SEPPALA SIBERIANS

[Qonos]

Hi Tangled musher, would be interested to see the pedigrees of your litter.

[James]

I'd love to see some Seppala's or Zeros in action! .

I'd also love to see some top Alaskan Huskies in action to

[GMK]

bit of a miss-nomer but leonard seppala didnt found the breed, they have exisited as one of the 14 accient breeds for over 4'000 - 30'000 years. he was credited with bringing some of the first dogs out of siberia during the gold rush in alaska for racing in the all alaska sweepstakes, which he won many times and held many records over. he had seen a few of the breed in alaska that had made their way across the frozen sea ice in years gone past and was impressed with their working abilities and himself crossed the bering sea to purchase some dogs from the chukchi inuit of eastern siberia penisula. togo was a lead dog from his kennel that ran in the serium run. if im right at his height he had between 60 - 200 dogs in hsi kennel. his team from the serium run ended up being sold off and spent their days traveling around the USA in buffalo bills circus before ending up in a zoo in i think boston. there they were rescued to live out their days in comfort although only a few by then has survived out of the team of nearly 20 dogs. i think dorothy page was the women who resuced them but i cant quite remember. i know she was a founder, along with joe redington snr of the iditarod sled dog race. hope thats of some interest to you.

I hope this post is taken in the spirit in which it is intended, which is purely to clarify some of the erroneous statements made.

The gentleman's name is Leonhard Seppala, and he did actually have a lot to do with founding what became known as The Siberian Husky breed, because he was one of the people involved in drawing up the breed standard during the period in early 1930 that the AKC accepted this "new" breed into their purebred club. It should be noted that despite being so involved, Seppala himself chose not to register very many of his dogs with the AKC.

He was not involved in importing the first of the Chukchi native dogs, in 1908. In fact, although he was involved with sled dogs it wasn't until 1913 that Seppala was given a team of recently imported dogs by his employer, and a first opportunity to run in the race came in 1914, a race he did not finish. He did go on to win the All Alaska Sweepstakes the following year, and again 1916 and 1917, to become the second 3 time winner, the other being Scotty Allan, who won in 1909, 1911, and 1912. It should be noted at the time that most of the dogs in the region were the property of the gold mining companies.

The Serum Run of 1925 was really the incident that projected him, his team and sled dogs generally into the nation's spotlight.

Togo, his famous leader, is well known for being a quarter Malamute. Balto, who led Gunnar Kaasen's team, was a reject dog that Seppala himself did not rate, and had specifically told Kaasen not to run him in lead, as he was untrustworthy.

Seppala did not sell off his dogs after the Serum Run, he was persuaded to tour the lower 48 States with 44 of his dogs and eventually ended up on the east coast where he famously raced against Bill Walden and his Chinook dogs in the Poland Springs Derby in 1927 and won an unexpected victory. He subsequently established his racing kennel with Elizabeth Ricker in Poland Springs and raced very successfully across New England and eastern Canada over the next 5 years, until the 1932 Winter Olympics exhibition race, in which he finished second to a Canadian racing Quebec hounds, Emile St Godard, in Seppala's last race.

Sometime in 1930, Seppala and Ricker had moved their kennel up to Quebec and set up at the Grey Rocks Inn in St Jovite. Ricker left the kennel in in 1931 to marry and following the Olympic race in 1932, Seppala too left St Jovite and went back to Alaska. However, he did not take his dogs with him, and although rumours and speculation abound, no-one knows for sure why, but the dogs all stayed with Harry Wheeler at the Grey Rocks Inn, who started his kennel with Seppala's dogs, giving them the kennel suffix "of Seppala"

Wheeler bred these dogs exclusively, not crossing out with other breeders of "Siberian Huskies", bar his purchase of one bitch from Alec Belford in 1933/4. He bred and raced these dogs for over 20 years before selling the kennel to JD McFaul, who continued with the same selective breeding programme. Bill Shearer of Foxstand Kennel was another who had a large number of years, racing and breeding Seppala sourced dogs. Wheeler was known for his love of long haired dogs, his famous leader Shamus, quite possibly the best well-known long coated Seppala Siberian. Long coats are not to be confused with "woolies".

McFaul eventually sold out in 1963 to Earl Norris, who founded his Anadyr kennel, with some Seppala bitches combined with his Short Seeley dogs.

The dogs that Matt mentioned ending their days in a zoo, were actually Gunnar Kaasen's dogs. Following the Serum Run, and Balto's role in the final leg, Kaasen too received an offer to tour the USA, and also have the dogs appear in a film, "Balto's Race To Nome". It was during this tour, in 1926 that Balto modelled for the statue of him that is still on display in New York. Kaasen returned to Alaska, but left the dogs behind, in the hands of the tour promoter, who sold them to a sideshow owner, who displayed the dogs in an indoor room, left harnessed and attached to their tuglines. Eventually someone took pity on the dogs and organised an appeal to raise sufficient funds to buy the dogs and rescue them. It was a Cleveland businessman who managed this, and the dogs were taken to their new home, Cleveland Zoo, where they lived out the rest of their lives. However, only 7 of the original 13 dogs on Kaasen's team were alive at that point.

Dorothy Page had nothing to do with the rescue of those dogs. In 1926, she would have only been 5 years old and living in New Mexico.

She did not move to Alaska until 1960 and was involved in the Wasilla Knik Centennial Committee in 1966, trying to find a way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from the Russians. She felt that a dog race was so steeped in Alaskan tradition, that it would be the best way to go. Joe Reddington was the only person who agreed with her initially.

The first race, the Iditarod Trail Seppala Memorial Race was held in 1967 over two 25 mile legs. In 1968 it was cancelled, run again in 1969 and then cancelled until 1973 when it restarted as the 1000 mile race.

Umm, that reply seems a lot more detailed and longer than originally intended, however, I do feel that when we are talking about history, it is important to be accurate.

[derekvan]

thanks GMK.. i love reading bout the history..

[Rosemary]

Great post GMK

[tangled-musher]

Thanks for the corrections GMK was going from old memories of stories read and digest past. I read cruelest miles when it first came out and was trying to remember the facts haha. Was chatting with barbara fisk, juliet trent and a few others at our annual get together last weekend about the history of the seppala sibes, the bloodlines, dogs etc, facinating! Aunty barbs knew alot of the dogs way back and showed her working seppala dogs under dorothy page's husband whos name i forget, shes very knowledgeable with almost encylopedic memory on the lines, individual dogs and the seppala line, knows/knew doug willet, wheelers and jj bragg very well. So much history and goings on in the breed. Between us we all have some sepps, good as always to see so many together when we meet up - sorry folks its a private bbq between family and friends- but you can see some pics of some of the dogs on my facebook photos. 'Matt hammersley'

Qonos - are you uk based? Trying to remember who you are haha. Can send pedigree info on our lines privatly if you like? Kazachye lines out of juliet and vinces kalyk and our

Bitch lolly.

[tangled-musher]

Managed to edit some mistkes in the above reply so deleted the corrections i posted her, trying to reply using iphone.... Bloody thing hahaha

[tangled-musher]

Ahhhh just remembered who you two are! Doh! So Sorry guys!!! Being blonde and a bit thick today! Haha hows you guys anyway?

[Qonos]

Hi Matt, Yes I'm UK based, imported our 1st Seppala 9 years ago, and have owned Sibes for 17 years.

You also seemed to be under the impression that there weren't many pure Seppalas in the UK and there are actually quite a lot. I found the pedigree of your dogs, I'd have to beg to differ that they are 85% Sepps though, there is just not enough Seppala in there for the % to be that high sorry.

[James]

Great Read GMK, thank you for that!

[tangled-musher]

Well maths never was my strong point! Lol.