In Arthur Walden’s 1935 children’s book, Harness and Pack, he tells the history of pack animals - horses, oxen, mules, camels, reindeer - and dogs. He writes that the first the West knew of dogs used as beasts of burden was from the early 13th-century writings of explorer Marco Polo, who probably saw them in Northern Siberia. Walden points out that the dog is the only native draft animal of North America; all the rest were imported. It seems likely that the Asians’ use of dogs with travois or sleds came with them across the land bridge to this continent.

Walden, an Illinois minister’s son with an appetite for adventure, spent several youthful years in the Yukon during the 1896-99 Klondike Gold Rush, where he learned the art of dog-sledding. When he returned to his parents’ summer place in Wonalancet, he married neighbor Kate Sleeper, and helped her run Wonalancet Farm. He also began to raise and breed sled dogs, pioneering sled dog-racing in the region, and starting the New England Sled Dog Association in the 1924. In 1927 Walden was asked to head up the dog team on Admiral Byrd’s upcoming Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole. Extensive training in Wonalancet followed. Chinook was the lead dog on the expedition, and many of the other dogs were his offspring.

Chinook disappeared in Antarctica, and Walden died in Wonalancet in 1947, but others continued the kennel, the Chinook breed and the racing sport: Julia Lombard in Wonalancet and later Perry Greene in Maine. The breed then almost died out, but was saved in the 1980s by breeders in Maine, Ohio and California. Thanks to a group of middle-schoolers in Bedford, NH, the Chinook breed became the official State Dog of New Hampshire in 2010.

All of these aspects of The Great Chinook story are covered, with copious photographs, in the current exhibit at the Tamworth History Center. The Center is open by appointment. Please call 603-726-1832 to arrange a visit.