Ari Sigglin
"When a long-distance musher says his favorite sled dog has a big heart, he might be describing more than the dog’s loving disposition.
A team of five veterinarians from Alaska and around the country including Jeannie Olson, a veterinarian who owns and operates Raven Veterinary Services in North Pole found that sled dogs may develop an enlarged heart, just as human athletes sometimes do when they push themselves training for and participating in endurance events.
The study, which vets volunteered their time to complete, compared 48 dogs that ran in the 1992 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race with two other groups of dogs. The Yukon Quest dogs trained 2,000 to 3,100 miles before the race. Another group, called “lightly trained” dogs, ran from 200 to 500 miles during long-distance training. A third, the mongrels, had body types similar to sled dogs but hadn’t been on any endurance training runs." Read more ›
“My experiences as a musher and wilderness trip guide led to my interest in exploring the relationships between humans and working sled dogs. This study represents my attempt to shed light on musher–sled dog relationships. In it I aimed to explore, through the use of in-depth interviews and the sharing of stories, what mushers believed were the key elements in, as well as the quality of, musher–sled dog relationships (Kuhl, 2008). Part of my rationale for engaging in this research was to focus on the shared lives of humans and dogs—a relationship that goes back 100,000 years (Vila et al., 1997). I was interested in disrupting anthropocentrism by acknowledging the potential for human–sled dog interspecies relationships to be both deep and rich, with educational value.” Read more ›
Ari Sigglin
Masters Thesis –
The Multi – Legged Team: A study of the unique elements of sled dog racing
“This thesis aims at describing the unique elements of participating in sled dog racing, especially focusing on the interactions between the humans and the dogs, using Finnmarksløpet as a base for the research.” Read more ›
Mad dogs and (mostly) Englishmen: Colonial relations, commodities, and the fate of Inuit sled dogs
“This article focuses on the law, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the fate of Inuit sled dogs, and the introduction of snowmobiles into what is now Nunavut Territory.”
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