, 1885-05-22

A winter Ride ON a Dog Train in British
America


~ ~ - 49,
Buffers Book on Manitoba
dogs in the territories of the North
west have but ono function-to haul.
Pointer, setter, lurcher, foxhound, grey
hound, Indian, mongrel, miserable cur
or the beautiful Esquimau, all alike are
destined to howl under the drivers
lash, &c tug wildly at the moose-skin
collar, to drag until they can drag no
more, and then TO die. The dogs are
put one after another in tandem
fashion. A complete train numbers
four, but three, or sometimes even two,
are used. The train of dogs is harnessed
to the c~ariole, or sled, by rleans of two
long traces, between which the dogs
stand one after another, the head of
one dog being about a foot behind the
tail Of the dog in front Of him. They
are attached to the traces by a long col
lar, which slips on over the head and
ears, and then lies close on the swell Of
the neck; this collar buckles on each
side of the traces, which are kept from
touching the ground by 4. back-band of
leather, buttoned under Hhe dogs ribs.
The backband and collar is generally
covered with little brass bells and gayly-
colored ribbons. Great pride is taken
by the half-breed drivers in turning out
a train Of dogs in good style.
THE fact is patent that in hauling,
the dog is put to a work from which his
whole nature revolts, with the single OK
ception of the Esquimau, and to haul
with him is as natural as that of n
pointer to point The hauling dogs day
Is a long tissue of trail, for from the
first streak Of dawn to the close of day
he is harnessed and at hard labor, with
but one meal a day Of two pounds of
pemmican or a dozen white fish or two,
as the intense cold increases and the
dogs tire out. The ice cuts their feet,
and the white surface is often speckled
with the crimson icicles that fall from
their wounded toes. The half breed
drivers, too, are brutal fellows, and be-
labor their teams without mercy at
times. This inhuman thrashing, the
frantic bowling of dogs, the bitter and
terrible cold, making up the mode of
winter travel. d
From the first covering of nov the
whole surface Of the plain is one vast
sheet of white, so bright and glistening
as to render men blind, and sometimes
crazy, by the continual glare Not a
sound is heard over this immense waste,
save now and then at night the sharp
bark Of the coyote-wolf-not a speck or
even "a bird dots the blue vault Of
heaven, nothing hut solemn stiffness
and immense cold, eliminating about
mid winter at from 40 TO "A degrees be-
low zero, or over 10 degrees of frost.
The cold becomes piercing and a bitter
wind sweeps across its surface.
"In mid winter the snow falls every
day, with o high westerly wind, veering
toward the north, and thick with
poidra, dry ice, specula hard as
gravel, and billiards. jump up
all Of sudden in seemingly pleas
ant weather-commencing with q
gale and increasing to a hurricane. tho
wind blowing at the rate of from forty
to fifty miles an hour, while the Their
mometer registers from 35 to 40 degree
below zero, with the clouds of snow
dust, hard as bullets, tho effect oan well
DO imagined. Men are silent; their lips
are blue and refuse to utter the words
they feel. Where the skin is exposed ]
becomes frost-bitten, and afterward 70
away; eyes and nostrils are glued to
/ gether, and icicles hang from the eye
lids. To touch q knife with the hand
would burn like a coal of fire. The hot
tea freezes while it is being drank,
breath freezes instantaneously into solid
Jumps of ice, and 40 degrees below zero
means death, in a period whose dura-
ton would expire in the hours Of a
winters daylight, if there was no fire or
means of kindlinQ one on the TRAIL