The Management of Sledge Dogs

Abstract

Dog-driving methods are a subject on which no two people think alike, and whenever two or three men meet together in the Arctic, they form the basis for endless discussion and argument. We can remember many a good night's sleep lost when a visitor arrived apparently tired out, but with enough energy left to sit up all night arguing the relative merits of fan or centre trace, or something of that sort. For this reason we feel rather diffident in adding our opinions to those already published recently in The Polar Record. With regard to different equipment, harness, sledges and team formations—these are almost entirely a question of local conditions and, therefore, not really worth arguing about. For instance, in North-East Greenland, we used regularly fan, centre trace and tandem formations to suit differing snow conditions, etc., and each was, under the right conditions, definitely superior to the other two.