OCR Text |
Show OrVT Livi WITHOUT DOGS. f&sktmog Find the Faithful Animal a Necessity Ne-cessity of Their Miserable Existence. "Without dogs the larger portion of the great Eskimo family peopling the barren northern coast of America would find it impossible to exist in its chosen home." So writes E. W. Nelson in hia "Mammals of Northern Alaska." They we used in the winter for hunting, sledge drawing and the like, but in summer sum-mer are mostly left to shift for them-, selves. They receive much hard usage, as well as do much hard, work, but are described nevertheless as a rollicking set, full of play, fond of human society and quarrelsome as schoolboys. Mr. Nelson credits them with a vein of humor and declares that their varying characteristics can be read in their faces. They are worth from $2 to $15 apiece, according ac-cording to age, size and intelligence. For sledge drawing they are harnessed in teams of either seven or nine three or four pairs and a leader. The load is from 850 to 700 pounds, and the course is mainly through unbroken snow or ver rough ice. Wfth a team of seven dogs and a load of more than 800 pounds Mr. Nelson made a journey of more than 1,200 miles in about two months. The last 60 miles were made over a bad road in a continuous pull of 21 hours. They are much affected by the moon. During full moon half the night is spent by them in howling in chorus. "During the entire winter at St. Michael's," Mi-chael's," says Mr. NelHon, "we were invariably inva-riably given a chorus every moonlight night, and the dogs of two neighboring villages joined in the serenade." He speaks of its "wild, weird harmony" and seems to have found it agreeable rather than otherwise. The influence of the moon ia also very apparent when the dogs are traveling. They brighten up as the moon rises, and pricking up their ears start off as if they had forgotten their fatigue. The fur traders take advantage ad-vantage of this fact and sometimes lie over during the day and travel almight. The dogs endure an astonishing degree of cold. Mr. Nelson saw a female with two newly born puppies lying upon the snow near a hut, with no sign of shelter, when the thermometer ranged from 80 to 35 degrees below zero, |