Sled dog breeding

  Dog transportation in the north-east of Asia for centuries was one of the main means of transportation. Only thanks to it it was possible to successfully conduct fur trade, fishery, provide economic needs of the population, mail, trade transportation. Thanks to it, geographical expeditions explored vast areas, discovered new lands, and developed this faraway land,

  Keeping a dog-drawn sledge ("narta" or "narty" in Russian) is notoriously expensive, but this mode of transportation is still necessary. Only in recent years has technology come to the tundra and squeezed it out.

  In the rear part of a dog-drawn sledge there are special devices - four thin poles 1 m high attached to the two rear pairs of hooves. At the top of the poles are connected on three sides with laths. For strength, the front two poles are reinforced with two inclined slats running from their middle to the top of the middle pair of hooves.

  The space between the horizontal slats to the vardinas is interwoven with straps. This peculiar body (“kratka”) is a very comfortable device - “kibitka”.
The semi-rigid attachment of the sledge makes it flexible and strong. In addition to the musher, a load of 2-3 centners is put on the sledge, depending on the number of dogs and the time of year, at an average rate of 25 kg per dog. In some cases in spring in March-April, when sliding is good, 10-12 dogs carry up to 5 centners of cargo.

  The sledge of the inhabitants of Russkoye Ustye differs from all its other types in its lightness, good passability and durability. Whoever had good straps and birch (the straps were usually made of walrus or moose skin, not easy to acquire) had a good, durable sledge, he rode farther, carried more aces, hence earned more money.
A sledge consisting of four pairs of hooves is called a quadruple, or road sledge, intended for long journeys. The “home” or “woman's” sledge was used for small household needs; it consists of three pairs of hooves and is called a “triple sledge”.

  The hoofs of the sledge, arc and ram are usually colored. A good sturdy and comfortable sledge speaks of the businesslike nature of its owner. Not everyone can make a sledge. Making it is a labor-intensive process. The hooves and skids were made by special masters. It takes 2-3 hours to assemble a sledge from ready-made parts.

  To stop the harness, a “prudilo” was used. Prudilo is a round birch stick 1.2 m long, somewhat thinned in the upper - “hand” - part, with some extension at the very end - a “cap”. This is done to make it comfortable to hold in the hand. On the other - lower - end of the pondil was put on an iron ring - “cage” - a steel spike was hammered in. Several rings were attached to the upper end of the pondil, which rattle when riding fast and thus in some way diversify the tedious and monotonous movement.

  Prudilo also served as a harness for unruly dogs. Sometimes the musher threw the pondilo on the naughty dog's back. The rings prevented the fallen prudilo from rolling aside and the musher could pick it up without getting up from the sledge, the sledge would not stop for a second. When the sled stopped, the prudilo was put through a loop tied to the right front hoof and deeply driven into the snow, the sled was securely anchored. A wide bag made of strong fabric - “chum” - was sewn along the length of the sled. The chum was placed on the sled, all the things to be transported were wrapped in it and tied from vardina to vardina (thin pole) two times with a strong belt - “povor”.

  The way of arrangement of dogs in the Indigirian harness is paired. Dogs are fastened to a leash (“potyaga”) in pairs at a distance of one and a half meters from the pair. The leash was made of walrus or moose skin. For better strength and elasticity it was greased with fat and smoked. The total length of a leash for a sled of ten dogs was about eight meters. One end of the leash was tied to the ram, and two forehands were attached to the other end of the leash. By means of a loose short thin strap the whole sled is tied to an object during stops.

  Dog harness (“alyk”) is a leather loop with two or sometimes three bridges in the middle. The strap runs along the sides of the dog, to its ends through a metal “swivel” is attached a narrow long strap - “svara”, by which the dog is fastened to the leash. Each alyk has a belt passing under the dog's belly - “podbryushnik”. Alyks were sewn from seal or pigskin, often covered with cloth and ornamented on the outside. Sometimes the most beautiful and honored dogs were tied with an embroidered collar (“tie”) and even a small bell (“sherkunets”).

  It should be pointed out that there is considerable literature on sled dog breeding in Siberia. We find the study of dog riding methods in the works of B.O. Dolgikh, M.G. Levin, L.P. Lashchuk, A.P. Stepanov, N.M. Mikhel, P. Tretyakov and others.

  The Russian population of Indigirka and Yenisei have many common features in the names of individual parts of the narta and in the system of dog breeding. However, the Indigir people have some distinctive features.

  The skill of the Kolymo-Indigir Russian old-timers in raising and training dogs was highly appreciated by the famous polar explorer R. Amundsen. "Their only means of transportation are sledges and dogs. But they are rarely experienced in this field, and it is a real pleasure to watch how they roll up to the ship without noise and dogs' urging. They do not even use the whip. With short shouts they control their dogs perfectly.

  The animals are so well trained that they move with the greatest ease and calmness where we with scolding, cursing and whistling scourges cannot make our own move.

  However, the reason is not only because they can direct their animals wherever they want, but also because of the sledding method itself. We use the Greenlandic method, the fan-shaped method, which requires an extremely large amount of space and makes the worst use of the animals' pulling power. But here the dogs are tied to a long rope, two on each side, and in this way their pulling power is fully utilized.

  They also ice the slides of the sleds, so that the latter slip very easily. We never bothered to do this, and probably lost a lot from it. In other words - in dog riding the Russians and Chukchis are superior to all those I have seen.” [Amundsen, 1936, p. 325].

  The slides of the Indigirian narta (3-3.2 m long, 8-10 cm wide and 2-3 cm thick) were made of soaked birch or oak, or, if these woods were not available, of young larch with the bast layer preserved. (The latter are called “sap”, they are extremely fragile and almost out of use). Skids were also made of the outer hardened layer of old dry larch. The outer layer of such larch is called “kren”, and the slides made of it are called “krenevye”. (Bows and rings for net sinkers were also made of krene, which has good elasticity).

  Usually in September, the skids - both old and new - are submerged in water for two to three weeks, which causes them to become flexible and “hold ice well” - meaning that in the winter, when the skid is covered with a topical layer of ice, it lasts longer.

  Each owner had several pairs of skids and changed them several times during the winter depending on the state of the snow cover. In the fall, on loose, wet snow, the skids were slanted or oak, skids that did not “vaydayut”, i.e., did not cover with ice. In the cold season they rode on birch skids, and in spring, when there was ice, they used oak skids again. Often in spring they used steel skids, which were nailed to the usual ones.

  In spring and early fall, they also used skids made of whale ribs, which were called “bone” skids. They were tied to ordinary skids with straps. Whale skids were expensive because they were brought from Chukotka. Pairs of hooves were attached to the skids at a distance of about 35 centimeters from the pair. Each hoof had a conical spike (“nyapug”) at the end, which was inserted into a socket on the skid. The hoof is attached to the skid with a special strong strap (“kinara”).

  To fasten each hoof, four holes are drilled in the skid where the kinara is passed through in a special way.
Each pair of hooves is connected to each other by means of a strong crossbar (“vyazka”), the ends of which have a conical shape; in addition, the pair of hooves below and above the ligature is tied with “belts” and two thin and strong - “vardines” are passed along the narta.

  The space between the board and the vardina is interwoven with thin straps - “kutagy”. The front part of the skid (“head”) is bent with the help of a special template (“bala”). Before bending the heads, they are steamed in hot water. A horizontal arch (“ram”) is attached to the heads of the skids. To prevent the skids from unbending, the ends of the ram are tightly connected by straps (“lifts”) to the front pair of hooves. The ram's ends are also tied with a crossbar, on which the front part of the ram is placed. The ram's hooves are tied with a crossbar, on which the front part of the planking is placed. The hoofs on the skid are set vertically and slightly deflected inward. In terms of width, a narta has three dimensions: by skids, by ligatures and by vardins. Its greatest width is always on the skids (65 cm), the least - on the ligaments (62 cm), so the narta has good stability. A vertical arch is attached to the front pair of hooves, which serves as a kind of rudder and support for the driver. In the rear part of the narta, a small horizontal arch is also attached to the vardinas, the space between it and the flooring is intertwined with straps, and the small body of the narta is used for storing necessary travel items.

  As a rule, two dogs are harnessed in front; one is the main dog - the front-runner, the second is the most “intelligent” young dog - the future front-runner. Puppies harnessed for the first time, “so that they would not rush to the side and learn to pull”, as well as lazy dogs were tied to the leash with an additional strap besides the alike. A well-trained advanced dog is the main wealth of a sled dog owner.

  The value of an advanced dog is not only in the fact that it leads the sled and makes it manageable, but also in the fact that in a polar blizzard it does not stray from the route set by its master, it can sense lodging at a far distance and “drives the road well”, i.e. a road long ago covered with snow. It is not uncommon for hunters caught by a blizzard to drive at random. It is not uncommon to rely on the instinct of the dog-forester, usually it led the sled to the dwelling.

  Improving the breed of dogs has always been given a lot of attention. Good breeders was located in Yana River. In the fall, during the mating season, inhabitants exchanged male dogs. Each owner had a special room “pack” for keeping a pregnant bitch, where puppies were kept until they were two months old. All male dogs intended for sledding were castrated in the first fall of their lives. An uncastrated male dog does not work well in a harness and becomes thin.

Photo from https://pikabu.ru/story/

  There were unwritten rules of dog breeding. For example, if a dog often became thin with a normal diet, the tip of its tail was cut off. After that, it was as if the dog would become full-bodied. There were dogs that had a habit of eating the harness (alyk, leash), their middle part was cut off and supposedly “pulled out the worm”.

  In the fall, after a long break, riding started with warming up the dogs, i.e. with trips for short distances of 2-3 kilometers. Gradually the trips were lengthened, and after a week the usual riding began. In winter time, when riding the dogs, we made short stops - “poberdo” - for 5-10 minutes every 4-5 kilometers, in spring “poberda” was made every 10-12 kilometers. In the morning we made frequent short stops, and by the evening the distances between them increased, but “poberdo” became longer.

  As already mentioned, for better sliding the skids were covered with a layer of ice about one centimeter thick. This was done in the following way: the tent was turned upside down and a piece of hide soaked in water was passed over the skids. The operation was repeated several times until a thick and smooth layer of ice was formed on the skids. In spring (May-April), the sledge was buried in snow so that the ice would not be weathered off the skids during big stops. In the cold season (January - February), when there was a headwind, there were frequent cases when dogs with short hair froze their groins, after which they were almost unfit for sledding. Therefore, each musher had with him several “collars” - bandages sewn from fox and hare skins.

  Such collars were tied to the dog's groin. If there was a shortage of dogs, a bitch was forced to be harnessed a week or two after puberty. To prevent her from frostbite on her nipples, a special bandage - “bib” - was sewn from a strong and thick cloth. Frostbite on a dog was considered a sign of extreme mismanagement, and such an owner was not only ridiculed but also despised by his comrades.

  In spring, dogs get wounds on their feet when riding on ice for long periods of time. To prevent this, special “boots” or “torboski” were sewn from strong and thick fabric and put on the dogs' feet. Injured dog paws are now smeared with iodine, but in the old days, gunpowder was poured into a basin of hot water and the wounds were washed in this solution. The dogs were fed once a day, usually at lunchtime, unless there was a trip to be made. When traveling, the dogs were fed only after the day's route had been completed. If they had just been fed, no circumstances would make the musher ride: riding on satiated dogs made them vomit, they became thin and could not recover for a long time. They were fed with fish, at the rate of one and a half kilograms of fish per day per dog in winter time, one kilogram in spring. Sometimes fish was cooked with flour. In spring they gave the dogs seal fat: 100 - 200 grams of fat and 0.5 kilogram of fish. The dogs were fed in a special wooden trough 2.5 -3 meters long. 8-10 dogs could be fed in it simultaneously.

  The dogs were controlled by the commands: “podjpo!” - to the right; “kur-r-r!” - to the left; “potsa!” - forward; “to-o-o-o!” - stop. The Indigir Yakuts had different commands: to the right - “tyakh-tyakh!”, to the left - “naryakh! naryakh!”.

  It is not easy to steer the sled. The musher sits on the right side.

  He holds the arc with his left hand and the pond in his right hand, with his right foot on the skid. It is especially hard to steer the sled when driving fast on a well-traveled road with frequent descents, ascents and turns. If the musher notices that the narta is making a steep right turn, he gets on the skid and hangs down on the right side, and if it is a left turn, he lies across the narta and hangs down on the left side.

  When traveling fast, the musher needs to be quick on all descents, turns, etc. A driver who hesitates can be under the sled in a moment and lose the sled. The musher has a lot of worries when several sledges are being driven, and especially in the morning: it is necessary to watch carefully that the skid does not get on the defecation - otherwise the frozen feces will be a big brake to the skid: in such a case the party was overturned and ice was scraped off the skid with a knife.

A harness of Indigir sled dogs by Kupriyan Kiselev, photo by B. Dmitriev, 1986.

  To drive a sled, one must have not only skill and experience, but also a certain degree of courage and endurance. One can only imagine the picture: a deep polar night, a boundless, monotonous snow plain. A dog sled is moving across this snowy plain, and there are no dwellings, bushes or trees for tens of kilometers around.

  How does a musher navigate? In clear weather - by the stars and only by the signs he knows on the bare tundra. If there are no stars, the musher usually drags his right foot on the snow. He knows what wind blew the day before and in what direction the snow barchans were formed. With his foot he determines the angle of their slope and thus keeps the given direction. They also oriented themselves by the wind, by the slope of the grass under the snow, by snags on river banks, etc. The Russko-Ustiinians did not use a compass, relying entirely on their experience and intuition.

  It happened that blizzards forced us to sleep in the snow. The only salvation in such a case was dogs. Having left the sledge, the musher covered himself with dogs and, warmed by their warmth, waited out the blizzard.
Dog sleds have a somewhat limited value as cargo transportation, as they take relatively little useful cargo, especially when traveling long distances, when a significant part of it is dog food. However, in the development of the northeast, the Northern expeditions, beginning with the expedition of V. Bering's expedition up to our days, successfully used this transport.

  Since 1911 annual steamship trade voyages from Vladivostok to the mouth of Kolyma began. Goods for the Kolyma-Indigirka region were unloaded in the port of Ambarchik, and from there they were transported across the tundra. Russko-Ustiinians went to Ambarchik until 1935 - before the beginning of regular sea voyages to the mouth of the Indigirka. Each household was given a task: to deliver at least 20 poods of goods for public needs from Ambarchik during the winter. Taking into account the fact that it was necessary to take dog food with them, the cargo per one sled reached 500-600 kilograms. And it had to be delivered 700-750 kilometers away.

  There are known cases when one sled without change passed from Yana to Indigirka to Kolyma rivers in three days, i.e. more than 700 kilometers. It should be noted one of the most valuable features of dog transportation, which distinguishes it from horse and reindeer transportation. Dogs usually go as long as they have strength and in case of good food and relatively favorable weather are able to work from day to day for a very long time.

  The Indigirian husky has always been an object of purchase in Yana and Kolyma, and the Indigirka people were very jealous of the skill of dog riding. The art of dog riding was divided into three kinds. The first was the ability to train the dogs for speed. The second was the ability to carry the greatest amount of cargo over a distance. The third and most important was the ability to navigate the terrain in all kinds of weather. Every year the burghers traveled to Nizhnekolymsk or to Ust-Yansk.

  Each harnessed 12-15 dogs, half of which he sold there.
The “dog question” occupied a great place in the life of Russko-Ustiinians. Dogs were called cattle or little cattle, and the kennel was called a flock, a little flock (obviously, in memory of domestic animal husbandry, which was practiced by ancestors in “wise” Russia). At meetings, over a cup of tea in the evenings there were endless conversations about dogs, about their habits, about the best riders, etc. There was also the buying and selling or exchanging of dogs. There were some avid dog owners who knew almost every dog on the Lower Indigirka by sight.

  Such an increased interest of the locals in dogs is understandable, for the well-being of not only individual families, but the majority of tundra inhabitants depended on the good condition of dog transportation.

  All the above stated above color us a reason to attribute the Indigir sled dog breeding to the East Siberian type, the carrier of which is mainly Russian old-resident population.

  Russians even in the XVII century encountered Yukaghirs on the Indigirka and Kolyma, but “Yukaghirs rode on dogs in sledges of a peculiar shape” [Shrenk, 1883, p. 71]. And only with the arrival of the Russians on the Indigirka this type of sled dog sledding became widespread, displacing in some areas other outdated types, which is one of the beneficial effects of the advanced economic culture of the Russians on the life and culture of the peoples of the Far North.

Alexei Gavrilovich Chikachyov - writer, local historian, journalist, Soviet, party worker, author of numerous articles and books devoted to the development of the Arctic. Born in Russkoye Ustye.

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