Horse sledge

“ The sledge, with its living burden, is thrown across the horse’s back, and made fast to the load. The mother mounts to the top of the pack, resting her feet on the horse’s neck, and armed with a cudgel, with which she vigorously belabors the beast, right and left. ”

“ An old, steady, or worn-out horse is yoked to a large sledge, in which four comrades—the driver, two marksmen, and a fair-sized sucking-pig—take their places. The driver, whose sole duty is to look after his horse, takes the front seat; the marksmen sit behind, and the pig lies in a bag between their feet. Towards evening the mixed company sets off along a well-beaten road to a part of the forest where during the day fresh wolf-tracks were seen. On to the track one of the hunters throws a bag stuffed with hay, and fastened to the sledge by a long line ”

“ A whole battery of guns was placed in the seat with them. The sledge was larger than that which they were accustomed to use, and held four, besides the driver. Two woodmen—experienced hunters—took their places on the seat facing the midshipmen. A portion of the carcase of a horse, which had broken its leg and been shot the previous day, was fastened behind the sledge.
A drive of an hour took them far into the heart of the forest, although the coachman drove much slower than usual, in order that the horses might be perfectly fresh when required. ”

“ We are told that, from long experience, it is found if the traces are attached to the sledge so high that the trace is horizontal or parallel with the ground, and the sledge meets with any obstacle in a rough track, the runners will bite into the obstruction so as almost to stop the team, but if the traces are fastened lower, so as to form a straight line from the horse’s collar to the hind end of the runners of the sledge, then they will lift, as it were, at the obstacle, and glide easily over it. ”

“ This evil would seem the annoyance of an hour to the travellers in a stage-coach, but to a sledge-party on the ice-waste it is the gravest that can be conceived. The Esquimaux dog is driven by a single trace, a long thin thong of seal or walrus hide, which passes from his chest over his haunches to the sledge. The team is always driven abreast, and the traces are of course tangling and twisting themselves up incessantly, as the half-wild or terrified brutes bound right or left from their prescribed positions. ”

“ How my heart leaped to see the sledge gliding over the snow, the man inside and the one on snowshoes shouting at the plucky, galloping dogs! But they still had one hundred and fifty yards to come, not far behind them, whooping and yelling, firing musket and hurling tomahawks, were at least two score of redskins—the most of them on snowshoes. Crack, crack, crack! They seemed to be aiming poorly, for the sledge swept on, dogs and men uninjured.
“Be ready!” cried the factor: “make room there! The moment the sledge dashes in let the red devils have a volley—muskets and howitzer!” ”

“ They always travel at a gallop, no matter what the state of the country may be, and to go down-hill is both difficult and dangerous; and at times it is necessary for the driver to guide the sledge with his feet, or with a strong staff planted in the snow as the sledge proceeds; and when heavily laden, and the descent great, the dogs are often taken off, and the sledge glides down alone, the man steering with his toes, and lying flat on his face, thus descending head-foremost like boys on their sleds. ”

“ From this a single trace, protected by soft fur to prevent chafing, runs back to the sledge. A single line made fast to the halter is used for guiding, and, kept slack, is only pulled to guide or stop the deer. A hard pull brings the weight of the sledge on the head of the deer and generally brings him to a stop. No whip is used, for the timid deer becomes easily frightened and then is hard to control and quiet down. The low, wide sledges with broad runners are hard to pack so as to secure and protect the load. ”

“ Down by the Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight. Two of the sledge giddes had come to teeth, and the friends of both were assisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing, shouting, running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and cheered ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic old squaw hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate the snarling, rolling mass. Over in the high log stockade wherein the Company's sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs howled mournfully, desolated at missing the fun. ”

“ Instead of frisky dogs with tails curled over their backs, with drivers comfortably seated on the sledge cracking a whip at the flying team, snarling dogs and worn-out men tramped slowly and silently through the unbroken snow.
It very rarely occurs that there is either a beaten or a marked trail, so the lead is taken by a man who keeps in advance, picking out the best road, while his comrades are hard at work lifting the sledge over bad places or keeping it from capsizing. ”

“ In fastening them to the sledge, care is taken not to let them go abreast. They are tied by separate thongs, of unequal lengths, to an horizontal bar on the fore-part of the sledge; an old knowing one leads the way, running ten or twenty paces a head, directed by the driver's whip, which is of great length, and can be well managed only by an Esquimaux. The other dogs follow like a flock of sheep. If one of them receives a lash, he generally bites his neighbour, and the bite goes round.
To return to our travellers: the two sledges contained five men, one woman, and a child. ”

“ In the same way it must be lifted across hummocks through which a road is cut with the end of the spear, which, for this purpose, is always lashed in a place where it is handy for use, generally on the right side of the bottom of the sledge. The difficulties of traveling across heavy ice which has been subjected to heavy pressures have frequently been described. When the sledge stops the dogs immediately lie down, and if they cannot start again, though pulling with all their strength, the leader frequently looks around pitifully, as if to say, We cannot do more! ”

“ The hunter vainly endeavours to extricate it, and before he can draw his knife to cut it—supposing he is fortunate enough to have such an instrument—man, and dogs, and sledge are all among the bear’s legs, in a huddled and tangled heap, and at the mercy of the enraged monster.
The dogs were cold, and eager to start. In a moment they were yoked to the sledge; the hunter with his right hand threw out the coils of his long whip-lash, with his left he seized an upstander, and propelling the sledge a few paces, he uttered at the same moment the shrill [196] starting-cry, “Ka! ”

“ Meantime sledges were prepared, being small open carts without wheels, which just held two persons each: my mother and I were in the second, Lea and an Italian in the third, and the Hawkers in the fourth: we had no man with our sledge. The sledges started in procession, the horses stumbling over the ledges in the snow, from which we bounded up and down. At last the path began to wind along the edge of a terrific precipice, where nothing but a slight edging of fresh snow separated one from the abyss. ”

“ There was no difference of opinion that the sledge with the tapered runners pulled easier, and later we used these sledges on the Barrier with great success.
If some instrument could be devised to test sledges in this way it would be of very great service. No team of men can make an exact estimate of the run of their own sledge, let alone the sledge which your pony or your dogs are pulling. ”

“ Though the dogs are kept in training entirely by fear of the whip, and indeed without it would soon have their own way, its immediate effect is always detrimental to the draught of the sledge; for not only does the individual that is struck draw back and slacken his trace, but generally turns upon his next neighbour, and this, passing on to the next, occasions a general divergency, accompanied by the usual yelping and showing of teeth. The dogs then come together again by degrees, and the draught of the sledge is accelerated ”

“ The ponies behaved as well as my companions, and jumped the floes in great style. After getting them on a new floe we simply left them, and there they stood chewing at each others' head ropes or harness till we were over with the sledges and ready to take them on again. Their implicit trust in us was touching to behold. A 12-feet sledge makes an excellent bridge if an opening is too wide to jump. After some hours we saw fast ice ahead, and thanked God for it. Meanwhile a further unpleasantness occurred in the arrival of a host of the terrible 'killer' whales. ”

“ Alas! one half-hour’s experience of the real thing is enough to take the whole gloss off the subject. The sledge is heavily laden with tent and sleeping-bags, provisions, and fuel—an item not considered by many people, without which even a drink of water is an impossibility. The driver toils along behind the sledge, guiding it by its handles as he would a plough, or flogging the dogs with all his might. Striding along in the deep snow gives him a peculiar waddling gait universal amongst the Eskimo. ”

“ I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's MASQUERADE. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. ”

“ They are very simply harnessed to it by a strong cord, or trace, made of seal hide, the trace of the leading dog being considerably longer than that of any of the others. Being accustomed to the work of the sledge, as soon as they can walk, their training is very complete, and a good team will do almost anything but speak.
A team of seven dogs drew a heavy sledge, full of men, a mile in four minutes and a half; and Captain Lyon mentions that three dogs drew him the same distance in six minutes, the weight of the sledge being one hundred pounds. ”

“ Our imaginary night has been short enough, and we are supposed to be preparing for a new start. "Look, see," says Thomas to me, and pours some water on the iron of the runners, for the sledge has meanwhile been turned upside down. Were it winter, that water would at once freeze on the iron and form a splendid smooth surface for the sledge to run on over ice or snow. "Hoo-eet." The sledge has been turned right again and repacked, and the dogs get up. No, there is nothing left behind. "Hoo-eet;" away we go. It is astonishing how widely the dogs spread themselves in pulling. ”

“ The sledge is steered with the legs, usually with the right foot of the driver, or, if it must be pulled aside from a large hummock, by pulling the head aside or by means of the deer’s antlers. If two persons are on the sledge—and usually two join for a long drive—they must not speak to each other, for as soon as the dogs hear them they will stop, turn around, sit down, and listen to the conversation. It has frequently been said that the method of harnessing is inconvenient, as the dogs cannot use their strength to the best advantage ”

“ Summer sledges of various forms are common to the whole world. We shall only deal with the most noteworthy and valuable to the settler or explorer. The most common of these, known as a wishing bone sledge, is made from a curved and forked branch cut off to the required length, a deep notch is cut at the point of the angle at the union of the fork to fasten the horses to, transverse pieces are treenailed across the prongs, the tail ends are slightly rounded up like the runners of a sledge, and the head is also curved in an upward direction with the axe, as seen in the above illustration. ”

“ The dogs galloped at a pace which made the sledges bound like rubber balls over irregularities of rocks, slippery ice, and hard-crusted snow, and our hold tightened on the hickory in the effort to keep our places. It disturbed the dogs not at all whether they were on rock or snow, or whether the sledge rested on runners or turned spirally ”

“ My own sledge carried four cases of man pemmican, two cases of biscuit, thirty-six cases of milk, twelve tins of coal oil, 2,400 tea tablets, one tent, matches, one Primus stove, one axe, two pickaxes, candles, snow-knives, one gallon of alcohol, one pair of snowshoes, one pair of ski, one Mannlicher rifle, 250 rounds of ammunition, one Colt revolver, 100 rounds of ammunition, sleeping-robes, rope and spare harness. We had to leave a Peary sledge in camp because there were not dogs enough to make a team to haul it. ”

“ To drive in a sledge at all was to me a novel and delightful experience, and the sledge to which I was now conducted was particularly pretty, with its body of light carved wood, its fur rugs lined with crimson, its pair of cream-coloured Russian ponies, with their harness studded with silver knobs, and arches of silver bells over their heads ”

“ There was a sharp angle in the road a mile or so ahead of us, and, at the pace we were proceeding, the sledge would certainly be upset in going around the angle. As we approached the point of peril we ceased firing, laid our guns among the furs, ordered the speed of the horses to be slackened—no easy thing to accomplish—and then both of us hung out as far as possible on the inner side of the sledge, to keep it from going over. ”