April 18, 2009
Historic Gray Rocks Inn Closes
Gray Rocks Inn with dog team and airplane
In 1906 the Gray Rocks Inn ski resort opened in St. Jovite Station, Québec, in the Laurentians. It had started life as the private home of George and Lucille Wheeler. Gray Rocks Inn became a colourful and popular resort that offered a great deal more than skiing. Apart from downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, hiking, tennis, golf, mountain climbing, dogsledding, and a variety of other recreations were offered for the amusement of Montrealers and others from further afield.
Gray Rocks Inn was run by three generations of Wheelers before it was finally sold in 1983 by George Wheeler's grandson "Biff" Harry Wheeler, Jr. In 1930 and 1931 Biff's father Harry R. Wheeler acquired sleddogs from the Poland Spring Kennels of Leonhard Seppala and Elizabeth M. Ricker. The Wheeler dogs became the first registered Siberian Huskies in 1939 when the breed was recognised by the Canadian Kennel Club. Harry Wheeler bred Siberians of the pure Leonhard Seppala strain for two decades before he sold "Seppala Kennels" to C. S. MacLean and J. D. McFaul of Maniwaki, Québec. It is fair to say that the Siberian Husky breed worldwide could hardly exist today were it not for the contribution of the Wheeler kennel, which was crucial both to racing and to show bloodlines of that breed. Moreover, the Wheeler stock, through dogs sold to William L. Shearer III's Foxstand Kennels and to the MacLean/McFaul partnership, eventually gave rise to the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed in Canada in the late 1990s.
The present owners of the property decided that it was no longer a profitable enterprise and closed the resort last 29 March after 103 years in business. Gray Rocks Inn was for most of those years something of a shrine to dog drivers in Canada; its closing represents a significant passage for dogsled sport in this country.
Click here to read the Canwest News Service story.
April 12, 2009
Ground-breaking Study in Inbreeding Depression
A new study in conservation biology at the University of Illinois, headed by Animal Biology professor and department head Dr. Ken Paige, indicates that loss of genetic diversity in a few key genes may influence levels of activity in a broad variety of other genes, causing significant changes in biological mechanisms dealing with metabolism, stress and defense. These changes shunt energy away from reproduction and undermine some basic cellular functions, resulting in the syndrome commonly called Inbreeding Depression.
This study, carried out with six inbred strains of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, is ground-breaking, and has produced results that will undoubtedly result in further and more detailed studies. Of great interest was the fact that 75% of reproductive declines in the inbred fruit flies were attributable to loss of dominant alleles and consequent unmasking of recessive alleles, while 25% were attributable to loss of "overdominance" or heterozygote superiority effects. (Both of these problems were highlighted in J. Jeffrey Bragg's 1996 brief to the Canadian Kennel Club, "Purebred Dog Breeds into the Twenty-First Century.") Identical changes were found in 46 separate genes in fruit fly culture lines showing high levels of inbreeding depression, creating a good basis for further research.
Inbreeding depression is thought to be a major cause of weakness and genetic disease in purebred dog breeds, as well as being of major concern to conservation biologists in their efforts to preserve dwindling wildlife populations.
Researchers take first look at the genetic dynamics of inbreeding depression
April 04, 2009
N.W.T Artist Charged with Cruelty
Archie Beaulieu,a Dene painter, has been charged with neglecting dozens of sled dogs at his kennel in Behchoko, N.W.T.
Many of Archie's dogs have been euthanized due to the deplorable conditions they were found in, although Archie still defines his animals as "a part of him".
Archie concludes that the lack of food, water and shelter his dogs experienced was because of an inability to financially support their care. Maybe a sign of more such cases with the state of the economy?
One hopes not...