January 20, 2006
The Message of Bayou of Foxstand (Part III)
Seppala Bloodline — A Rising Force in the 1930s
THE SEPPALA BLOODLINE was represented just prior to breed registration mostly by Seppala Kennels at Poland Spring, Maine, run by Elizabeth M. Ricker in partnership with Leonhard Seppala. When A. K. C. registration came about, Sepp and Liz Ricker paid it little heed. The Poland Spring kennel in its heyday contained a population of some 160 sleddogs. Out of all the animals housed there, only eight were ever A. K. C. registered. Registration in those days was probably considered mostly an adjunct to dog shows; certainly Seppala and Ricker did not value it very highly.
As dogs were disseminated from Seppala Kennels, the Seppala bloodline came to be represented by other kennels whose focus was mainly on working or racing sleddogs. Best known of these were the successor Seppala Kennels of Harry Roberts Wheeler at Grey Rocks Inn in St. Jovite Station, Quebec, the Cold River Kennels in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, and William L. Shearer III’s Foxstand Kennels in Boston, Massachusetts. But the earliest breeders and racers of Seppalas apart from Sepp and Ricker were the Belfords père et fils.
Alec and his boy Charles Belford (known then as "Sonny") had an importance in the early history of the breed that was much greater than the scant number of dogs their breeding programme is known to have produced. An amazing number of the important dogs of the era passed through the Belfords’ hands, ran on their team, were bought and sold by them. KREE VANKA, TSERKO, SIGRID III OF FOXSTAND, NANNA, BELFORD’S WOLF, SAPSUK OF SEPPALA, VANKA OF SEPPALA 2nd, the Serum Run dogs MATTE and BIJOU — these and more besides were owned or driven by the Belfords. Their contribution to the early history of the breed is poorly understood today because they did not leave behind a large body of stock with their name clearly labelling it.
The Belfords supplied Harry Wheeler with the crucial bitch NANNA (whose actual sire and dam were BELFORD’S WOLF and MONA, not the "Wolf" and "Nan" erroneously published in CKC studbooks and perpetuated in pedigree services). The deal resulted in a string of Wheeler dogs coming to (or passing through) the Belford kennel in the 1930s. The Poland Spring kennel had provided Wheeler with KINGEAK and PEARL in 1930. In 1931 they were followed by core dogs from the Poland Spring kennel, MOLINKA, TOSCA, DUSHKA, BONZO, KREE VANKA, TSERKO and VOLCHOK; Elizabeth Ricker then remarried and went to Europe with her new husband Kaare Nansen. Seppala returned to Alaska, but Wheeler, the Belfords and "The Duchess" Rose Frothingham and her daughter Millie Turner remained, along with William L. Shearer III of Boston, Massachusetts, to represent the Seppala contingent solidly in New England well into the 1950s. The importance of Turner and Shearer is not evident from the records of the 1930s; they were just getting started as the 1940 decade turned.
The entire Seppala group appear to have kept Eva B. Seeley at arm’s length for the most part. Bill Shearer bought two of the Seeley foundation litter, bred a litter or two from them, then discarded the Seeley stock and literally started his bloodline all over again when he acquired the coveted SIGRID III OF FOXSTAND from Sonny Belford at a price equivalent to a year’s college tuition. SIGRID III was bred to the Turner leader "Cossack" — CH. VANKA OF SEPPALA 2nd — and the Foxstand bloodline continued from that foundation mating. Turner once bred a bitch to CH. WONALANCET’S BALDY OF ALYESKA, but there seems to have been little interaction apart from that. Wheeler had nothing to do with Seeleys — but the Seeleys avidly made use of Wheeler-bred males that were sold to other New Englanders! Without the contributions of WOLFE OF SEPPALA, SAPSUK OF SEPPALA, and CH. VANKA OF SEPPALA 2nd, (as well as the non-Wheeler Seppala males BELFORD’S WOLF and SEPP 3rd), the Seeleys would have been reduced to inbreeding endlessly from their first foundation mating, as Jacques Suzanne did.
Others
Jacques Suzanne of the Lake Placid Club in New York was sui generis, an eccentric lone wolf who kept his special bloodline to himself, apparently sharing it only with one other breeder, Jack S. Hagy of Elmira, New York, though he sold Everlyn Washburn one female. He began his breeding with a single pair of sleddogs, POLAIRE and DARKA, of unknown provenance; he inbred on that single mating for many decades thereafter, routinely breeding brothers and sisters.
Margaret Dewey herself was, like Jacques Suzanne, one of the Lake Placid group of dog drivers. She was the daughter of Melville Dewey, founder of the Lake Placid Club. Her bloodline was a curious mix of Poland Spring, Wheeler, Seeley and early Demidoff lines grafted onto early unregistered stock of undocumented origin, some of it apparently grandprogeny of TOGO. She would appear to have been an independent non-partisan in the early scheme of Siberian dog-politics.
In those days no one had a "lock" on the Siberian Husky market, small and new though it was. The dominant Northern Light bloodline, although it was the largest single lineage group, accounted for only 34 per cent of the total number of the group we are analysing. The Seeley group accounted for only 25 per cent (leaving out Lorna’s 5 Northern light crosses from both groups). The Seppala group, hardly 14 1/2 per cent. The Suzanne group, less than 12 1/2 per cent. The Komatik group, about 6.9 per cent.
There was much stronger bloodline diversity in those days!
To be continued . . .
Posted by ditkoofseppala at January 20, 2006 01:48 AM