“OLD CHINOOK”

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 189, 12 May 1928, Page 24

“OLD CHINOOK”

ON THE SOUTH POLE TRAIL WITH BYRQ

“We'll go on one last mush together, old fellow,” said Arthur T. Walden. And Chinook barked his readiness. When Commander Byrd asked Walden for a dog outfit, the breeder looked around and walked over to Chinook’s kennel. Then and there occurred the scrap of man-dog conversation recorded at the opening of tills article. We read on:

In a sense it is Chinook's toughest race—and this husky from the kennels of Arthur T. Walden boasts a long line of victories, the last of which was his leadership of a six-dog team to the top of Mount Washington in the face of terrific winds and handicaps of ice and temperature. The polar dash is quite different. Given a good break in the weather a ’plane will take off from Ross Barrier, spin over the mountain ranges and land within shouting distance of the goal. And Chinook would then be merely the doughty trail-blazer, packing in the supplies that will provision stations 100 miles apart, as planned by Byrd. But let those Antarctic flurries come up, or accident overtake the machinery —and it will be Chinook who will live in song and story along with the intrepid men who battle it out with him. After all, the ’plane is a speculation, and Chinook and his tireless, brood have a proud record of dependability. Only age can defeat Chinook. The old fellow became a leader of dog teams in the Yukon many years ago. He has adventured on,'Behring Sea Ice and has mushed from mining camp to mining camp in Alaska. In the old days, when miner’s law ruled the Northland, his trail ran from Circle City to Dawson, dragging a load of 600 pounds of supplies on a three-sled freight outfit equipped with gee poles —a trip that lasted from twenty-seven days to 'a month. That’s what they’ll need in the Antarctic —dogs that hare stood the test! Walden made but. one request of Byrd. If Chinook lives through the trip, he must not be abandoned, as dogs have been before. He must be brought back. And Byrd nodded his consent. So old Chinook is going to stage a comeback. They have called upon him to pit his cunning and strength against a strange and treacherous land. Like Balto of Nome, his name will be linked with epic adventure. As dog-master in charge of the sledteams that will Be used in the establishment of support bases for Commander Byrd’s South Pole undertaking, Walden may add a more vivid colouring to an already adventurous career. Writing in the Philadelphia “Public Ledgr,” Mr. Ross Duff Why-

tock tells us: In a charming intervale sentineled round about by the fir and pine - cloaked White Mountains in central New H a m p s h ire, lies the quaint and drowsy hamlet of Won a lancet, where Arthur :T. Walden, the doggiest man in all New England, has his abode. It is , fully ten miles from the near-

est railway station, that of Mount Whittier, and far removed from State highways. Billboards and hot-dog stands are as foreign to Wonalancet and its environs as radiators in an ingloo.

While the Walden place is somewhat out of the way as automobile-touring road maps read, it is becoming one of the chief points of interest in the Granite State, largely due to the spreading fame of a dog of uncertain ancestry, but with a posterity that gives promise of attaining unusual honours.

Chinook, a yellowish-grey and friendly-eyed leader of sled dog teams, attracted more than 2000 visitors to Wonalancet during the last summer. The dog’s grandfather was one of the huskies that dragged Admiral Peary’s sled to the Pole.

Although Chinook posseses no degress such as might be required for bench show ribbons and silver cups, he is a dog of high degree. The almost worshipful respect in which he is held by dog lovers and children makes, the lack of a family tree of no consequence to this super-husky. It was through Chinook, winner of the international races at Quebec in 1922, that dog-sled racing was introduced into New England, and through him Arthur Walden hopes to have dog teams made use of by farmers and others throughout the northern and snow-smothered tier of States. Through the medium of dog teams, he declares, a deal of winter’s monotony will be dissipated; a highly invigorating sport will be given- the dwellers in sparsely populated places, and they will be'provided with a means of locomotion enabling them to bid defiance to the snow and ice that now sometimes cut them off from town and neighbours for days, and even weeks at a time.

In meeting Arthur Walden,, you meet a man who would seem to have just stepped from out the pages of a Jack

London or a Rex Beach novel, an# whose background of heroic days in Alaskan wilds might well provide the theme for a Service ballad.

As a boy he prematurely deserted a military school in. Wisconsin to join a thrashing gang. After many wanderings lie went to Alaska; and we read on :— Shortly after the mad rush for the Klondike field began. Walden, after giving deep thought to his own meagre findings of the precious metal, decided to abandon prospecting for freighting. Dog-teams were largely the medium for his freighting enterprise, and he admits that they fetched him more gold than lie could ever have dug. “Those were stirring days, those Alaskan ones,” said Walden as he poked the slumbering back-log into sparkling activity, “but retrospection gives them glamour that did not exist while I lived them. It was wellhowever, that I had my fill of adventure, for it satisfied my craving for distant wanderings, and makes me appreciative of the glories of my homeland hills and dales.”

While it is generally supposed that the dogs of the Northland are closely akin to the wolf—veritable sisters and brothers under the skin —that cannot be said of the Walden breed. Fleet of foot and almost viciously tenacious in their sledwork, they are possessed of dispositions that, lielie their fiercefanged ancestry. Chinook, the dignified and kindly load dog of the kennels, who is the joy of children and visitors, because cf his good-natured acceptance of their enthusiastic maulIngs, has marked his progeny with a spirit of tolerance and companionableness that makes them utterly trustworthy. Some idea of the work at which Chinook and his progeny may be employed when they reach the Antarctic may be gathered from an account of Byrd's plans contribute'! to the Washington “Post” by John Leo Coontz. As we read: — To get the most out of the expedl-

tion Commander Byrd will establish at Discovery Day a majpr base, and build there a miniature city that will harbour thirty persons. Portable houses will be brought, from Norway and erected on the lone iceshelf to serve as homes and workshops for the scientists, mechanics, and flyers who will compose the expedition. The houses will be provided with telephones, and a radio will be installed for communication with the outside world. Heat will be furnished by oil and coal. There will be an airdrome erected at the edge of the city to house the two ’planes’ to be used in flying over the Antarctic wastes. Small tractors will also be taken along for airplane towing purposes. A great deal of food will be taken, but the sea and coast land will be looked to to supply much. The land mass of the Antarctic may be as large as that of Australia —possibly larger. It forms a great jagged circle around the South Pole,, and can be divided roughly - into three zones, somewhat after the order of our postal- zones. First comes the great ice-barrier, which sweeps southward (toward the Pole) for about three hundred miles. It is a level, rough plane of ice, broken by bottomless, gloomy pits, and swept by terrible blizzards. This floor rises in some places to a height of 1000 feet above sea-level. It presents to the ocean front high rocky cliffs, and in some places masses of ice rising perpendicular to the sky.

Beyond this coastal ice-field rise mountains, their ice-crowned heads, jewelled by the Antarctic sun, thrust 10 to 20.000 feet above the worlfl. unapproachable. in their sheer, scintillating majesty, by man. Between these peaks are fearful passes crossing at an elevation of 10.000 feet to the third and last zone of the continent, that surrounding the Pole, a plateau from ■l5OO to 10.200 feet above the sea.— From the "Literary Digest."