what they are depicted as being. They are not agrarian workers out of a romantic idyll; rather they are operators in the tourism industry, not herding sheep but herding tourists instead, while at the same time feeding off the imagery of both shepherd and dog as quintessentially rural and experts/masters of the rural landscape.
Fig. 2.1. Shepherds Walks tourism promotional imagery (2008). (Photo courtesy of Shepherds Walks, UK.)
The movement from working dog to sports dog can also be seen in the emergence of field trials as a way of training and encouraging the breeding of gun dogs (Brown, 1934). The first of these took place in the UK in 1865, with the Kennel Club becoming involved from 1873 onwards (Moore, 1929). The logic behind such trials is obviously akin to that behind sheepdog trials and has been seen as beneficial to the quality of gun dogs by various proponents (Scales, 2000). While largely agreeing with this view, Alington (1929) cautioned that, although the field trials enhanced some aspects of the gun dog, they, have at best done little for and at worst been detrimental to the dog’s nose or game-finding ability. This, Alington argues, is due to the breeding of dogs for trial purposes that has emphasized not chasing animals, and hence means the dogs have little interest in sniffing or hunting out prey.
The popularity of field trials as a sport has increased markedly over the last 150 years. In the UK, for example, Kennel Club records indicate that in 1900 the number of trials held under the auspices of this organization was 11 and by 1950 had grown to 92. The number continued to expand, with 583 trials occurring in 2000–2001 and 655 in 2010–2011. How many of the participants are engaging in the trials purely for the sake of the trials as a sport and how many are participating in order to hone the skills of both dog and human for the hunting season is, unfortunately, unclear.
With the emergence of sled dog racing the sled dog has also witnessed a movement from working to sport dog. The first organized racing event is said to have occurred under the auspices of the Nome Kennel Club in Alaska in 1908 (Hood, 1996). The reasons for the origin of these races are arguably multiple and interwoven. One, in common with that associated with field and sheepdog trials, was the desire among enthusiasts and owners of sled dogs to ensure the quality of the breed (Garst, 1948). In addition, it may be suggested that the racing of sled dogs emerged from competition between different individuals working sled dog teams on the same routes. Finally, it is important to recognize that the desire to preserve a way of life as a part of the heritage of the early explorers of Alaska and the northern regions of Canada has, and continues, to play a significant role in the establishment and continuation of sled dog racing as a sport. Indeed, within the context of the Yukon Quest (discussed below) it is claimed that this event: ‘embodies all of the qualities of the land that northerners love and those that set northerners apart’ (Firth, 1998: vii). This is clearly the case for the Iditarod, a sled dog race that was created to commemorate the transporting of diphtheria serum in 1925 over approximately 1000 miles of largely wilderness to the community of Nome, Alaska (Hood, 1996). The whole mythology surrounding the race speaks of man (European settler) against nature at its harshest (in an Alaskan winter) and the nobility of the dogs involved. Yet the creation of the race owes much to the American political climate during the time of the first race in 1967 and the country’s relation with the then USSR. As Hood (1996: 19) stated, the race was created: ‘as part of the one-hundredth anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia’. A further layer explaining the creation of the Iditarod was the desire to ensure the future of dog sledding and the survival of its history in the face of the advent of the snow skidoo (Hood, 1996). As Coppinger (1977) stated, the preservation of sledding in the face of automation contributed to the creation of an entire sport and not just one race. The desire to preserve the heritage of the sled dog is, however, clearly one that has been controlled and coloured by the white Anglo-Saxon settlers of North America. As such it has largely airbrushed over the reality that the breeding and running of sled dogs appears to have originated in what is now Siberia over 4000 years ago (Coppinger, 1977).
Whatever the origin of sled dog racing, today it is a diverse sport that encapsulates a variety of offshoots in terms of the nature of the dog teams, what they are required to pull and how far they are expected to run (Table 3.1). Yet within this mixed bag there are events that stand out as being iconic of the sport. This status is strongly linked to the heritage of the sport and of the earlier explorers of the frozen north of the North American continent. So the iconic events of dog sledding are firmly based within northern Canada and Alaska, despite the sport now being popular in almost every corner of the world (including New Zealand, with its annual Wanaka Sled Dog Festival, which began in 1996 (Ibbotson, 2012) and the Sled Dog Association of Scotland, which was inaugurated in 1991 (Sled Dog Association of Scotland, 2007a)). Furthermore, they are the long- and ultra-long-distance, multi-day events that test the endurance of dog and man (for these events have long been constructed as sites of hegemonic masculinity reflecting the exploration of northern Canada and Alaska by the rugged, outdoors male). That this ignores a strong, though minority, representation of women in these events for a significant period of time is something that would be very interesting to pursue within a gendered framework, but which lies outside the boundaries of this book. For a history of the involvement of women in these events readers are urged to go to the book by Hood (1996) on the Iditarod. What we see running through all of these iconic events is the construction of an image. It is one that is an example of the contested and constructed nature of authenticity, which means the events do not necessarily present an accurate picture but rather one that the organizers and many of the participants (both passive and active) wish to buy into. The Yukon Quest, which is a 1000-mile race that was first run in 1984 (Firth, 1998), fits the iconic image of the sport of dog sledding very nicely as does the Iditarod, which wasfirst run in 1967 (Hood, 1996). As befits an iconic sporting event, both now attract major sponsors and are covered on global television. The result, Firth (1998: vi) suggested, is that many Europeans now refer to the Yukon Quest as ‘winter’s Tour de France’, comparing it to another iconic sporting event in the process.
In an ironic feedback loop the success of events such as the Iditarod and Yukon Quest has morphed them from just sporting events with cultural roots and associated implications into a multi-billion dollar business (Hood, 1996) where once again the dogs and mushers are effectively working. The difference is that instead of transporting goods and people for ‘work’ the participants are now helping to sell dog food to a world market, testing and marketing new equipment to an increasing population of amateur racers and selling all the other brands associated with the events. Even the transporting of people is back on the agenda now for sled dogs, thanks to the success of events such as the Iditarod, as we see tourists paying to be transported along the route of the race in sleds behind the last competitors (Hood, 1996).
Sled dog rides as a tourist attraction are not only restricted to following the iconic races. Rather, they have expanded to become something that tourists
