The Chinook.

9/30/2021

Close your eyes & imagine this: the year is 1917, tis a frigid January 17th in Wonalancet, a village located in Tamworth, NH. A Mastiff-mix "Kim" has been bred with a Greenland Dog (& direct descendant of one of Peary's sled dogs) "Polaris"... 3 puppies have been whelped, you've named them "Rikki", "Tikki" & "Tavi" respectively, ode to Kipling.

One pup really stands out.

"Rikki" was precocious & brilliant, enjoying all of the traits his breeder desired in a dog. He was thus re-named "Chinook" in honor of the breeder's favourite lead sled-dog from the Yukon. Glorious, masculine, funny, & a cream-puff with children. Chinook, in his yellow suit was a true mutant...a freak...not resembling either parent...yet stamping generation after generation with his look & character.

Intentionally bred by the dashing adventurer, Arthur Treadwell Walden. Chinook founded the breed we know & adore...The Chinook.

Born in 1871 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Arthur Treadwell Walden eschewed city life for that of the country & lived at his family's bucolic home in NH as soon as he was able to decide for himself ("live free or die", right?).

1896 found him heading to the Yukon with Klondike fever, wanting to cash in on the gold rush. Thus, Walden became an outfitter, serving the masses with supplies of every make & variety & it was here that he came to admire sled dogs, gaining great experience into their ways, characters, nature & uses...he became a Dog Puncher.

Returning to New England in the early 1900s, Walden married the wealthy Katherine Sleeper in NH, she had owned & operated Wonalancet Farm & Inn in Wonalancet, NH. Together, she & the dashing, buckskin-adorned Arthur began breeding & training sled dogs at there with the Kennel name being Chinook Kennel. The ground-breaking litter whelped on 1/17/1917 started it all.

Chinook lead the winning team at the 1st International Dog Derby OF 1922, in Berlin, NH...& then proceeded to set distance records, time records, weight-pulling records etc.. He was a phenom, even summiting Mt. Washington as lead dog in 1926. In fact, New England became a dog-sledding hub...& New Hampshire adopted the Chinook as it's state dog.

In 1927, Walden applied for & acquired placement for he & Chinook in the Byrd Expedition. Though he was 56 & Chinook was 10 & it was against policy, Walden was assigned as lead driver & trainer of the expedition's dogs. As such, the winter of 1927-28- involved prepping dogs, gear & men at the Wonalancet location. Of the 100 dogs trained for the expedition...half were sired by Chinook!

It was during the expedition & on his 12th birthday that Chinook disappeared. It was speculated that, nearing his end Chinook had simply wandered off to eternity in the endless polar vista .

Newspapers around the globe reported the passing of Chinook.

Upon Walden's return to NH, the townsfolk wanted to rename the roadway which connected Wonalancet to Tamworth in honor of Walden.

Walden requested that it instead be named for Chinook.
& it is.

The road known as "Chinook Trail" exists to this day.

1928 found Walden publishing his memoir, "A Dog puncher in the Yukon". & by 1930, he had sold Chinook Kennels to Milton (a chemist from Oregon State University!) & Eva Seeley who'd not only acquired one of Walden's Chinook pups, but had managed Chinook Kennels for Walden while he was on Admiral Byrd's first Antarctic Expedition.

The Seeleys immediately began a Husky & Malamute breeding operation...& their version of Chinook Kennels became the hub at which dogs were collected, bred & trained for Byrd's 2nd & 3rd polar expeditions. This also melded into governmental military contracts with Chinook Kennels supplying dogs for Army & Navy use during WW2.

Eva Seeley was a woman of some controversy. Considered a bully at best, there are lengthy articles written about the nature of her control, manipulation & need to act as THE conduit of Malamute & Husky breeds. Indeed, she created a massive division in the breeds themselves It is quite clear that Chinook Kennels was a commercial dog production & while we can discuss what a puppy mill is or is not, there were a lot of dogs being bred & channeled through Chinook Kennels, with profound affect on the format of the dog breeds themselves.

All told, Chinook Kennels, under the tutelage of the Seeley's, provided dogs for 6 expeditions! (Byrd's 2nd expedition; 2 US Army explorations; a US Air Force weather mission; & the US Army's North European campaign of WW2).

In 1955, President Eisenhower assigned Eva (Arthur had passed in 1945) with assembling & training sleddogs for Operation Deepfreeze-a Byrd-led 60-day international geophysical expedition...Eva stated: "Each trip needed about 200 dogs, this place was a regular village, we had tents up & down the hillside & makeshift housing for the trainers & the men who had to get used to feeding & caring for the dogs before they left on the expeditions"....

Admiral Byrd presented the Seeleys with a plaque at the Wonalancet site in 1939 commemorating the "noble dogs whose lives were lost in the pursuit of science.

To peruse an article revealing these snarky politics...scroll down below my cool Chinooky slideshow...

Back to the Chinook breed, the following breed clubs offer loads of intel...(including breeders!):

chinook.org/breeders/

http://www.chinookclubofamerica.org/breeders--available-studs.html