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In 1912 Robert Falcon Scott, the polar explorer, along with four companions successfully reached the South Pole only to find that they had been beaten by the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. Burdened by heavy equipment, much of which they discarded in favour of sled-dogs, Scott and his party were bitterly disappointed to find that Amundsen had beaten them by just over a month. Sadly, Scott and his party perished on their return journey from exhaustion, hunger and cold. In contrast, Amundsen had previously spent three winters icebound near King William Island, Canada, where he learned Arctic survival skills from the local Nattilik people. Among many other things, Amundsen learned to wear animal skins instead of the heavy, woollen parkas that were worn by polar explorers at that time. He learned also to use sled dogs and to travel light and fast. No wonder then that later, Amundsen and his four companions not only beat Scott to the South Pole but lived to tell the tale. It was, of course, the sled dogs that enabled both explorers to travel across the frozen wilderness of two continents and they have been used in snowbound environments ever since. Possibly, the most notable of sled-dog achievements occurred in 1925 when a relay of dogs forged their way through the interior of Alaska to take urgently-needed medical supplies from Anchorage to Nome; an event commemorated annually by the famous Iditarod Trail Race. Thus, has emerged the sport of sled-dog racing and enthusiasts race in many places around the world. The Husky dogs are wonderful to see when they are harnessed to a sled or cart. Their impatience to be ‘off’ is something I’ve seen in Alaska and on Spitsbergen. Their raw energy when they are working is an amazing thing to see; their sheer enthusiasm is clear from the way that they urge each other on, their tails wagging like windmill vanes in a gale. Of course, you don’t have to go to the polar regions to see sled-dogs working as teams of them can be seen in places around the country pulling wheeled rigs. I’ve seen them, for example, racing through the New Forest. Once a year there is the Highland Dog Sled Rally held in the Cairngorms, and this year’s rally took place at the weekend when, watched by over 2,000 spectators, 200 competitors and 1,000 Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes and Canadian Eskimo dogs raced round a four mile track pulling sledges instead of wheeled rigs. This was the first time in fifteen years that there was enough snow for sledges to be used in this event and, from what I saw on television, the dogs as well as their owners had a great time. For the dog-lover there can hardly be a more interesting and exhilarating spectacle than to see sled-dogs in action and pulling as part of a team. You see immediately their enthusiasm and energy and get some idea of their speed and endurance. Few of us get the chance to travel to the frozen wastelands of the Poles but perhaps the sled-dogs we see around our own country are a link to the great polar explorers and the sled-dogs they relied on all those years ago.
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Siberian Husky Club, sled-dogs, Siberian Huskies, Alaskan Malamutes, Canadian Eskimo dogs, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, Iditarod Trail Race, C,
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