THERE ARE SEVERAL ONLINE SLEDDOG FORUMS these days where, periodically, a thread will appear discussing "Seppalas" -- what they are, what they aren't, what are they like, do they even exist, etc. Really most of these online gasworks are a waste of time. The trouble with using these forums as a source of information for novice is this: some of the people who inhabit them are "armchair mushers" who have never harnessed a dog, let alone travelled thousands on miles on sled runners and the novice has no way to tell the sheep from the goats. Regularly on the public Yahoo email list for the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed, we get appeals from newbies who have followed the discussions on SDC Talk and other forums and found only confusion. "There are all kinds of opinions about Seppalas," wrote one earnest novice.
FACTS about Seppalas are hard to come by on public sleddog forums. Since education about the SSSD breed is the purpose of this Project website, we always urge novices to come here and learn some history to clear away the fog of "opinions." The historic FACTS about Seppalas are fairly easy to determine. There is a great deal of historic material here, including an entire history sub-site:
http://seppala-history.seppalasleddogs.com/Moreover, the relationships and bloodline connections between Seppalas and the mainstream Siberian Husky breed can be quickly sorted out by doing some research here:
http://siberian-husky-bloodlines.seppalasleddogs.com/Over the years I have found that you cannot stop people from having "opinions," and usually the less the person knows, the more strongly-held those opinions are. All one can do, and all that is needed to be done, is to present the FACTS in sufficient detail. Once the facts are available, then one can sit back and let those with the "opinions" make fools of themselves. "The truth is great, and shall prevail."
Where did "Seppalas" originate?
Fact: Draught dogs were imported into Alaska and the continental USA from many locations in eastern Siberia during the period between 1908 and 1930. At that time they proved superior to the slow, heavy crossbreds that were in general use for sled hauling.
Fact: From Siberia import stock, Leonhard Seppala established a lasting bloodline of Siberian sleddogs, which he took east with him on a publicity tour in 1926 after the Nome Serum Run.
Fact: Seppala established a kennel at Poland Spring, Maine, that lasted almost five years; the last group of Siberian dogs to leave Siberia, collected by trader Olaf Swenson, went to that kennel in 1930.
What was the place of Seppalas in the early Siberian Husky breed?
Fact: Dogs from Seppala Kennels at Poland Spring (including three of the last Siberia imports) went to Alex and Charles Belford (Laconia, NH), Harry R. Wheeler (St. Jovite Station, QC), and other early breeders.
Fact: The "Siberian Husky" breed was first registered by the American Kennel Club in the USA in 1930. The first two dozen dogs registered came from the Northern Light Kennels of Julien Hurley in Fairbanks, AK. That bloodline became virtually extinct in roughly a decade, while the "Chinook/Wonalancet/Alyeska" bloodline of Milton and Eva B. Seeley in New Hampshire (who stole Chinook Kennels from Arthur T. Walden, along with most of his Chinook dogs) became the major Siberian Husky bloodline in the USA. But there were also pure Seppalas in the AKC registry, bred by the Belfords, William L. Shearer III (Foxstand Kennels), and Millie Turner (Cold River Kennels).
Fact: Seppalas bred at Harry Wheeler's "Seppala Kennels" at Grey Rocks Inn in St. Jovite became the foundation of the Canadian Kennel Club "Siberian Huskie" breed in Canada in the year 1939. Wheeler cooperated with the Belfords and with Turner, re-exporting Siberians to New England.
Fact: The Seeley bloodline was built on a foundation mating that was questionable from the outset. There are no photographs of "Duke" the Seeley foundation sire; his actual breed has been called into question by people who were around in the 1930s. The Seeleys did their best to breed to Wheeler-bred Seppala dogs owned by others in New England; Wheeler, on the other hand, refused to have anything to do with the Seeleys and would not breed to Seeley stock.
Fact: A pure strain stemming from the Leonhard Seppala dogs bred in Alaska, plus the new 1930 Siberia imports, came from the kennels of Wheeler, Belfords, Shearer, and later on (post-1950) J. D. McFaul (Maniwaki, QC). These dogs were referred to in the press as "Seppala Siberians" as early as 1940. The McFaul kennel, which bought the last of the Harry Wheeler dogs as well as the "Seppala Kennels" name used by Wheeler, was the main source of "Seppalas" through the mid-1960s. Shearer's Foxstand Kennels was a parallel source; McFaul and Shearer sold stock to one another and cooperated. Keith Bryar in New Hampshire bought breeding stock from McFaul and Shearer, too.
Fact: Meanwhile the development of the AKC Siberian Husky continued with the Seeley bloodline forming a major constituent of that breed, even though pure Seppalas continued to be bred within the same stud book. The formation of the Siberian Husky Club of America in 1938 put the breed firmly on the path to becoming a showdog. Show bloodlines and "racing" bloodlines were mixed fairly indiscriminately by many breeders, a situation that persists today. But the Siberian Husky breed could never have existed without Seppala strain -- even the showdog bloodlines usually will be found to contain sixty to seventy percent Seppala ancestry if the pedigree is traced back far enough.
What happened in the 1960s to make Seppalas so scarce?
Fact: The entire "Seppala strain" nearly suffered extinction when McFaul retired in 1963. During that period interest waned in Seppalas as racers turned to the Alaskan Husky and showdog breeders to the popular Monadnock bloodline. By the late 1960s the only remaining major Seppala breeders were Keith Bryar (Laconia, NH) and J. M. McDougall (Ste. Agathe des Monts, QC), neither of whom did enough breeding or sold enough stock to ensure survival of the strain.
Fact: Seppala strain was rescued from oblivion during the period 1970-1975 mainly by the breeding of Markovo Kennels (first in Oxford Station, ON, and later in Saskatoon, SK). Several surviving McFaul dogs were obtained and bred from, along with Bryar and McDougall stock, to enact what later became known as the "Markovo rescue," with an assist from Gary Egelston's Seppineau Kennels in Missouri. (The owner and operator of Markovo Kennels was the author of this page.)
Fact: Much of the history of Seppalas, then, took place in Canada. The Wheeler kennel. The McFaul kennel. The Markovo rescue. No one in the USA ever made a lasting effort to perpetuate the Seppala bloodline, including Earl F. Norris (Alaskan/Anadyr Kennels) who bought the last of McFaul's dogs when he retired. The pure Seppala lineage died out in the USA. By the mid-1970s the only Seppalas in the USA were those that had been sold to US buyers by Markovo Kennels.
What happened after the Markovo rescue?
Fact: In the post-Markovo era (beginning in 1976), Seppalas became popular in the western USA for mid-distance racing. Douglas W. Willett (Sepp-Alta and Alta Kennels) was the central figure in the development of "racing Seppalas" but Willett, although he consistently bred a number of pure Seppala litters from the 1980s through to the early 1990s, was never truly committed to the preservation of the pure bloodline. Willett's objective was to have the "best" mid-distance Siberian Husky racing team; to that end he experimented continually and bred a large number of litters of mixed Seppala and mainstream Siberian Husky lineage. There was also experimentation with outcrossing to other breeds, such as (probably) the Karelian Bear Dog and the West Siberian Laika.
Fact: In 1990 I obtained pure Seppala stock from four different breeders in the USA and resumed breeding pure Markovo-Seppalas. At that time I was living in Catalunya in the north of Spain. In 1992 after the downfall of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain, pure-strain draught dogs straight from Siberia became briefly available in Europe through the Czech agent of Russian explorer Sergei A. Solovyev. I obtained one excellent male from that source, called Shakal iz Solovyev.
Fact: In 1993 I returned to Canada with two dozen Markovo-Seppalas and my Siberia import male. I immediately sought Canadian Kennel Club registration for all of them. CKC, after a delay of almost two years, refused to register the Siberia import dog. They refused to take seriously the dangerously narrow breed foundation, the many genetic bottlenecks the breed had suffered, or the argument for genetic health through restoration of genetic diversity. Likewise the Siberian Husky Club of Canada only said, "do we really need new genes?" and refused to support calls for the registration of Siberia import stock.
When did the "Seppala Siberian Sleddog" come into existence?
Fact: Correspondence with Agriculture Canada was then initiated to see what could be done to ensure Seppala survival and genetic health. A brief was submitted to the Animal Registration Officer, and on 31 July 1997 the " Seppala Siberian Sleddog" was chartered as an "evolving breed" in Canada under the Animal Pedigree Act, and the Working Canine Association of Canada chartered at the same time as pedigree record keeping organisation for the SSSD.
Fact: Five years later, in 2002, Doug Willett grew tired of paying AKC registration fees and meeting AKC registration deadlines. He penned an appeal to Seppala breeders to "lay down the AKC cross" and announced a "Seppala Symposium" to take place in August of that year, in order to "discuss the possibility of a separate registry."
Fact: At that Symposium, which I attended, DW revealed to the forty people gathered there that he had already cut a deal with the commercial registry in Walker, Louisiana, that calls itself the "Continental Kennel Club," for a "Seppala Siberian Sleddog" registry to be run by ConKC. He also presented his new organisation, the "International Seppala Siberian Sleddog Club," an activity-club licensed by ConKC. Two hundred dogs had already been registered by that point, including a couple dozen Seppala/Alaskan Husky crosses. Most of the purebred Siberians registered were various "percentages" of Seppala and mainstream-AH mixed lineage. All of this was done under the table, behind our backs, with no effort made to include or to consult the existing SSSD Project. The ConKC "Seppala" registry was presented by Willett and Bob Davis (his protegé of the moment) as a like-it-or-lump it done deal -- no discussion possible.
Fact: I invited the CEO and COO of ConKC to Whitehorse the following winter and hosted them for three days in an effort to introduce them to the legitimate SSSD Project. Thereafter I spent several months of intensive effort to arrive at some kind of compromise with ConKC that would recognise the pre-existing Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed in Canada and allow us all to move forward, without compromising the integrity of the breed. Those efforts failed because Doug Willett would have no compromise of any kind. Every time we thought we had a solution, DW threatened to pull out of the ConKC registry. Additionally, DW repeatedly insulted the Project, denigrated Markovo-Seppalas, and refused to accept the new Siberia import stock as part of the breed (even though it had been so from the outset in Canada).
Why is there such confusion today about Seppalas?
Fact: Since that time ISSSC have claimed that their mixed bag of Seppalas, Alaskans, and mainstream Siberians are the real Seppalas. Their "definition" of what they mean by that changes at every turn. The latest twist was when DW explained on a Scottish sleddog forum just before Christmas 2007 that his percentage system was "simply a gimmick" and declared, "They are 'Seppalas', not because they pass some percentage test, but because they run fast, pull hard, endure for hundreds of miles, have sound bodies and pleasant personalities." (There must be quite a few thousand dogs that are "Seppalas" by those standards, including the entire field of Alaskans entered in the Yukon Quest, Iditarod, and other distance races.)
Fact: A small faction continues to breed part-Seppala Siberian Huskies within the American Kennel Club registry; they, too, call their dogs "Seppalas" although really they are only mixed-lineage racing Siberian Huskies, there no longer being any pure McFaul/Shearer strain dogs bred in the USA.
Fact: The SSSD Project in Canada continues to breed working sleddogs from pure-strain descendants of Leonhard Seppala's dogs and Siberia import stock, just as it did before ISSSC came along. We continue to use the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed name that was illegitimately taken over by ISSSC. And people continue to call Project SSSDs "Seppalas," too.
Fact: Most people have only seen false "Seppalas." The ISSSC recently claimed a population of some seven hundred dogs within the ConKC Seppala registry; most of those dogs would be found in the USA, where there are very few Project dogs. Since people use the same word to describe three separate and distinct canine populations (the numerous ConKC/ISSSC dogs, the less numerous AKC Seppala-strain remnants, and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project stock), there is a good deal of confusion in the public mind. Nevertheless, only the dogs of the SSSD Project can properly claim to represent the legitimate and authentic Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed.
So there are some of the known FACTS about Seppalas. All the "opinions" on Sled Dog Central Talk will not change those facts. All the more so since many of the people expressing them have never owned a single pure-strain Seppala, nor ever will.
