Re: MtMan-List: Hounds in the Early west

[gottfred@agt.net (Jeff Gottfred)]

  Dale Nelson wrote: <much interesting stuff, now snipped, then asked>
>	I'm wondering if perhaps dogs were so common they weren't mentioned
>much because everyone knew that they were there???

Certainly Lewis & Clark found no shortage of dogs to eat! If you look north 
of the 49th at this time, you will find David Thompson concerned about his 
dogs at Kootenae House in 1807, and using dogsleds over Athabasca Pass in 
the winter of 1810-1811. His North West Company partner Alexander Henry the 
Younger travelled to Howse Pass by dogsled in early 1811. (See pp. 67,  
132-141, in Thompson, David.  _Columbia Journals_. Barbara Belyea (ed.) 
McGill-Queen's : Montreal, 1994; and  (Vol 2, pp. 692-699, in Henry, 
Alexander (the Younger). _New Light on the Early History of the Northwest : 
The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry..._. Elliot Coues (ed.) 
Reprint-Ross & Haines : Minneapolis, 1965. Originally published 1897.)
In fact, dogsleds were quite commonly used in the Canadian fur trade. A 
little further east of the Rockies, you find dogs as a relatively frequent 
food source for voyageurs, both by choice and (more commonly) due to 
starvation. 

Your humble & obedient servant,
Angela Gottfred
gottfred@agt.net-->soon to be gottfred@telusplanet.net