CONTRARY TO THE MYTHIC HISTORY of the Siberian Husky of America, there never was a "Chukchi sled dog" breed as such in Siberia, and certainly nothing that could reasonably be described as "purebred for 3000 years." Tribes in various regions of Siberia had different kinds, types and sizes of dogs, used for various purposes such as hunting, draft, and fur production. The dogs of the Yukaghir, the Yakuts, the Kamchadal, the Koryak and other tribal groups were as important as those of the Chukchi (whose dogs were widely regarded as the poorest speciments in Siberia). Although all of these tribal dogs conformed to the basic northern dog image, there was much variation among tribal varieties. Given the way the dogs were kept and the relative absence of controlled breeding, boundaries between the purpose-bred varieties could hardly have been rigidly fixed; they could not have been called distinct breeds in the modern sense, let alone "purebred." Nomadic travel and inter-regional trade in dogs took place constantly, assuring that no single tribal variety of dog was ever genetically isolated in the way that modern purebred dog breeds are.
SIBERIA IN THE LATE nineteenth century contained a vast heterozygous canine population with considerable genetic diversity and regular migration among subpopulations. There could never have been a purebred sleddog population in Siberia in the way that is claimed by the Siberian Husky Club of America and breed book authors. The notion of a "Chukchi sleddog, purebred for three thousand years" is a romantic SHCA breed-club myth with no basis in reality.
THE ENTIRE CANINE POPULATION of Siberia was ruled by natural selection in one of the harshest climatic regions on earth, giving these dogs unique hardiness and survival characteristics. The Siberian dog population was also influenced by native tribes' cultural selection through such practices as dog sacrifice (documented by turn of the century anthropological expeditions). The Siberian sleddog as it was imported into Alaska 1908-1930:
- was naturally hardy and vigourous,
- was a natural sleddog,
- was heterozygous and variable in type,
- was not at all identical to the Siberian Husky show-dog breed later developed by selection in the U.S.A. from a tiny handful of Siberian stock, and
- was not originally bred or selected as a racing dog, although original import dogs performed superbly in the All-Alaska Sweepstakes after just one season of conditioning and training.
THE MOST EXCITING FACT about original Siberian dogs is that, despite everything the breed clubs and "authoritative" breed books have tried to tell you, typical examples of the original Siberian sleddog can still be found in many east Siberian villages! The Siberia import dog SHAKAL IZ SOLOVYEV, has produced progeny for Seppala Kennels in Canada's Yukon Territory that are very similar to the 1930 import KREE VANKA (photo above).
