The different types of Alaskan Malamute
The "Kotzebue" type
Arthur Walden
His association with Malamutes began when Arthur left Wonalancet for Alaska with only his collie, Shirley, for compagny. Living in the Yukon Territory, he found the dog-freighting business highly profitable and soon became a respected sledge driver. Shirley, however, suffered in the severe cold, so Walden made a quick trip home to drop her off with Kate, his wife.
By the time he got back to the Yukon, the Gold Rush had caused great changes. People were everywhere, and Dawson had grown into a city where life and property had to be watched carefully. Unhappy with this turn of events, Arthur Walden finally returned to marry Kate in 1902.
Ha saw a great potential for sled dogs in the woods of New Hampshire and harnessed his St Bernard mixes to a sled to give rides to people in the area and guest at his inn. Walden had many breeds on his teams, including some Husky-types, but he ultimately wanted a breed that had endurance, strength, tremendous power, and a friendly nature.
In 1917, he had tree yellow pups from a breeding of his male "Kim", a St. Bernard mix, to Ningo, a direct descendent of Admiral Peary's lead dog Polaris. Walden named one of the puppies "Chinook". Because of his size, power, strength and intelligence, Walden felt "Chinook" would be the start of his line of sled dog. He bred females with Shepherd backgrounds to Chinook and used only tawny colored puppies like the sire to continue the line. As Chinook's progeny were trained to harness, Arthur and his dogs, with "Chinook" as leader, began promoting sled dogs and sled dog racing in New England.
When he heard about a proposed expedition to the South Pole in 1927, the urge to explore was too much. At fifty-six, he was over the maximum age, but he and "Chinook" took the train to Boston to meet with Commander Richard E. Byrd. He left this meeting as lead driver and trainer of the dog for the first Byrd Expedition.
Arthur Walden and the Seeley
While she was helping organize her home town's winter carnival in 1923, Eva Brunelle (soon to be Seeley) happened upon a newspaper article featuring the Chinook Team in Gorham, New Hampshire's winter carnival. She decided that they were just the attraction the Worchester carnival needed and immediately arranged for two teams to appear there. One of the teams was Arthur Walden's.
When her turn came to ride across the snow-covered golf course, Eva was in Walden's sled. Suddenly, the dogs saw a cat and took off. Walden overturned the sled to stop them, hurt his hand, and was quite anxious about his passenger. His concern, it truned out, was unfounded, the diminutive Eva was absolutely thrilled. Arthur Walden did not just turn over his sled, he turned the course of the Seeley's lives.
Before and after their marriage, Eva and Milton went visitors to the Walden's Inn. They often assisted, arranging, nighttime sled rides and special dinners. Tey even spent thier honeymoon in 1924 at the Inn. Arthur gave them Nook, a Chinnok son.
Several years later when he was in New York to speak at a charity event, Arthur Walden visited the Seeleys. When he larned of Milton Seeley's poor health and forced winter vacation, Walden persuaded the couple to move to Wonalancet. Preparation for the Byrd Antarctic Expedition were in full swing, and Walden would need someone to help with the kennels after he left for Antarctica.
Since Walden's sixteen Chinooks were hardly enough to supply the expedition, additional dogs had to be obtained. Others dogs were brought from Alaska by visitors to Chinook, among them another legend in the sled-racing world, Alan Alexander "Scotty" Allen. As they were sorting through the dogs, he called Eva Seeley over, pulling out two dogs that were larger than Siberian Huskies and told her , "This is what the large sled dog of Alaska should look like". He said he wished he had been more familiar with them when he was running his All-Alaska teams.
Eva was particularly attracted to a dog called "Rowdy", although his name was hardly characterictivc of his personality. Allen had purchased him from a Nome couple who had found him and believed him stolen. Although he was their pet, the dog had sledding experience and was a good teammate with scrappy dogs because of his sweet, gentle disposition.
In addition of Rowdy, the Byrd expedition took with it " a dozen or more large freighting dogs resembling Rowdy", which led the Seeleys to suspect that such dogs existed as a group if not a breed. Eva Seeley was fascinated by the big dog whose gentle temperament belied his wolf-like appearance. With this introduction, the idea of the Alaskan Malamute as a breed took hold.
The first Malamutes are born
Left to their own devices with Walden's departure to Antarctica, the Seeleys began searching for other examples of the larger sled dogs. Their involvement in sledding had put then in close contact with other people active in breeding and racing Siberian Huskies. On a visit to Elizabeth Nansen's Poland Springs Kennel, the Seeleys came upon "YukonJad", a dog from Dawson in Canada's Yukon Territory. Out of "Grey Cloud" and "Pearl", the dog had been bred by Franck Gough and whelped in April 1927. "Grey Cloud" was owned by another Dawson couple, Frank and Laura Berton. Sold to tourists as a pet, "Jad" ended up with Leonhard Seppala when his new owners left on a long European tour. Because he was now racing and raising only Siberians with Mrs. Nansen at her kennel, Seppala had no intrest in the slower freighting-type dogs. Knowing that the Seeleys did, he gave them "Yukon Jad".
"Jad" was the sire of the first Chinook Malamutes and was a strong dog of wolf-gray color. Like "Rowdy", his erect ears were lwo-set, and his harsh coat, plume tail, and heavy bone, made him the type of dog the Seeleys wanted to breed.
Before his departure, Arthur Walden had given the Seeleys a bitch "Bessie", whose ancestry was unknown. Her former owner said he had purchased her from an Alaskan. Although she was small at 54 pounds, "Bessie" exemplified freighting stock. She had a characteristic Malamute coat which was harsher than a Siberian's, yet not bear-like, as an Eskimo Dog's. "Bessie" was gray with white legs and a slight mask. Mrs. Seeley particularly admired her "broad head, erect ears, and an EXCELLENT snowshoe foot".
The Seeleys bred "Yukon Jad" to "Bessie" and whelped the first litter of Alaskan Malamutes as a proprer breed in 1929. The four puppies looked remarkably alike and were named: "Tugg of Yukon", "Gripp of Yukon", "Finn of Yukon", and "Kearsarge of Yukon". "Tugg" was lost, and "Kearsarge" died on the second Antarctic Expedition.
"Gripp of Yukon" went on to the show ring to become the first Alaskan Malamute champion, but he was a worker not just a "pretty face". "Gripp" lived to be 16 years old. Mrs Seeley said she liked his "broad head, well-set ears, and tough, harsh coat. He just looked like what we thought a malamute should be".
American Kennel Club Recognition
Theirs encounters with "Rowdy" and "Yukon Jad", so similar in type and function, inspired the Seeley's dream of an American breed - the Alaskan Malamute. The acquisition of "Bessie" and her litter by "Jad", were the first steps in the fulfillment of that dream.
The Seeleys approached the president of the AKC, Charles Inglee, about breed recognition. The AKC was concerned that these dogs were just a variant of the Eskimo dog, and sent several people to look at "Bessie" and compare her to the Eskimo dogs in the area. To further convince the AKC that the breed actually existed as such, the Seeleys secured an affidavit from Jad's breeder, Franck Gough, stating that the dog was an Alaskan Malamute and providing a signed, two-generation pedigree. The two breeds were deemed sufficiently different to warrant Bessie's trial breeding with "Jad".
Charles Inglee explained that the AKC would give recognition only on a tentative basis. Dogs of uniform quality would have to be shown in the Miscellaneous class until sufficient numbers were registered with the parent club to merit the AKC's opening up their stud book to the breed. To further interest in the breed and to educate the public and judges, he suggested that at least six dogs be entered in every possible show for exhibition only.
In keeping with his advice, the Nordic fanciers joined together and entered seven each of Alaskan Malamutes, Siberian Huskies, and Samoyeds for exhibition at the famous Morris and Essex show. This exposure aroused a great deal of interest in the breeds.
Because so much of the early breed history centers around the Seeleys, assuming that the converse is true seems quite natural, but the Seeleys' business was supplying and training sled dogs. To this end, they bought and bred all types of dogs for sled work, not just Alaskan Malamutes. The value of the dog to expeditions was based on their ability, and the Seeleys had an outlet for every working dog they produced, regarless of its pedigree. Their interest in the purebreed aspect of their dogs was a sideline.
As a result, breedings done for their business were often distinctly different form breedings done to further the Alaskan Malamute as a breed. That difference lay in their registration of the dogs; crossbred dogs were never registered or used for show or breeding. Even within Malamute breedings, only those dogs that they considered representative of the breed were used for further breeding, and they might never be registered if their siblings were not of good type.
An example of this practice was the breeding of "Holly" to Ch. Gripp Of Yukon. Born in Antarctica, "Holly" was a veteran of the geological expedition that returned to Chinook. "Gripp" was a son of "Yukon Jad" and "Bessie". Their litter was born June 1, 1932, but the Seeleys did not register any of the puppies although they did keep one, "Akeela of Kotzebue", for breeding.
Eva Seeley described "Akeela" as being a "good Malamute type; grey and white with brown eyes and cap markings on a broad head with medium-set ears. She had a harsh coat and plume tail. Like her mother, "Akeela" was small, weighting about 55 pounds, gentle, and inteliigent". Her breeding to "Rowdy" produced "Taku of Kotzebue", an important brood bitch for Chinook.
The pedigree of "Taku of Kotzebue"
Another female important to the Seeleys' early breeding was also named "Taku". Heavy-boned and dark grey, "Taku" was large for a female. She had an excellent head with a mask. Her pedigree shows she was inbred on "Yukon Jad". She was one of many Chinnok dogs sent on the second Byrd expedition, which is probably why she was called "Antarctica Taku" ( or "Taku of Antarctica", depending of the source).
The pedigree of "Antarctica Taku"
During Byrd Admiral Expedition I (BAE I), the Seeleys were just "getting their feet wet". By the time BAE II had departed, they were experienced hands and could turn more of their attention to their Malamutes. They needed more dogs, so they wrote letters to residents of Alaska and Canada, as well as explorers and travelers in the area. From correspondence and discussions with these people, they refined their picture of the ideal Alaskan Malamute.
In a comparatively short time the Seeleys were able to develop a line which produced a uniform type of dog. Fundamental to this end was careful selection of breeding stock, using only dogs of similar appearance and strict evaluation of the progeny.
Of great significance to both the Seeley's choices and to the quality of the Alaskan Malamute was the dogs' participation on various expeditions. This provided both a proving ground for the dogs' working ability and a selection method without compromise or sentiment.
Where littermates demonstrated uniformity of type, the puppies were registered. When the puppies showed a variety of type, they were not registered although an individual dog of merit might be retained for breeding. Applied repeatedly, these selection criteria resulted in a line of great genetic strength, easily recognized as the Seeleys'.
The now-adult puppies from "Antarctica", "Cleo" and "Wray" were each bred only once; "Wray" to "Ch. Gripp Of Yukon" to produce "Pandora of Kotzebue", and "Cleo", to "Yukon Blizzard", a son of "Jad" and "Bessie", to produce "Kotzebue Cleopatra". There are behind "Ch. Toro of Bras Coupe", one of the breed's fondation sires. A study of his pedigree shows how there early dogs were entwined to produce a dog of genetic prepotency.
The Seeleys finally settled on "Kotzebue" as a Malamute kennel name. Dogs that had served with Byrd had "Antarctica" as a kennel name - sometimes before, sometimes after the name. By the 1950s, Mrs Seeley settled into a more regular pattern and named Malamutes with "Kotzebue" as a prefix and "of Chinook" as suffix.
The M'Loot type
The recognition afforded Eva Seeley by the AKC had made her the final authority on what constitued an Alaskan Malamute. All the Alaskan Malamutes registered by the AKC before 1950 were "Kotzebue" dogs, descendants of the Seeley's dogs from Chinook Kennels. However, they were not by any means the only dogs referred to as Malamutes or considered so by their owners. Many of these people had purchased their dogs from Paul Voelker, who had been selling what he called "Alaskan Malemutes" for years.During the days of the Gold Rush, Paul's father, Georges Voelker, supplemented his income as a Michigan woodsman by buying up dogs and sending them to Alaska. Paul spent a good share of his life raising and training dogs and other animals. Although he had worked with many breeds, by his own admission Paul was always looking for something else. He found it, ironically, in the same native dogs of Alaska that his father's earlier exports had almost supplanted.
At the same time the Seeleys were acquiring and breeding dogs to establish their Kotzebue Malamutes at Chinnok, Voelker was acquiring dogs for his M'Loot Kennels in Marquette, Michigan. These "Malemutes", as Voelker spelled it, came from many sources, including teams sold to Hollywood for use in movies. He alse traveled to Alaska and brought dogs back. One breeding pair, "Dude's Wolf" and "Dodge's Lou", he acquired from the army at Camp Rimini, Montana, after neither made one of the sled teams.
In 1930, he obtained some dogs from Charles Nickerson who had moved to Duluth, Minesota, from New Hampshire. Among these were some Mackenzie River Huskies. Two more females which were sired by a white Eskimo dog from Churchill, Manitoba, were obtained from Mike West of Hovland, Minnesota.
Voelker's M'Loot dogs were somewhat different from the Malamutes being bred at Chinook Kennels. He accepted a much wider range of Arctic dogs for breeding stock than did the Seeleys, and instead of selling locally, his promotional marketing put his dogs in homes across the country from Florida to Seattle and Nova Scotia to California.
Aside from Voelker himself, several kennels formed around key M'Loot dogs, using them as foundation stock for their breeding programs. Behind many of these dogs was Voelker's breeding of the two Camp Rimini dogs, "Dude's Wolf" and his great-grandmother, "Dodge's Lou". Out of it came Fox; Smoke, owned by Earl Hammond; and Gentleman Jim, owned by Angel Pelletier.
Gentleman (sometimes Gentlemen) Jim is especially influential in modern pedigrees. "Tora" was out of "Jim" and a female named "Lucky". "Tosha" and "Jim" produced a female knows as "Tonga", who did not have enough points for registration before the stud book closed. Like "Wolf" and "Lou", another breeding pair often seen at the back of old pedigrees is "Silver King" and "Silver Girl", whose offspring include the "Noma".
Out of a different breeding of Voelker's came "Mikiuk", an extremely influential early M'Loot. He was owned by Ralph and Marchetta Schmitt pf Pewaukee, Wisconsin. They owned or used many of the M'Loot dogs which can still be traced back in today's pedigrees. Dogs from their "Silver Sled" kennel still appear in many pedigrees today.
The breeding of "Mikiuk" and "Noma" was historic, producing two champions of importance, "Ch. Mulpus Brook's Matter Otter", and the first champion female in the breed, the great "Ch Ooloo M'Loot". They were bred by Voelker and the Schmitts and owned by the Schmitts. The lovely female, "Chitina", bred by E. Traphagen and owned by Kenneth Smith, was produced by another linebreeding, this time, "Schmoos (M'Loot)" and "Tora".
Nanook (Nahnook) was out of "Fox". Nanook's influence was extended through his son "Nanook II". Linebreeding on "Dodge's Lou" and "Kazan" continued to establish M'Loot type. Nanook's half-brother out of "Fox" was the early M'Loot champion, "Ch. King M'Loot", who in turn produced "Ch. Zorro of Silver Sled" with "Tosha of Silver Sled".
When the Schmitts crossed "Nannok" (Nahnook) to "Ooloo", the breeding produced both "Ch. Nannok II" and "Ch. Gyana". Inbreeding on "Nanook II" produced "Silver Sled Cabara" and "Pancho". The offspring of various combinations of these early M'Loots became foundation dogs for many later kennels. Their lines were interwoven with other strains to provide many of today's Malamutes.
The pedigree of "Silver Sled Cabara" and "Pancho"
"Mossecat M'Loot" became a foundation sire for many kennels, including "Husky-Pak" and "Red Horse". One of his sister was "Cheechako M'Loot".
The Hinman-Irwin type
Many of the men who returned home from Alaska to settle down brought a special team dog back with them. Although some of these were Malamutes, many passed their lives as companions and were not significant to the breed as whole. Notable exceptions to this were the few dogs owned by Dick Hinman and Dave Irwin, now referred to as the Hinman-Irwin dogs.Robert Zoller began looking for Alaskan Malamutes by visiting Chinook Kennels. After seeing the dogs, Zoller told Moulton that while he liked the look of them, he felt the Kotzebue Malmautes were too small. Moulton sent him to Dick Hinman. Of his meeting with Hinman, Zoller wrote : "Dick Hinman was a barber and when I got there, he was in the middle of giving somebody a haircut. There weren't many Malamute people in those days, and I guess he was just as happy as I was to talk to someone about them.
