From Woody's Couch

This blog post is part of the Frozen Friday Series, an A-Z journey of the Polar Archives.  Each week, we will feature some aspect of the history of polar exploration with a blog post written by our student authors.

A decade before the Second World War, America’s second most famous contemporary polar explorer passed away, leaving a loving nation and a heart broken family in grief[1]. This little American polar explorer had gone to the farthest reaches of the Earth, travelling with his companion, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, experiencing all of the hardships associated with polar expeditions. He was a fox terrier and his name was Igloo.

While dogs were a common sight on polar expeditions in the early twentieth century, fox terriers were not. Put simply, one would not want to rely on such a small animal for transportation. Sled dogs have been used throughout history for transportation purposes in cold, snow covered areas of the world, particularly in Siberia and Alaska[2]. They often resemble their wolf ancestors and have several traits that make them particularly useful in exploring the Arctic and Antarctic regions[3]. Sled dogs have thick coats with greasy long hair for better insulation as well has fluffy, curly tails for the purpose of covering their paws and noses while sleeping[4]. Sled dogs also have an arrangement of blood vessels in their limbs to protect against freezing. Interestingly, they have also developed webbed feet that act as a sort of snowshoes in addition to the habit of eating practically anything provided to them[5]. One could say, quite aptly, that these sled dogs were bred to pull sleds.

The value of dogs in Antarctic expeditions was exemplified in Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole in 1911 [6]. He utilized ninety-seven dogs, including fifty-five Eskimo dogs (considered to be the best breed for use in the Antarctic), and used Inuit methods (methods deemed most efficient for the Antarctic and allowed extreme efficiency for the use of the dogs’ energy) to achieve a whopping seventeen miles per day[7].  Dogs would continue to be used as a necessary part of Antarctic expeditions until around the 1960s[8].

As all dog lovers are sure to understand, there is a certain comfort to be gained from the presence of man’s proverbial “best friend”.

This is their secondary function on polar expeditions. The dogs themselves, while often aggressive towards one another, are “very tame and affectionate towards humans”[9]. Indeed, “dogs continued to have a valued place on Antarctic bases, where the companionable dogs made the sometimes hard life more bearable”[10]. This was the purpose of our little Igloo. He was small, not like the sled dogs. He didn’t have the fur or the blood vessel arrangement necessary to survive unaided in the cold. He had to wear little shoes and a little dog jacket[11]. Igloo served as an object of adoration, not only for the crew on Byrd’s expeditions, but for millions of Americans[12]. One can plainly see the creature of joyful curiosity that was Igloo upon his discovery of the sort of snow that exists up north:

“The soft, yielding resistance of the snow was delicious to his paws. He sniffed it gingerly, then a red tongue emerged for a tentative lick. The sharp coldness took him by surprise… he emerged in a flurry of crystals, made a bee-line dash to the shack at the crest of the slope, then swept into a series of concentric circles that ultimately ended in his becoming a whirling dervish, enveloped in a minor snow storm of his own making.

He rolled in this delicious substance; he burrowed in it until his eyes were rimmed with frost.”[13]

So while not a sled dog, Igloo does serve as the example for non-transport related roles of dogs on Antarctic journeys. Boosting crew morale was essential to an expedition’s success during the isolation of a long expedition at the bottom of the world.

The use of dogs in the Antarctic was drastically reduced in the latter half of the twentieth century. By the 1960s, the dog sled teams had been replaced with “tin dogs”, more commonly known as snow mobiles and other mechanical methods of transport[14]. In fact, the use of dogs was banned from Antarctica by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty in 1992[15]. Despite this, our canine friends have certainly had a deep and lasting impact on mankind’s exploration of one of our planet’s most challenging environments.

Written by John Hooton.

[1] “Igloo, Byrd’s Pet Dog, Dies in Boston,” Lewiston Evening Journal, April 21, 1931, 2.

[2] William James Mills, “Dogs,” Exploring Polar Frontiers, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2003).

[3] William James Mills, “Dogs.”

[4] William James Mills, “Dogs.”

[5] William James Mills, “Dogs.”

[6] Antarctica, 2^nd ed., s.v. “Sled Dogs.” (Surry Hills: Reader’s Digest, 1990).

[7] William James Mills, “Dogs.”

[8] Antarctica, “Sled Dogs.”

[9] Antarctica, “Sled Dogs.”

[10] William James Mills, “Dogs.”

[11] Jane Brevoort Walden, Igloo (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1931), 54.

[12] “Igloo, Byrd’s Pet Dog, Dies in Boston,” Lewiston Evening Journal.

[13] Walden, Igloo, 54-55.

[14] Antarctica, “Sled Dogs.”

[15] William James Mills, “Dogs.”