Part IV: McFaul/Shearer -- Markovo/Seppineau -- SSSD Project
LET US NOW PAUSE FOR A MOMENT to recall the past history of the Seppala bloodline, in the light of the foregoing events and of current questions about Seppala eligibility. We do this because the name "Seppala" has often been misapplied in Siberian Husky circles, has often been used to describe dogs or bloodlines with little claim to it in the light of its historic usage.
Leonhard Seppala's dogs were famous in the 1920s -- they had "earned them a name," as the Alaskan poet Esther Birdsall Darling put it. Thus even after Harry Wheeler acquired the core broodstock of the Poland Spring Seppala/Ricker kennel and Sepp himself returned to Alaska, "Seppala Siberians" were known and distinguished in New England from other Siberian Huskies. A 1940 press clipping showing Millie Turner and her leader "Cossack" (Vanka of Seppala 2nd) states, "Miss Turner drove a team of Seppala Siberians" -- although none of the dogs had belonged to Leonhard Seppala! This clipping clearly authenticates the fact that the term "Seppala Siberian" was applied in a special way even in the 1940s to distinguish the pure-strain descendants of Leonhard Seppala's sleddogs from other Siberian Huskies.
The existence of this special, clearly distinguished Seppala bloodline has always proven a thorn in the flesh of showdog Siberian Husky breeders! Over and over they have tried to deny its existence, or conversely to claim that ALL Siberian Huskies should be considered "Seppala Siberians" -- such a claim was even made in the definitive SHCA-approved Siberian Husky breed book, The New Complete Siberian Husky by Michael Jennings. I can recall that in the late 1960s in southern Ontario western-USA show dogs bred by Virginia Emrich were called "Seppalas" by many Ontario SH fanciers, although the Emrich "Nanook" bloodline was in fact a pastiche of many different bloodlines (Anadyr, Monadnock, Shady Lane, Bryar, Bow Lake, etc.). In spite of the desire of non-Seppala breeders and owners to apply the name to their own showdogs and pet stock, the phrase "Seppala Siberian" was consistently and properly applied to the direct descendants of Leonhard Seppala's Siberians during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. First to the Wheeler and the Turner (Cold River) dogs, then to the McFaul dogs and the Shearer (Foxstand) stock, later to their offshoots such as Gagnon, Bryar and McDougall's Malamak Siberians.
The name passed down the decades, closely associated with the direct descendant bloodline. The Poland Spring stock and Ricker's 1930 imports (Kree Vanka and Tserko) engendered the Harry Wheeler "of Seppala" animals and a handful of Alex Belford stock. Those in turn engendered the Turner/Frothingham "Cold River" Siberians and the William L. Shearer, III, "Foxstand" racing teams. Foxstand engendered the first stock bred by J. D. "Donnie" McFaul -- the "Gatineau" line -- and some minor New England lineages. The Wheeler stock passed circa 1950 to J. D. McFaul along with the "of Seppala" registration suffix. McFaul Seppalas and Foxstand dogs intertwined in the breeding of the 1950s and early 1960s, both in the McFaul kennels and in those of Keith Bryar, Allan Gagnon, J. Malcolm McDougall, Joel Nordholm, Charles Belford and others. The blend of Wheeler/McFaul and Foxstand bloodlines in the late McFaul breeding and that of McFaul spin-off kennels gave rise to what is now called the McFaul/Shearer bloodline and type. Then in 1963 Donnie McFaul retired -- and no successor kennel was found. [Readers who would like to know more about these early Seppala kennels, putting some facts, faces and dogs behind the historic names, will find photographs and details on the Seppala Siberian Sleddog History page of the SSSD Project website.]
The "Markovo rescue" is a well-known story that need not be repeated in detail here. It is enough to remind the reader that two kennels of the early 1970s, Markovo in Canada and Gary Egelston's Seppineau in the USA, were responsible for the continued survival of the McFaul/Shearer pure Seppala bloodline. (The history diagram in a recent ISSSC publication shows the lineage passing directly from McFaul to Doug Willett's "Sepp-Alta" kennel; that is an untruth, more of the blatant historical revisionism we have come to expect from that source. Willett never owned a single McFaul dog and probably never saw one in the flesh.) When Markovo Kennels closed, its core stock went to three separate breeders, two in Canada and one in the USA; but in the end, the Markovo lineage survived largely through the Willett Sepp-Alta breeding, though Windigo, Uelen, the Curt Stuckey Markovo continuation and others also made their contributions. The important point is that the McFaul/Shearer bloodline that represented the pure and direct descending Seppala lineage was rescued from impending extinction and carried on in the 1970s by ten "Second Foundation" dogs of McFaul, Bryar, Malamak and similar breeding. "Markovo/Seppineau" was the continuation of McFaul/Shearer; no other pure-strain Seppala stock gave rise to pure-strain lines surviving to the present.
In 1990 and following years, J. Jeffrey Bragg and Isa Boucher acquired pure Seppala stock, descended exclusively from the ten Second Foundation dogs of the 1970s, from Sepp-Alta, Spirit Wind, and Windigo -- together with the new Siberia import male Shakal iz Solovyev. Bragg and Boucher moved to Grizzly Valley in Canada's Yukon Territory to establish the fourth historic Seppala Kennels and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project. In that way the historic Leonhard Seppala bloodline was passed from Seppala to Wheeler, to Shearer, to McFaul, to Bryar and McDougall, to Bragg and Egelston, to Willett and others, and finally back to Bragg and Boucher. And at that point the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed initiative was launched, along with the genetic renewal of the bloodline through the addition of new Siberia import stock.
Part V: The Status Quo: Results of Other People's Past Decisions
AFTER MCFAUL'S RETIREMENT in the 1960s, though, others pursued their own ends and their own agenda, using Seppala stock as it has always been used since the earliest days of the Siberian Husky registry -- to improve other Siberian Husky bloodlines, particularly those based on the breeding of Eva B. Seeley's Chinook Kennels. (Seeley herself had eagerly made use of Wheeler-bred sires such as Sapsuk of Seppala, Vanka of Seppala, Vanka of Seppala 2nd, Wolfe of Seppala, and the Poland Spring-bred Belford's Wolf to improve the stock from her notorious foundation litter by Duke x Tanta of Alyeska.) The Wheeler-derived Cold River dogs became vital to the founding of Lorna Barnes Taylor Demidoff's "Monadnock" showdog bloodline. Earl F. Norris added McFaul stock to his Seeley-based "Anadyr" line. Racing Siberian Husky bloodlines such as Art and Judy Allen's "Natomah," Dr. Roland Lombard's "Igloo Pak," and Roland Bowles' "Calivali" made use of Seppala stock from McFaul, Shearer and other sources, mixing them with Seeley-based stock. The same thing happened in Canada with the Snow Ridge, Husky Lodge, Manawan, Shady Lane and Racecrest show bloodlines and the White Water Lake and Kodiak racing bloodlines.
As I have suggested above, the Eva B. Seeley strain never existed as a lineage completely separate and distinct, unto itself; it depended from the outset upon the addition of Seppala stock -- but the crucial difference was that Seeley's breeding and selection programmes, and those of her heirs and spiritual successors, usually involved cosmetic considerations, often were frankly directed at the goal of winning ribbons and trophies at dog shows, and typically involved distinctive idiosyncratic "breeder visions" as to what a good Siberian Husky ought to "look like"! It is important to realise that ALL the non-Seppala bloodlines were in origin part-Seppala -- "percentage Seppala," if you like, but that none of them ever simply preserved the original stock, unchanged, simply as a versatile working sleddog, in the way that the McFaul and Shearer kennels and their successors did.
Doug Willett's Sepp-Alta Kennels, after Xaire of Markovo led him to his momentous discovery of what Seppala sleddogs were all about, began by breeding a mixed-lineage Racing Siberian Husky, Natomah's Kamik, to a leased Markovo bitch, Rosie of Markovo. Willett was never committed to the preservation of the McFaul/Shearer heritage in its pure form -- perhaps because he had never known McFaul dogs, having come along just a little too late in time for that. Sepp-Alta Kennels, particularly in its earliest years prior to, say, 1995, was responsible for many pure-strain Markovo-Seppala litters; no one thinks of denying that. But at the same time, Willett experimented ceaselessly with other bloodlines, in his "Alta" breedings primarily but also in those tagged with the "Sepp-Alta" name. Dogs like Natomah's Kamik, Smo-Ki-Luk's Serya, Kodiak's Layla, Kodiak's Lily, Minsten av Vargevass, Gray Shadow and others based on a variety of non-Seppala bloodlines found their way into the Sepp-Alta mainstream. Willett unabashedly passed the culls from his experimental breeding on to his satellite kennels, who regarded these cross-strain dogs as "Seppalas."
It did not help matters that in 1983 Rick and Barb Petura of Heritage North Press had published a booklet entitled "Cross Strain Breeding of Racing Siberian Huskies" touting cross-straining as a supposed means of tapping "hybrid vigour." The booklet had great currency in the RSH community for many years, particularly since it defended, in effect, the line of least resistance, easy-way-out approach to Siberian breeding adopted by most backyard breeders: breed to the dog down the street, no matter what its background or pedigree, and call yourself a "cross-strain breeder." (I do not mean to suggest that such was the actual intent of the Peturas, but it was often the net result of the cross-straining theory.) The Peturas themselves employed Markovo-Seppalas in their own cross-strain breeding programme and encouraged others to do likewise.
From around 1988 onward, Lanette Kimball's Sepp-Lok Kennels co-operated closely with Willett in exploring various cross-strain breedings involving Seppalas. (The Kimball kennel in time acquired something of a reputation as "Doug Willett's experimental farm.") During the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Sepp-Lok stock has been extremely widely disseminated, to the point that in the 2003 ISSSC "Seppala Directory" 120 out of 193 (62.2%) dogs showed Sepp-Lok influence and in the same year the Continental Kennel Club database showed that 183 out of 309 (59.2%) dogs had substantial Sepp-Lok influence in their pedigrees. The Sepp-Lok operation has also experimented extensively (ten or more known matings) with crossbreeding of Seppalas with Alaskan Huskies.
(It should perhaps be noted here that although the SSSD Project bred ONE exploratory litter from an elite world-class Alaskan Husky sire -- Terry Streeper's renowned "Hop" -- the resulting progeny after extensive work-proving evaluation were deemed too unreliable mentally as well as disappointing in terms of leadership ability. Therefore it was decided that the Project would not further pursue the "performance outcross" concept using Alaskan Husky stock and no more such matings are planned, nor will the Hop outcross be taken to a second generation. Although mentioned as a possibility in the Breeding Guidelines, the world-class Alaskan outcross was never more than a concept that had to be tried out once using the best possible stud dog; having failed to produce the desired results, it is now a dead letter. This is mentioned inasmuch as people could conceivably take the discussion of the performance outcross concept on the SSSD Project site to mean that Alaskan crossbreedings are still an ongoing part of the SSSD Project's breeding programme, which is not the case.)
Thus, as we have seen, the past fifteen or so years have engendered a large population of sleddogs known and generally regarded as "Seppalas," which are not Seppala Siberian Sleddogs within the original meaning of that name. These animals were bred without reference to the Breeding Guidelines or Breed Standard governing the original SSSD. This sleddog population is the result of other people's breeding decisions that took place without reference to the Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed itself. Until quite recently, all of them were registered Siberian Huskies. Now, almost three years after the launching of ISSSC and its Continental KC stud book, many of them carry the SSSD name by virtue of ISSSC/ConKC affiliation.
Now it would appear that many people who have bought stock from these bloodlines expect or at least hope that it will find a home in I.S.A.'s ancestry records, hence the many questions respecting SSSD eligibility. That places us in a difficult position. To do anything other than to agree that these dogs are "eligible" will inevitably be seen as denigrating someone's dogs -- the unforgivable offence! Yet the plain truth of the matter is that most current stock bearing recent Sepp-Alta and Sepp-Lok lineage in its pedigrees should properly be regarded as cross-strain Racing Siberian Huskies; that includes most of the dogs in the ISSSC/ConKC registry. (In summer of 2003 only around 8.5% of stock in the ConKC SSSD registry consisted of Markovo-Seppalas or stock descended wholly from the ten Second Foundation dogs of the 1970s.)
For I. S. A. to accept any great number of these dogs as SSSDs would have much the same ultimate effect that it has always been our goal to avoid -- the assimilation or dilution of Seppalas into or by the Racing Siberian Husky gene pool. These part-Seppala RSHs outnumber Markovo-Seppalas ten to one, if not more. These dogs properly belong in the all-breed national SH registries or the ConKC registry that they presently inhabit. They have little place in a registry whose goal is the preservation and renewal of the McFaul/Shearer type dog. The hard truth is that they are not eligible for I.S.A. Seppala Siberian Sleddog status. It would be possible to accept a very limited number of high-percentage animals, subject to enquiry and inspection, providing they were not inbred on non-Seppala lines; but such acceptances would have to be few in number and quite exceptional in nature. It would have to be proven that individual animals had a major genetic contribution to make to the core SSSD genome that could not be obtained otherwise. These observations may come as a disappointment to many people with part-Seppala RSH stock, but it is simply not in the interests of the I. S. A. target population for us to be bound by the results of other people's past decisions made without reference to the norms of the SSSD breed.
Part VI: The Siberia Import Issue
ORIGINAL BREEDING GUIDELINES FOR THE SSSD clearly specify Siberia import stock from the Solovyev bloodline and other sources as one of the basic source populations for parental generation stock, one of the basic components of the breed's gene pool. Indeed, the initial impetus for the SSSD breed initiative came about through the refusal of the Canadian Kennel Club to consider registration of new Siberia import sleddogs as CKC Siberian Huskies. To the best of my knowledge, neither AKC, CKC, the Kennel Club (UK) nor most of the European breed-club registries are prepared to allow the input of new Siberia imports to their Siberian Husky studbooks.
Similarly, the ISSSC has gone out of its way to insist that stock derived from "recent Siberia imports" is not eligible for its ConKC registry. As with the Canadian Kennel Club, it was actually this point over which SSSD Project negotiations with Continental KC broke down; ConKC was prepared to accept Siberia import stock, but ISSSC was not.
The new Siberia import stock is not an experimental adjunct to the SSSD Project's breeding programme, which it can readily and easily discard, as so many mixed-lineage dogs have been adjuncts to the Sepp-Alta and Sepp-Lok breeding programmes and have in many cases, one after another, been discarded from the Sepp-Alta mainstream. The import sire Shakal iz Solovyev and others of similar background are essential to the SSSD Project's breeding programme, an integral and essential part of the ongoing effort of genetic renewal for the breed.
Siberia imports were historically part and parcel of the Leonhard Seppala bloodline. Seppala himself imported dogs from many parts of Siberia, and some of his early Siberia imports such as the bitches Dolly and Nellie lie at the heart of early Seppala pedigrees. Similarly, in 1930 Elizabeth Ricker in partnership with Seppala imported more dogs from Siberia, and today the names Kree Vanka and Tserko from that importation are the effective founders of modern Seppala lineage, accounting for over 40% of modern Markovo-Seppala pedigree lines. There is therefore nothing innovative or unusual in the incorporation of present-day Siberia import stock into existing Seppala lineage. It is the example of Leonhard Seppala and Elizabeth Ricker themselves that is being followed here.
It should, therefore, almost go without saying that this bloodline is unlikely to be eliminated from the SSSD breeding programme to please the U.K. adherents of The Kennel Club, or to please those who wish to see Seppalas remain within AKC, or to please Doug Willett and the ISSSC. And yet, the demands made of I. S. A. in effect presuppose that this is exactly what should be done. Needless to say, such demands cannot be met.
Part VII: The True Purpose of ISA
THE I. S. A. CONSTITUTION, in listing the purposes of the Association, sets forth as its first priority:
"(1) Protection, preservation and maintenance of historic sleddog
That, at least, is quite an unambiguous statement of intent. It should, in theory, have answered all eligibility questions before they were even asked, but of course it has not done.
bloodlines, particularly (a) the original Leonhard Seppala bloodline as it
descended through the kennels of William L. Shearer III and J. D. McFaul
and was preserved in the 1970s by the Markovo rescue project"
If we are to protect, preserve and maintain the original Leonhard Seppala bloodline as it descended through the McFaul and Shearer kennels and was preserved by the Markovo rescue project, we can hardly do it by accepting large numbers of stock based on RSH cross-strain matings. Over and over we hear it argued that to accept such stock would mean a gain in genetic diversity. I simply do not believe it, and have never believed that the non-Seppala portion of the Siberian Husky genome had anything much to offer Seppala lineage genetically. All my experience tends to indicate the contrary. In the 1970s when I, too, experimented with Seppala cross-strainings with Calivali, Natomah, Anadyr and other bloodlines, invariably I found that the cross-strains were never as good as the pure Seppalas and certainly never typical of the McFaul/Shearer mainstream. All Siberian Husky bloodlines descend ultimately from almost the same foundation; Seeley-derived show lines have perhaps three main founders that are not present in Markovo-Seppala pedigrees (Duke, Tanta of Alyeska, Kabloona). There is little evidence that the missing founders contributed anything positive to the SH genome that could not be had from the Leonhard Seppala stock; traditionally it is the Seppala stock that is always called upon to restore soundness and working mentality to other bloodlines, never the reverse.
I. S. A.'s true purpose and duty is what its Constitution states it to be. Our allegiance is to the welfare of the legitimate Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed, not to the Siberian Husky nor to those who would like for their Racing Siberian Huskies to be considered pure Seppalas. If that allegiance is politically inexpedient, so be it. We cannot fulfil that purpose and duty whilst at the same time attempting to be all things to all men, Siberian Husky adherents to those who suffer under The Kennel Club (or the AKC, or the CKC), ISSSC-dog adherents to those who rashly decided to purchase stock out of the ConKC registry. We cannot discard the purposes outlined in our Constitution in a vain bid for mass membership. We have already been told that "the Association needs members more than the members need the Association." That sounds to me like an argument for putting political correctness and expediency ahead of basic principles. Time alone will tell who is right. For my part, I can only repeat the words of Martin Luther: "My conscience is captive . . ." [to the McFaul/Shearer dogs and the Seppala concept] "I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise."
Summary
THE INTERNATIONAL SEPPALA ASSOCIATION faces a dilemma: whether to remain true to its primary constitutional purpose or to ignore that purpose in a bid for mass membership. The "original Leonhard Seppala bloodline as it descended through the kennels of William L. Shearer III and J. D. McFaul and was preserved in the 1970s by the Markovo rescue project" still exists today, although its numbers are far from great. It is that bloodline that I. S. A. is mandated to preserve, protect and maintain. Others have decided to breed and distribute a large body of part-Seppala Racing Siberian Husky stock whose line of descent is not exclusively from that bloodline. That body of stock is qualitatively different from Seppala Siberian Sleddogs of the original breed project, but not from the general run of Racing Siberian Huskies.
Breeding guidelines for the original SSSD specify two well-defined sources of parental-generation stock: the pure-strain Markovo-Seppala descendants of the McFaul/Shearer bloodline, and modern Siberia import dogs from the Solovyev and similar lines. The all-breed national kennel clubs -- AKC, CKC, KC (UK), FCI -- do not accept new Siberia import input to their Siberian Husky stud books. The ISSSC/ConKC registry accepts Alaskan Husky and RSH input to their "SSSD" registry, but not new Siberia imports. As matters now stand, there is no hope of mutual acceptance of the same stock among the three major groups: the national Kennel Clubs, ISSSC, and ISA/WCAC.
Basic to I. S. A. is the principle that the SSSD is fully a breed in its own right, not a Siberian Husky under another name. I. S. A. is a truly international organisation. It cannot, however, abandon its most basic principles to satisfy the demands of those, in whatever country they reside, who would have us preserve the possibility of Kennel Club Siberian Husky registration for SSSDs and restrict our source bloodlines to those approved by the Kennel Clubs. The reasons and circumstances behind those demands are irrelevant, because principle cannot be secondary to circumstance. Similarly, I. S. A. cannot accept RSH part-Seppalas simply because they are numerous and popular.
The International Seppala Association has no other choice than to define its SSSD eligiblity rules so as to preserve, protect and maintain the historic bloodlines set forth in its Constitution.
