February 10, 2006
The Message of Bayou of Foxstand (Part VI - Conclusion)
Canadian Seppalas — and the Preservation of the "SCOTTY" lineage
Leonhard Seppala at the 1916 Ruby Dog Derby, "Scotty" at right
SEPPALA STRAIN might also have gone the way of Northern Light, but for two crucial events in Canada. First, in 1939 the Canadian Kennel Club recognised the "Siberian Huskie" breed. It appears that breed recognition and registration were actually resisted by Harry Wheeler, but possibly pressure from A. K. C. and the new breed club was placed upon C. K. C. due to the export of Wheeler stock to the U. S. A. For nine years after A. K. C. recognition the breed had remained unrecognised and unregistered in Canada despite the active two-way traffic in sleddogs. During the 1950s, when Turner and Shearer ceased their activity, Seppalas managed to survive largely because J. D. "Donnie" McFaul of Maniwaki, Quebec, had purchased the remnant of Wheeler dogs in 1950, added FOXSTAND’S SUNDAY and FOXSTAND’S GEORGIA to them, and carried on breeding Seppalas in Canada until his retirement in 1963. At that point there was no successor kennel. The fate of extinction that had threatened the strain in the late 1950s once again loomed large. At almost the last possible moment a naïve would-be rescuer arrived on the scene and the "Markovo rescue effort" got under way in the Canadian province of Ontario.
By an odd turn of fortune, included in the stock used by Markovo Kennels to resuscitate the moribund Seppala bloodline was an excellent bitch, LYL OF SEPSEQUEL (her sister MOKA was also used by Seppineau Kennels), whose pedigree had two Gatineau lines and showed BAYOU OF FOXSTAND in its fourth generation of ancestry. Thus the Northern Light lineage carried by BAYOU was preserved in the "Second Foundation" that gave renewed life to the bloodlines of Wheeler, Shearer and McFaul. Also the unique connection to Leonhard Seppala’s 1915 Nome Sweepstakes leader SCOTTY was preserved, which otherwise would have been completely lost to Seppala strain. Due to the overemphasis on TOGO in the 1920s and 1930s, this splendid jet black male’s line was not found in any of the Poland Spring stock that happened to achieve registration, unless SCOTTY was one of the unknown ancestors of such Poland Spring dogs as SMOKY. He could well have been.
SCOTTY is a forgotten hero of Seppala strain. He led Sepp’s team in the years when he was rising to the top of Alaska racing competition, but was entirely forgotten later, overlooked in the hullabaloo over the Serum Run and the New England adulation of TOGO. SCOTTY’s influence was strong in the Northern Light bloodline, inasmuch as Northern Light’s famous white lead dog JACK FROST was sired by him. SCOTTY’s image now graces the website banners of the International Seppala Association, but that is not the only place in which it is found.
In 1979 the Seppala strain breeding of George Mentis in Minot, North Dakota, mated a Markovo bitch with LYL in her pedigree (ZEITA OF MARKOVO) to a Gary Egelston male (MINTO OF SEPPINEAU) out of LYL’s litttermate sister MOKA OF SEPSEQUEL. From that mating was born a bitch, DYNAMIKOS RUBY, who repeated Scotty’s genetic markers of jet black colour, dark earlinings, and a white blaze without eyespots. RUBY in turn gave birth to XPACE OF SEPPALTA, who became a foundation dog in the present-day Seppala Kennels in the Yukon Territory, siring a female SCOTTY look-alike, KOLYMA OF SEPPALA, who perpetuates SCOTTY’s genetic markers in her progeny and grand-progeny today! It seems remarkable that one dog’s genetic heritage can re-emerge after 13 to 18 generations. Nevertheless, today’s pedigrees carry multiple repetitions of the BAYOU line through LYL and MOKA OF SEPSEQUEL. The two sisters together make up over 25% of KOLYMA’s pedigree lines, so perhaps it is not so surprising that she and her sister TONYA throw SCOTTY-type progeny on occasion.
Kolyma of Seppala carries the "Scotty" genetics forward in today's Seppala Siberian Sleddog
Despite his undoubted presence behind present-day Seppala pedigrees and his prestigious status as Leonhard Seppala’s mainstay All-Alaska Sweepstakes leader, SCOTTY does not even appear on the "founder list" so often published by the opportunist organisation that has pirated the name of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog, using it to promote the breeding of Racing Siberian Huskies and Alaskan Husky crosses. But then, the ISSSC is not exactly famous for accurate pedigrees anyway.
BAYOU’s Message
BAYOU OF FOXSTAND was born in 1940, bred by Joe Booth who trained the Fred Lovejoy team, out of Booth’s own leader, DUCHESS OF HUSKYLAND. The latter bitch was born of the mating of an early Cold River leader ROLLINSFORD NINA OF MARILYN to Millie Turner’s SAPSUK OF SEPPALA. ROLLINSFORD NINA OF MARILYN had been bred by C. H. Young, daughter of a Seppala-line Shattuck male (KOTLIK) and a bitch sired by CH. NORTHERN LIGHT KOBUCK (NERA OF MARILYN). Joe Booth bred his leader DUCHESS to SURGUT OF SEPPALA, another Turner-owned Wheeler sire. BAYOU was thus three-quarters Harry Wheeler background and one-quarter Shattuck breeding, as can be seen from her pedigree.
BAYOU was sold to Bill Shearer who resold her to J. D. McFaul as a foundation bitch for his Gatineau kennels. Valiant little BAYOU did her utmost to pass on her distinguished ancestry and genetics! She must have been an exceptionally dedicated and skilled brood bitch. She gave birth to seven litters for McFaul between June 1942 and September 1947. Resold then to Earl F. Norris, again as a foundation bitch, she had two more litters in Alaska.
Today, so far as anyone knows, descendants of BAYOU OF FOXSTAND through the Gatineau and Anadyr bloodlines carry the only remaining genetic traces of the Northern Light bloodline that was responsible for the first 25 A. K. C. Siberian Husky registrations and the first A. K. C. bench champion, NORTHERN LIGHT KOBUCK. Although at one time Millie Turner, Lorna Demidoff, Col. Norman Vaughan and others owned or bred to Northern Light dogs, today it is as though the kennels of Julien Hurley, Elsie Reeser, Oliver Shattuck and others who owned Northern Light stock were the losing tribe in some Old Testament battle — all their children slaughtered, all their habitations thrown down, not one stone left standing upon another, their fields sown with salt.
All, save BAYOU OF FOXSTAND, who somehow survived to give birth to nine litters of progeny. Little BAYOU who managed against all odds to provide us today with a living memory of the 1930s.
"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee" . . .
Consider the Parallels Today . . .
SEPPALA STRAIN itself only quite narrowly escaped the fate of the Northern Light bloodline. The S. H. C. A., its writers and its breeders have often tried to deny the existence or the uniqueness of Seppala strain and have ignored it except when an injection of soundness was needed for another bloodline. The message of BAYOU OF FOXSTAND and her pedigree tell us how easily a respected, valuable, established, numerous bloodline can become lost utterly in the dirty scuffle of dog politics, breed promotion and factionalism. Those who read this article today might reflect upon BAYOU’s message and try to work out its implications in the present. Today we have a unique situation with respect to the Seppala Siberian Sleddog and the effort to launch it as a breed in its own right. This situation, it seems to me, has multiple parallels and resonances in the 1930s and the 1940s. But, not to be tiresome and allegorical, I prefer to leave the reader to discover and to ponder those similarities without further assistance from me.
