The voters in Hart's Location and Dixville Notch have cast the majority of their ballots for the losers in the last two presidential elections, but that Ol' Dog Lover in the White House who won those contests should be gratified to know that the state of New Hampshire was right on the money in delivering to this nation one of the handful of breeds that wear the Union label: the Chinook.
A Ready Recipe
The Chinook was the inspiration of Arthur Treadwell Walden, an author, explorer, and innkeeper from the village of Wonalancet, which lies at the foot of the White Mountains in the north central part of New Hampshire. Walden aimed to produce a sled dog that possessed the strength of large freighting dogs and the speed of lighter, racier breeds.
Producing a new breed of dog is not like baking dessert, unless you're used to baking with an oven that's lacking a temperature control and ingredients whose quality changes from one batch of brownies to the next. Men like Jack Russell, who gave us the terrier that bears his name, and Lord Tweedmouth, who gave us a retriever, the golden, that doesn't bear his name, have spent years achieving that goal. By comparison, Walden's creation took no longer than one of those just-add-water-and-stir productions. Yet what a creation it was.
The first ingredient in Walden's recipe was a female named Ningo, a granddaughter of the Greenland husky Polaris, who had been lead dog for North Pole explorer Robert Peary. Ningo, whom Walden owned, was bred to another one of the dogs on his Wonalancet farm. That dog, Kim by name, was a St. Bernard mix that Walden had found as a stray near the Canadian border. On January 17, 1917, Ningo gave birth to three tawny-colored pups. Walden named them Rikki, Tikki and Tavi after the mongoose in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.
Puppy names, as dog owners know, have a knack for evolution; and Rikki, who was Walden's pick of the litter, grew into the name Chinook. In truth,inherited the name would be more precise. The original Chinook was a sled dog Walden had used while freighting supplies for gold miners in the Yukon several years before.
Clearly, young Chinook had a legacy to live up to, and clearly, he was more than equal to the task. Blessed with amazing strength, speed and a loving nature, he grew into an imposing, 100-pound dog, as smart as he was large. Walden, we are told, could stand on his porch and give commands to Chinook and his team out in the field, and the dogs would obey.
Replication Guaranteed
Chinook's greatness would have been for naught if he had not been able to reproduce his virtues in his offspring. Fortunately, he excelled at that, too, a skill all the more remarkable considering his mixed-breed heritage and the fact that he was something of a sport, i.e., he did not resemble either of his parents. He passed on his traits, both physical and temperamental, with the precision of a stamping machine. His offspring, born of German shepherd, Belgian shepherd and Canadian Eskimo mothers, were not only strong and courageous but also highly trainable and innately fond of children. Could this dog walk on water, too? Don't bet he couldn't.
Such was Chinook's genetic determination that by breeding selected Chinook descendants to one another and, occasionally, back to Chinook, Walden was quickly able to secure the supernatural sled dogs he sought. They were known at first simply as "Walden's dogs." In the early 1920s Walden road-tested a sled team with Chinook in the lead by climbing New Hampshire's Mount Washington, a 6,288-foot-high fortress guarded by schizophrenic weather that could turn the devil himself into a sniveling wuss. Considered one of the most challenging rock piles to climb, Mount Washington is buffeted by hurricane-strength winds more than 100 days a year. Even when the temperature is 70 degrees at its base, the summit may greet arrivals with a howling snowstorm. The strongest wind in the recorded history of this planet, 231 miles per hour, was clocked on Mount Washington on April 12, 1934.
Walden's wintertime ascent up Mount Washington, the first ever by a team of sled dogs, made sled-dog racing the sport du jour -- and for many jours thereafter -- in New Hampshire. The New England Sled Dog Club, which he founded in 1924, is still active today.
Read All About It
Unlike some men, who buy a sports car or a trophy wife to fend off the terrors of middle age, Walden sought greater thrills. When he learned that Richard E. Byrd, the "Admiral of the ends of the earth," was organizing the first American exploration of Antarctic, Walden threw his parka into the ring, even though, at 56, he exceeded the age limit. He and Chinook took a meeting with Byrd, who was 17 years his junior, and Byrd made Walden the lead trainer for the jaunt.
Walden and three young assistants spent a year training dogs and testing serious camping equipment on Walden's farm. They and 97 dogs, including Chinook and 18 of his male descendants, headed way south in September 1928. Byrd planned to be the first person to fly over the South Pole. Walden's primary job in Antarctica was hauling supplies and helping to set up and maintain the base camp, which Byrd called Little America. The expedition landed in Antarctica on Christmas Day 1928. From December 27 that year until March 25, 1929, Walden and nine other sled drivers hauled 650 tons of equipment and materials from the ships that had brought them to Antarctica to Little America, nine miles inland.
Without a Trace
Because of Chinook's age -- he was nearly 12 when he arrived in Antarctica -- he was put to harness only when the going got toughest. Even then Chinook's intelligence, determination and devotion to his master were awe-inspiring. "Dog and owner were a beautiful thing to see," wrote Byrd in his book Little America. "One sensed that each knew and understood the other perfectly, and it was Walden's rare boast that he never had to give Chinook an order, the dog knew exactly what had to be done." According to Byrd, "[The] heavy draught animals of Walden's own breed, [had] a splendid record. Walden's team was the backbone of our transport."
The soul of that team, Chinook, disappeared on January 17, 1929, his 12th birthday. Some historians say he was depressed by his failing ability to work as much as he used to, so he went off alone to die. Others say he had been vanquished in a fight with two younger males and, badly wounded, wandered off in defeat. Walden searched to no avail for his beloved companion.
Chinook's death made headlines around the world. (In this country The New York Times, which sent a reporter to Antarctica, had exclusive rights to the story of Byrd's expedition.) Walden, depressed by Chinook's passing, spent two more months hauling supplies to Little America. Then he spent a long Antarctic winter with his grief.
"I believe Walden loved that dog more than he did any human being," wrote one of Walden's dog-training assistants. "Until we left the ice, Walden never stopped grieving for and talking about his lost companion."
After Walden had returned to New Hampshire in the spring of 1930, he refused the honor of having the eight-mile loop of Route 113-A near Wonalancet named after him. He suggested, instead, that it be named in honor of Chinook. Last year three new markers, each bearing a likeness of Chinook, were installed along the trail.
Changing the Guardians
Despite the loss of Chinook, Walden intended to continue working with Chinook's descendants, but financial considerations forced him to sell or to place his dogs. At that time Walden owned an inn that he ran with his wife, Kate. The Chinook kennel name, together with the Alaskan malamute and Siberian husky stock that were also part of Walden's operation, had been sold to Milton and Eva B. Seeley while Walden was still in Antarctica. For the next 50 years their kennel produced sled dogs for exploration, racing and showing, exerting a considerable influence on those breeds.
Walden gave Chinook's descendants to his friend Julia Lombard, who carried on the breeding program he had established. As the director of Lombard's Wonalancet Hubbard Kennels, Walden continued to be involved with the progress of "Walden's dogs," which came to be called Chinooks sometime during the early 1930s. Arthur T. Walden died on March 26, 1947, at the age of 75, as the result of burns he had sustained while saving his wife, Kate, from a fire in their home. By then the Chinook breed was in the hands of Perry Greene in Waldoboro, Maine, who had bought Julia Lombard's stock eight years earlier. Like Lombard, Greene sought Walden's advice about breeding strategies, and Greene deserves credit for helping to preserve the Chinook -- and a certain censure for almost strangling it. A world-champion woodchopper, Greene generated great interest in Chinooks and national publicity for himself by insisting that only he knew the secret of their origin. He tried, unsuccessfully, to have Chinooks declared the Maine state dog.
"A solid wall surrounds the secret of that rare dog, the Chinook," wroteParade magazine in June 1949. That story, headlined "Mystery Breed," alleged that Greene maintained a "barrier of silence" around the Chinook. He also maintained a barrier to ownership. Prospective Chinook buyers had to stay at Greene's kennels for at least 24 hours. If Greene's house dogs didn't take a liking to a person, he or she went home without a dog. Potential customers who asked to wash their hands after petting the dogs failed the screening test, too. Moreover, people who did get dogs got only what Greene wanted them to have. He didn't allow unaltered females to leave the kennel, and he did his best to make sure no one who bought a dog from him owned more than two Chinooks at once.
Perry Greene died in 1963. His wife and Chinooks survived him, but by 1966 the worldwide population of Chinooks numbered only 125. A phone booth would have qualified as a convention center for Chinook breeders. The dogs were growing smaller, too, as a result of injudicious breeding. For a time Chinooks were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the rarest breed in the world, an honor the breed held from 1965 until the late 1980s.
Less Green Pastures
After Honey Greene had died in 1968, Peter Richards, the Greenes' grandson, assumed care of the dogs. Before too much time had elapsed, he sold the kennel to Peter Orne of Connecticut, who established the Sukeforth Kennel in Warren, Maine. By 1981 there were just 11 Chinooks in the world capable of reproducing. The breed appeared to be headed for footnote status in the annals of dog history until those 11 dogs were placed with four dedicated individuals: Neil and Marra Wollpert of Ohio, Peter Abrahams of California, and Kathy Adams of Maine, who had worked at Orne's kennel and is generally credited with rescuing the breed.
Two years later these soul supporters of the Chinook formed the Chinook Owners Association (COA) and dedicated themselves to reviving Walden's ponderable vision. Their efforts, though not finished by any means, were recognized by the United Kennel Club (UKC), which officially admitted the Chinook to its registry in 1991. Since then, one step at a time, through a rigidly controlled breeding program, the Chinook population has grown. At the end of last year, there were 300 pedigreed Chinooks on the UKC books.
Although more Chinooks are alive now than at any other time, the breed's reproductive population is still so limited that UKC has allowed the COA to conduct a carefully supervised, long-term crossbreeding program. The use of other registered, pedigreed breeds in this program is intended to expand the Chinook gene pool to avoid the danger of concentrating genetic disorders.
Rules of the Road
One would expect the Chinook, which was bred for function, not form, to be free of genetic disease. For the most part it is, although hip dysplasia and eye problems occur in the breed. To combat these problems the COA demands that all purebred or crossbred Chinooks admitted to the breeding program must be certified as being excellent, good or fair in hip conformation by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. They must also be declared free of any evidence of juvenile cataracts or progressive retinal atrophy by a veterinarian specializing in ophthalmology. If any ancestor, descendent or sibling of one of the dogs used in the breeding program develops juvenile cataracts, all members of that dog's family are no longer eligible for use in breeding.
The COA wants to maintain the original look of the breed's founding sire, Chinook, and to regain some of the size and substance lost through the years. Presently, males average 25 inches at the shoulders and weigh 60 to 75 pounds. The average female is 23 inches at the shoulders and weighs 50 to 65 pounds. Both sexes are long-legged and should carry heavy bone. Their coats, preferably, are fawn to red gold. Their eyes are a soulful brown or golden color, and the ears can be held up or down. A dark mask is highly desirable.
The Chinook has a double coat comprising long guard hairs over a soft, short undercoat. A unique characteristic of the Chinook is its long tail, in which a marked reduction in bone is noted about half way to its tip.
Chinook breeders are also keen to preserve the breed's storied temperament. "No Chinook can be considered a quality example of the breed," says breeder-owner Connie Jones, "without the gentle, protective and tolerant temperament that is a hallmark of the breed. A Chinook is especially fond of children and invariably becomes a devoted lifelong companion."
Home Is the Hunter
Arthur Walden's inspiration can be found pursuing a variety of activities today. Chinooks, in addition to pulling sleds, compete in obedience and agility trials as well as conformation shows and weight-pulling competitions. They are also employed as assistance dogs for the disabled and even as sheep-herding dogs. Above all, Chinooks are found in hundreds of homes as devoted and loyal companions that seem to find additional fulfillment when allowed to attach themselves to the children of the household.
All this must make Arthur Walden smile. Given the opportunity, no doubt, he would have preferred being buried near his beloved Chinook. Failing that, it is fitting that Walden's final resting place is located along the Chinook Trail across from the Wonalancet Chapel on Route 113-A. If Walden needed a team to pull him up to heaven, what better escort could he have had than the breed he created?
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