Seppala Siberian Sleddog

The Northeastern Siberian sled dogs that adapted to cope with merciless gale force winds, blizzards and a frozen wasteland are the very ancestors of the Seppala Siberian Sleddogs. Renowned dog driver Leonhard Seppala has been credited with creating this dedicated breed of dog. He was an immigrant from Norway who went to Alaska to seek his fortune in gold but became known instead as one of the most successful dogsled racers of his time. Dogsled racing at the Nome's gold fields was a popular pastime so when a Russian fur trader named William Goosak brought a team of ten Northeastern Siberian dogs to Nome, Alaska – it caught the local's attention. They immediately looked at the smaller dogs with disdain and called them the Siberian Rats. Their jeers and taunts halted abruptly when the ‘rats’ won at the 1909 Nome Sweepstakes race. At the time, Seppala owned a two dog sled team; then in 1913, he was entrusted to care for a team of Siberian Huskies which were then known as the Chukchi Huskies. From 1914 to 1917 Seppala worked to become a legend by dominating the Alaskan sweepstakes. In 1925 the town of Nome had an outbreak of diphtheria, and Seppala became famous by taking his team of dogs, along with some others,  in a series of dog relays which covered over 340 miles in whiteout conditions and furious icy winds to deliver the antidote to the stricken town. He became an immensely popular figure, and he established a kennel at Poland Spring to continue the development of the breed. But by 1969 Seppala's dogs were facing extinction. Thankfully these loyal dogs got a reprieve when the Markova kennels in Canada and the Seppineau Kennels in the USA banded together, and to this day, the Seppala Siberian Sleddog lives on.