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I had contacted Alan Stewart in the late summer of 2008 to invite him to Edinburgh to attend an International Seminar studying the behaviour and training of dogs. Alan replied saying that he would be unable to attend but instead invited me to travel up to the Cairngorm Sleddog Centre to observe for myself how he worked with his own dogs. Alan told me that he sometimes trains up to eighteen dogs at one time and so he invited me to come and see for myself with the promise of taking me on one of his training trips. This I had to see for myself! The ground was hard, icy and frozen, and the chilling wind was severe as I struggled along the barren track that was surrounded on all sides by the imposing and extremely forbidding Cairngorm Mountain range. In a walk that seemed to take me forever I found myself on a few occasions flat on my back and staring up at the pale grey skies as I struggled to stay upright on the frozen ground. Finally I veered leftwards by a deep wooded area and there in front of me was a large cabin accompanied by a series of outbuildings and a sign that read Sleddog Centre. A man came out of one building and gave me a quick wave before disappearing into a yard. I could hear and smell the dogs as I made my way up there.
This was Sled dog country. It was vast and open with areas of patched thick forest and miles and miles of barren wild terrain surrounding them, a prefect environment for the Alaskan Husky. Alan gave me a warm welcome and quickly took me into a yard to introduce me to his team of dogs. He warned me that these were not domestic dogs in any way at all but that they lived to work and do what was in their genes. They were not pets. They were Alaskan Huskies. The dogs lived outdoors in large whiskey barrels and although they were not domesticated i found them to be pleasant, content and all at one with one another and their surroundings. There were no signs of stress or frustration that you would commonly see in kennelled dogs or among dogs that live in large numbers together. They simply waited each day for when Alan would get them ready and to take them out for their team run. Eagerly they waited together to go work. The Sled Dog Centre is three miles from the centre of Aviemore. Alan and his wife Fiona have been training and racing sled dogs for nearly twenty years now and this has taken them all over the world. ‘These dogs are not your average K9 pet,’ he explains, ‘they are capable of running at 14mph for 90 miles in one single day.’ The breeding lines of these dogs go back to the early 1900’s. Alan sometimes works and trains 18 dogs at one time and all in one team. He races only in Europe, the Alps and the USA. The Centre is dedicated to Scotty Allan who is known as King of the Arctic Trails. Allan was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1867 and was a prospector and trapper who was training and driving dogs with supplies over the dangerous and threatening trails that were the country’s lifelines. Allan and his famous dog, Baldy, described as a scraggly mutt, would cross the finish line of the All-Alaska sweepstakes in the top three on no less than eight occasions. It is a shame that so little is known in his own country or recognised about this obscure Scottish hero and great adventurer. The Sled Dog Centre is home to forty-five working dogs with a mixture of running Pointers and Alaskan Husky’s. Six Alaskan Husky pups arrived at the centre in January 2009, they are the offspring of two of the best of four times Iditarod winner Doug Swingley’s kennels in Montana and they were the first puppies to be born at the Sled Dog Centre in six years. At a very young age the dogs are introduced to the training wheel that is powered only by the dogs walking or running, from the tender age of 14 months they will be introduced into a 14 dog team. There is no need for much training for teamwork as the gene and the blood line take care of that but they do need to build their bodies and muscles up so they do spend a lot of time running on the training wheel.
The coordination and cooperation Alan Stewart has with his dogs out on a team run is extraordinary. As we drove the dogs around the thick Rothiemurchus forest they were tuned in at all times to a set of very simple commands and hand signals. The lead dog would eagerly wait when we stopped for a rest for a signal from Alan to start moving off again. The power in these dogs is phenomenal and it is an experience that I would recommend to anyone who would wish to observe first hand what it is like to be behind a team of true working dogs. Sled Dogs are the ultimate dog and are unmatched by any other dog in terms of intelligence, speed and stamina. The goldrush town of Nome is situated only two degrees south of the arctic circle and in wintertime it dwells in utter isolation. The town experienced an outbreak of diphtheria in 1925 creating a massive crisis. The town’s supply of serum was extremely low and if they did not get other supplies quickly then an epidemic would break out. The main problem was that the town was completely cut off from the rest of the world by the severest of winters. The only way supplies could ever reach the town were if a team of sled dogs travelled night and day over 674 miles through blizzard swept arctic conditions in a race against the clock.
Just after 5.30am on Monday February 2nd Gunner Kaasen and his team of dogs pulled up on Front Street, Nome. Gunner was exhausted and completely spent but in a tribute to his now famous lead dog Balto, he staggered off the sled and up to the head of the team and collapsed beside his dog muttering the words ‘Damn fine dog’. Balto would become a legend in his own lifetime and is immortalised today by a statue in New York City. The story of this famous adventure of Kaasen and his dogs is well depicted in the book ‘The Cruellest Miles’ by Gay and Laney Salisbury. Alan Stewart’s son John has followed closely in his father’s footsteps and is now ready to take on what is called the ‘Last Great Race on Earth’, the Alaskan Iditarod. This is a gruelling race that covers the roughest terrain that our planet has to offer with frozen rivers, jagged mountains, dense forests and mile after mile of windswept coast. Temperatures can reach - 50c and severe winds often cause a loss of visibility. A team of between 12-16 dogs will give their all as they cut their way through the 1150 miles of this merciless trail. So far 75 mushers have officially entered to run the 2010 Iditarod. The race starts from Anchorage, in south central Alaska and finishes in Nome on the western Bering sea coast. Each of the teams will consist of between 12 to 16 dogs and they will attempt to cover the distance in 10 to 17 days. At the young and tender age of 6 years old John was already running and training sled dogs with his dad and gained all his experience and knowledge running the team around the Cairngorm Mountain range on remote training trips and around the Rothiemurchus estate. He has also been a pro handler in the Chilean and Argentinian mountain ranges. Since those early days he has improved immensely by finishing in 10th place in the International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled Dog Race in the wilds of Alaska. He completed the race in just over 25 hours and had competed against Jeff King who is now one of the best mushers in the world and a 4 time Iditarod Champion. It is in this race that he got his nickname ‘Flying Scotsman’. His last qualifier was Montana’s great ‘Race to the Sky’, a 300 mile grueller that earned him 4th place as he finished the race with 11 dogs. On March 6th, 2010 John will be the youngest UK competitor to ever race in the Iditarod and he will get his chance to go against the great Jeff King once more. I personally wish him all the very best for him and his team of dogs! 'Maxwell Muir' Please follow link below if you want to know more about the centre in Aviemore
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