seargent,” he called out to the 
officer standing in the doorway. 
“All but old Mike. Traces 
chawed off and they’re ’bout all 
in. Down, Blackie, down, you brute!” 
“Something’s happened to the Doc, sure. Won¬ 
der if Mike stayed by him.” 
And something had happened to Doctor Flood, 
late surgeon to the Northwest Mounted at Fort 
Churchill, that storm-swept post on the bleak, 
northern shores of the Hudson Bay. The relief 
party found the body thirty miles to the north- 
’ard. From out the snow burrow that contained 
all that was mortal of the doctor a gaunt and 
shaggy form crawled forth to greet the search¬ 
ers. Mike, toughest of wolf-dogs and prize “trip¬ 
per” of the district, had stood by his master to 
the end. The keen-eyed Chippewyan guide had 
quickly read the signs of the trail. No mystery 
lay there. The sense of direction, so often con¬ 
fused on the trackless barrens, had deserted the 
traveller. Time and again, with the fear of the 
lost gripping at his heart, the Doctor had driven 
Old Mike, leader of his team, on to a new and 
equally false trail. As many times, in spite of 
orders and blows, had the intelligent brute re¬ 
volted and stubbornly led his comrades out of 
the deep, tiring snow back toward the firmer sur¬ 
face of the homeward trail. The end came—ex¬ 
haustion and the fearful cold. When the doctor 
dropped the faithful leader had halted; had 
watched the other five patiently, persistently 
gnaw their way to liberty; had seen the walrus 
thongs part, the starving dogs, one after another, 
leap to their feet, and take up the southern trail 
to the barracks; and then seen the master drop— 
asleep. 
So they found Mike. Plainly did the snow 
tell how he had stayed with the helpless man, ly¬ 
ing first on one side of the body, then on the 
other, in an attempt, heroic though vain, to keep 
it warm. 
The faithful “husky” won his reward—exemp¬ 
tion from further service and an extra half ra¬ 
tion of fish every second day. Only last sum¬ 
mer his pension matured, when, at the Master 
Driver’s command, he took up the last long trail. 
His body now rests at the foot of Dr. Flood’s— 
whom he served so well, on a little, rocky Knoll 
bordering Churchill Harbour. 
“MUSH! Mush on!” No longer will Old 
Mike, faithful leader that he was, answer to the 
cry. No more will he leap from his burrow on 
the side of the trail, the long, rawhide lash 
crackling about his -ears. But -“Mush ! Mush ! 
mush on!” comes the call from a hundred dif¬ 
ferent snow trails of the North. As many other 
North of “54-40” 
By R. J. Fraser. 
“huskies” spring to their feet, strain to the har¬ 
ness till the rawhide bands are lost from sight in 
the thick, bushy fur; the toboggan creaks from 
stem to stern, loosens from its frost anchorage 
with a jerk, and the trek is on. Throughout the 
white-clad Northland—from the lonely prospec¬ 
tor’s shack on the Temagami to the chilly igloo 
Reversion to the Wolf Type. 
of the oily Nechillingmiut in the Arctic, from the 
rugged cliffs of Labrador to the Yukon Peaks— 
hundreds of furry-pelted, bushy-tailed “huskies’’ 
answer to the call. In teams of five, six, or a 
dozen, hitched to freight-laden toboggans, to 
mud-shod “Komatiks,” or to “carryalls”—the 
Pullman of the North—the hardy little creatures 
tug on the traces, “hitting the trail” from dawn 
to dark. It is the “husky” dog who makes pos¬ 
sible the mail and freight transportation of the 
North. 
It is often claimed that Alaska is the original 
home of the wolf-dog. This is not quite true. 
Greenland, Labrador, and the Arctic shores of 
the Hudson Bay breed the “husky,” as they do 
his blubber-eating master, the Eskimo. The 
Alaskian “malamute,” a writer has said, is of 
the wolf strain—a statement quite true as far as 
it goes. But the “malamute” is a mixture of the 
“husky,” which contains the wolf strain, and the 
hundred and one canine bloods that have trailed 
the Yukon snows since the days of ’98. The 
“malamute” is but one grade better than the In¬ 
dian dog, that mixture of snapping snarling mon- 
grelism that roams throughout every Indian camp 
on the more central and southern plains. 
Short-legged and chunky of body with long 
nose, short, pointed ears and bushy tail, and over 
all a coarse, thickly-furred pelt—this is the char¬ 
acteristic appearance of the “husky” dog. “Husky” 
is not a derivative of the word “Eskimo,” an ex¬ 
planation often given, but is a term of contempt 
used by the Northern Indians, who hold in dis¬ 
dain their oily neighbors of the snow houses. 
To the Indian everything suggesting Eskimo is 
“husky” or “hucky,” but the generalization of the 
term being little known, it has been centred on 
the poor dog, and so as the “husky” he is known 
to us today. 
The Northwest Mounted Police alone have in 
service two hundred and fifty of these animals, 
all picked specimens of their race. Each one is 
named and numbered, and a record of his age 
and service kept at headquarters in Regina. At 
their several Northern posts they have comfort¬ 
able winter quarters—individual stalls—receive 
regular rations, and are treated in a manner sim¬ 
ilar to a troop of cavalry horses. The police 
dog’s lot, compared with the majority of his 
kind, is an enviable one. Hardship and privation 
often falls to him, but it usually has its reward. 
He is a valuable adjunct to the force, and as 
such is taken "care of. 
“Mush! Mush!” the Insistent Cry That Is Heard All Over the Northland. 
