In Search of a Siberian KlondikeVanderlip, Washington Baker
History
In Search of a Siberian Klondike
Vanderlip, Washington Baker
Gold mines and mining -- Russia (Federation) -- Siberia; Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
When we were done I went outside and found, to my surprise, that the
dogs had not yet been fed. I remonstrated with Chrisoffsky, but he
answered that they had not yet finished their evening toilet. Then I
saw that the dogs were busy licking themselves and biting the pieces
of frozen snow out from between their toes. My driver explained that
if they were fed before performing this very necessary task, they
would immediately lie down to sleep and wake up in the morning with
sore feet and rheumatism, and then they would be useless for several
days. It takes the dogs a good hour before they have groomed
themselves fit for dinner. They seem to know that they can get nothing
to eat before this work is done, but the minute they have finished
they sit up and begin to howl for their meal. Each dog receives two or
three salmon backs and heads. This is a fairly good amount considering
that the salmon were originally eighteen- or twenty-pound fish. The
dogs were all left in harness and still attached to the main tug.
This is pulled taut and anchored at the front with the polka, which
prevents the dogs from fighting, for no more than two can reach each
other at a time. As they feed, the drivers watch them to see that they
do not steal each other's food. After they finish their dinner they
scratch a shallow place in the snow, curl up with their backs to the
wind and go to sleep. They are never unfastened from the sledge from
one end of the journey to the other. They literally live in the
harness. While the dogs were eating, the mongrel curs belonging to the
encampment (an entirely different breed from the sledge-dog) stood
around and yelped saucily at the big intruders, but the sledge-dogs
gave them no notice whatever.
[Illustration: Theodosia Chrisoffsky, Guide.]
The dogs sleep quietly all night unless one of them happens to raise
his nose and emit a long-drawn howl. At this signal they all join in
the howl for about three minutes, stopping at the same instant. If
some puppy happens to give an additional yelp, all the others turn a
disgusted look at him as if, indeed, he ought to display better
manners. This howling concert generally comes off two or three times a
night. We do not know what causes it, but probably it is some
subconscious recollection of their ancestral wolfhood. The same thing
happens whenever the team stops on the road. They all sit and howl for
several minutes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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