Byrd’s Great Adventure : Dogs for Antarctic

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 335, 21 April 1928, Page 24

Byrd’s Great Adventure : Dogs for Antarctic

S- OON the last day will be ijjl at hand for training the Ml sled dogs, which are to I accompany Commander «\j Byrd to the Antarctic, J_\ and the next time they feel the harness tugging at their shoulders will be when they disembark from the good ship Samson at the edge of the Ross Ice Barrier. Arthur T. Walden, who goes in charge of the dogs, is a veteran at driving. He has been driving dogs since 1596, when he went to Alaska as a “dog puncher.” He fought his way alone, at night, through blizzards. He sewed up wounds in his own body, prodding a surgeon’s needle through the tough skin with his own hands. Every man for himself, it was, and the devil take the hindermost, in the old day’s. “And the finest place I ever lived in,” says Walden, puffing a cigarette before the open fire in his New England farmhouse. He has written a book about it—“A Dog Puncher on the Yukon.” “After Alaska, I don’t look for anything hard in the Antarctic,” he says. “Why, there Isn’t half the danger that there is right in Washington Street in Boston.” An outdoor man, a man with keen, blue eyes set deeply under bristling yellow eyebrows. A skin reddened and toughened by zero winds and many a winter’s sunshine. A square-set, compact, wiry man, alert from the tips of his reindeer mocas sins to the peak of his fur helmet—a man whose every motion speaks coordination of muscle and control of nerve. “I’ve got a boss for the first time in my life,” he tells y’ou—and Arthur Walden is 56 now. “Byrd is the only man living, except Amundsen. I’d volunteer to go with.” The dogs, it is clear, will bring an element of joyousness into the vast, cold silence of the Antarctic. There will be puppies, too, for new ones are to be bred there to take the place of veterans that fall. And there will be Igloo, Commander Byrd’s mascot, clad in his little union suit and fur cap. Companions all for the one solitary Boy Scout, to be chosen by competition from the Boy Scouts of America, who will go, too. “Chinook! ” says Arthur Walden, rais mg his leather mitten. Old Chinook'? hoary nose goes skyward, his haunches

down, the great tail sweeping the snow behind him. “Woo-00-oo!” he sings. "Woo-00-oo!” sings Quimbo. The team behind them joins in. Crockett's team, down by the narrow bridge that leads across a mountain stream to “Dog Town,” takes up the tune, and Goodale’s team in the stockade be hind them, and Vaughan’s tepm bv the wood’s edge. From a shed the voice i of Wolf, Sepalla’s half-breed, wails a high scream above the bass-voices of \ the sled dogs, till overhead the slopes I of Wonalancet echo. That’ll do!” Walden’s mitten falls. Chinook’s head drops. Suddenly the din that made the crisp air tremble ceases. “You see, he’s choirmaster.” says Arthur Walden, patting the Dog Emeritus of sled dogs. The sleds are being built by the | South Tamworth Industries after a design of Mr. Walden’s. They are to be of ash, triple selected The woods 1 men, when the trees were chopped, I marked out the tough ones From i among these the best planks are I

chosen and, later, the strengest ot#* finished pieces. Both snowshoes aud skis will taken for walking beside the A* sleds. The men will wear fur clothe Eskimo fashion. Commander Bffdi® sent for the skins of 50 reindeer fie* Alaska and has asked the Dani? Government to send him Eskimos 9 sew' them into garments. There B* be difficulty, however, if the EskfiU insist on bringing their families.' 1 -* Commander Byrd is averse to tic** women. Two ten-foot freight sleds will * driven behind each team of dogs, with SOOlb. on the first, on the second. The sleds are together by crossed chains, so the rear sled follows in the exact tof the first one. The driver heil* guide them by swinging his on a long, slanting lever, or "gee P®* attached to the runner and the of the front sled. . j The dog teams are to go ahea the airplanes, inland, following, bably, the route that Amundsen toward the South Pole.