Northern Light Media photo

Rob Loveman runs the 2009 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

"I spent almost the entire winter freighting with my dogs to the outlying creeks, and so was away from civilization most of the time. There was more money in it than in ordinary freighting to the mines, and the life suited me better. I had to camp out, but this was less difficult now than formerly, as by this time we all had tents and stoves."

The colorful history of sled dog travel has been well documented over the years, in books ranging from the classic "Gold, Men and Dogs," by A.A. Scotty Allen (G.P. Putnam Sons, 1931), to Archdeacon of the Yukon Hudson Stuck's "Ten Thousand Miles with a Dogsled" (1914). But one of the most compelling books ever written about sled dog travel in the north country is a newer title, published in 2003 by W.W. Norton & Company.

"The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic," by cousins Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury, details the heroic relay dash of 20 men and more than 200 dogs who raced across 674 miles of Alaskan backcountry to deliver lifesaving serum and save the citizens of Nome from a diphtheria outbreak. The book includes some wonderful history of our state, and at one point the Salisbury cousins noted the central role of sled dogs in the history and development of the territory of Alaska: "...It was dogs and dog traction, for centuries the mainstay of Eskimo survival, that made this new world run. During the gold rushes, dogs brought the modern world to Alaska, hauling food, mining supplies, medicine, passengers, and gold across the network of rivers and trails that Eskimos and Athabaskans had been following for hundreds of years."

Then, in the next paragraph, the Salisburys report a little-known aspect of Alaskan history: "In addition to trade goods, the gold rush brought some strange ideas to Alaska, and the most bizarre may have been the belief of some U.S. government officials that Alaskans would be better off living in Alaska without dogs. Ambitious entrepreneurs tried many alternative forms of transportation and communication that they hoped would be superior to dogs, including horses, goats, hot-air balloons, bicycles, ice skates, ice boats, ice trains. and passenger pigeons. But the favorite choice of several key officials was the reindeer."