Membership of Seppala Strain: Pedigree Parameters Copyright © 1996 J. Jeffrey Bragg

This document was part of the 1996 brief to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada that gained recognition for the Seppala Siberian Sleddog as an evolving breed. It was necessary to define the gene pool precisely from which the breed would be developed, and to prove that it could be distinguished by pedigree from the existing CKC Siberian Husky breed.

Definition of Seppala Strain

Seppala Strain has been defined throughout its registered sleddog history as consisting of those C.K.C./A.K.C. registered Siberian Huskies tracing their ancestry back exclusively to the Siberians owned and bred by Leonhard Seppala in Alaska and in Poland Spring, Maine, USA, or to animals imported directly from Siberia. These days the definition must be qualified by adding "in at least ninety-eight percent of their pedigree lines" to allow for very small quantities of other breeding that have crept in over the years. Nevertheless, the strain has remained exceptionally pure and faithful to its origins over the past sixty-five years of its history as a purebred registered breed. The dogs of Seppala were highly regarded by other dog drivers and those who were fortunate enough to obtain their descendants were careful to preserve the lineage intact.

Historical Circumstances

That the Seppala Strain continues to be available today is due largely to the fact that Seppala toured the United States following his participation in the Nome Serum Run of 1925. His tour finished in Poland Spring, Maine, in a challenge race with the well-known dog driver Arthur Walden in 1927. Seppala remained in Poland Spring and established a breeding kennel there in partnership with Elizabeth Ricker. It was to this kennel that the last importation of dogs from Siberia was taken in 1930. When the Seppala/Ricker kennel was liquidated in 1931, the best of its dogs went to Harry R. Wheeler in St. Jovite Station, Quebec; these animals became the founders of the CKC Siberian Huskie breed in 1939. (Details and an analysis of the CKC breed foundation may be found in Appendix E, "The Canadian Kennel Club's 1939 Siberian Huskie Breed Foundation.") It is from the Wheeler stock, later augmented by dogs of Seppala descent from the FOXSTAND Kennels of William L. Shearer, III, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, that the present-day Seppala Strain derives.

Parallel Development of Seppala and Seeley Strains

Right from the outset, other "Siberian Husky" bloodlines were established which were not founded on the same stock nor bred in the same way, being treated from the dawn of the AKC breed in 1930 as show dogs. These American-based show bloodlines are now as much as 25 to 30 generations removed from breed foundation stock, in contrast to the 8 to 16 generations of Seppala strain. The great bulk of those generations represent breeding and selection for cosmetic qualities without reference to sleddog purpose and working ability. The result, predictably, has been the production of a "husky" which is not a sleddog, but a non-working exhibition animal. It is therefore necessary to delineate the pedigree parameters which separate Seppala strain from the so-called "Seeley strain" -- the modern Show Siberian.

Distinguishing Factors of Seeley Strain

The separation of Seppalas from the mainstream Siberian show bloodlines is easily accomplished by the exclusion from consideration of virtually all breeding based on the Eva B. Seeley (CHINOOK Kennels, Wonalancet, New Hampshire, USA) foundation mating of DUKE x TANTA OF ALYESKA and on KABKOL Kennels' (Earl Nagle, Washington, District of Columbia, USA) breeding which was based on a Seeley bitch and an unregistered bitch, KABLOONA, of unknown provenance. Likewise stock proceeding from the early AKC foundation male SEPP III, (owned by Dean C. F. Jackson, Center Harbor, New Hampshire, USA) son of an unrecorded dam, may also be excluded; this male of uncertain origins was used in early Chinook Kennels breeding.

Seppala Strain Breed Founders

CKC/AKC breed founders contributing more than 1% each to the genetic base for Seppala strain, then, are as follows:

KREE VANKA (Seppala/Ricker Siberia import 1930)

TSERKO (Seppala/Ricker Siberia import 1930, brother of Kree Vanka)

TOSCA (Poland Spring bitch)

DUSHKA (Poland Spring bitch, cousin of Sigrid III of Foxstand, niece of Tosca)

SIGRID III OF FOXSTAND (Wm. Shearer III bitch bred from Poland Spring stock, niece of Tosca)

SMOKEY OF SEPPALA (Sole progeny of founders KINGEAK and PEARL, also related to Tosca, Dushka, and Sigrid III of Foxstand)

SMOKY (unregd. Poland Spring dog)

Main Contributors to Seppala Bloodlines to the Present

As a practical matter, contemporary Seppala bloodlines derive principally from the breeding of the following kennels' registered Siberian stock:

SEPPALA Kennels of Harry R. Wheeler, St. Jovite Station, PQ

FOXSTAND Kennels of William L. Shearer III, Boston, MA

GATINEAU Kennels (some breedings only) of C. S. MacLean & J. D. McFaul, Maniwaki, PQ

SEPPALA Kennels of C. S. MacLean & J. D. McFaul, Maniwaki, PQ

MALAMAK Kennels of J. Malcolm McDougall, Ste. Agathe des Monts, PQ

BRYAR Kennels of Keith Bryar, Laconia, NH

GAGNON Kennels of Allan Gagnon, Maniwaki, PQ

SEPSEQUEL Kennels of J. H. Jacobs, Caughnawaga, PQ

WILLI-WAW Kennels of Mildred Morton, Center Harbor, NH

MARKOVO Kennels of J. Jeffrey Bragg, Oxford Station, ON, & Saskatoon, SK

SEPPINEAU/MANAHTOK Kennels of Gary Egelston, Lee's Summit, MO

UELEN Kennels of Bruce Morrow, Parksville, BC

WINDIGO Kennels of Deborah & Steven Serbousek, Iron River, WI

SEPP-ALTA Kennels of Douglas W. Willett, Park City, UT

RIVER VIEW Kennels of Carolyn R. Ritter, Mercer, WI

SEPPALA Kennels of J. Jeffrey Bragg, Whitehorse, YT

 

Of the above listed kennels only the last SEPPALA kennel and SEPP-ALTA are still active; there are other contemporary breeders who produce pure Seppala litters from time to time but none runs an ongoing pure Seppala breeding programme. Thus the pure strain stock continues to be almost as scarce in the present as it was in the earliest days of the breed. Only because the bloodline has traditionally been closely held and conservatively bred has it been able to survive in the face of the relatively enormous public popularity of the Siberian show dog into which the Seeley strain of the 1930s was developed.

Seppala Strain is Precisely Defined by Pedigree

It should be evident from the above listings that it is possible to define Seppala strain in a very precise way both in terms of the breed foundation animals which contributed to it and of the contemporary registered stock which may legitimately be described as being of pure Seppala lineage. This bloodline is no arbitrary partition of the existing CKC/AKC Siberian Husky, but rather a breed within a breed which has remained genetically distinct from mainstream Siberian Husky breeding throughout its six-decade history.

MARKOVO/SEPPINEAU Founders

Furthermore, as a practical matter the pure strain is now defined by descent from ten dogs used by Gary Egelston and J. Jeffrey Bragg in the early 1970s (listed in the Appendix "On Founder Balancing and Pedigree Analysis"), so that any pedigree containing a line of descent which fails to trace back to one of those ten animals will almost certainly be found to be not of pure Seppala lineage. Various attempts have been made by some breeders to ease these restrictions for their own convenience, in order to accommodate the use of non-Seppala stock, using a percentage system to define the pure Seppala content. The system fails due to there being no way of deciding where the percentage cutoff point should be placed, whereas the method of tracing back to MARKOVO/SEPPINEAU dogs of the 1970s affords a foolproof definition with no ambiguities.

Pedigrees of the MARKOVO and SEPPINEAU founders follow, showing the lines of descent of those animals from the 1930s breed foundation and from the original Leonhard Seppala dogs bred in Alaska and in Poland Spring, Maine, USA. [A list of the ten MARKOVO and SEPPINEAU founders follows.]

DITKO OF SEPPALA (male), breeder McFaul, owner Bragg

SHANGO OF SEPPALA (male), breeder McFaul, owner Bragg

VANKA OF SEPPALA (male), breeder McFaul, owner Egelston

MIKIUK TUKTU TORNYAK (male), breeder Simms, owner Olson

MALAMAK'S OKLEASIK (male), breeder McDougall, owner Egelston

DUSKA OF SEPPALA (female), breeder McFaul, owner Norris (leased to Bragg)

LYL OF SEPSEQUEL (female), breeder Jacobs, owner Bragg

FROSTFIRE ANISETTE (female), breeder Barber, owner Bragg

MOKA OF SEPSEQUEL (female), breeder Jacobs, owner Egelston

WILLI-WAW'S GALE OF CUPID (female), breeder Morton, owner Egelston