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"Chinook, the dog from which the breed was named."
Born in the Wonalancet,NH kennel of Arthur T. Walden in 1917; lost in Little America, Antarctica 1929. Leader of Walden's racing team through 1923, leader of the first dog team to ascend Mount Washington (1926), veteran of the "battle to unload" on Byrd's first Antarctic Expedition (1929). Walden's pride, and constant companion. Chinook himself never knew the Perry Greene Kennel, but his progeny formed the foundation of that kennel in 1941. |
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"Wonalancet Farm, Wonalancet, N.H."
The Waldens' Wonalancet Farm in it's heyday, with Walden and his team waiting for the next passenger. |
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Perhaps the same team, on the "trail".
Even as dark as this photo is, there is no mistaking the massive Chinook himself, in lead. Chinook is said to have weighed in at 102 pounds in fit working condition. |
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"A Husky Family."
Chinook posed with a litter of his offspring. The back of this card was dated 1926, but never sent. |
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"Koltag, Chinook Kennels."
Arthur Walden, realizing that Chinook himself was too massive an animal to continue to lead winning race teams, started in the early 1920s to breed Chinook for lighter boned, faster offspring. He settled on Chinook/shepherd offspring as his ideal; and this dog, Koltag (alternately spelled Kaltag) was chosen from one of these breedings to replace Chinook as lead dog in Walden's team. |
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"Wonalancet Kennels Purebred Chinooks, Julia P. Lombard"
The Depression was not kind to the Waldens, and Arthur Walden returned from Antarctica in 1930 to discover that he was in debt to Milton and Eva Seeley, his kennel managers. They took Walden's Chinook Kennel as payment; and while they did not continue to breed Chinooks, they did go on to make important contributions to the Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute breeds. Mrs. Julia P. Lombard, a neighbor of the Waldens, had been given some Chinook breeding stock; and, with Mr. Walden as her kennel manager, continued his breeding program. In this photo, Arthur Walden himself is driving one of the Wonalancet Chinook teams. |
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"Chinook, World Famous Sled Dog."
Actually, Chinook himself is not in this team. This photo was taken in early 1941 of the team that Perry Greene drove from Fort Kent, ME to Kittery, ME. This trip was billed at the time as the longest trip by dogsled ever made entirely within the United States; Greene's team hauled a sled loaded with 800 pounds of gear 502 miles, in 90 hours running time! |