The Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project

The Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project began as a conceptual extension of the Markovo rescue effort that took place twenty years earlier. Both initiatives shared the same basic objective, which was to secure the survival of the Leonhard Seppala strain of Siberian sleddogs. By the early 1990s it was becoming obvious that this strain was once again becoming endangered, as it was becoming increasingly interbred with a wide variety of other registered Siberian Husky bloodlines.

The roots of the Project were in Spain, as that was where J. Jeffrey Bragg and Isa Boucher happened to be living when the urge to keep and breed sleddogs overcame them for the second time in their lives. Isa began experimenting with racing Siberian Huskies while Jeffrey began trying to discover where the descendants of the Seppala stock of the Markovo era had gone. Seppalas were acquired, starting with Karcajou's Dreama of Windigo in 1990, and bred on the Bragg-Boucher farm at Masía Mauri near the town of Tremp in the province of Lerida, Spain.

By 1993 it had become obvious that a serious Seppala breeding programme mandated the return to Canada of Bragg and Boucher. The Carolyn Ritter kennel was closing, which was a major source of pure Seppalas in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was obviously time to get serious and to make decisions. In July of 1993 the fourth historic Seppala Kennels was established in Grizzly Valley, Yukon Territory between the famous Lake Laberge and the Miners Range mountains. The racing Siberians were sold to finance the air transport of two dozen Seppalas back to Canada.

Initially the Seppalas from Spain (and others newly acquired from the Ritter dispersal sale) were registered as Siberian Huskies with the Canadian Kennel Club. A Seppala-strain newsletter called Seppala Network was started, in which much discussion ensued about the strain, its nature and definition, and its prospects for survival. The real point of no return decision came when CKC refused registration to the new Siberia import Shakal iz Solovyev who had been brought back from Europe along with the other Seppala sleddogs. Bragg and Boucher realised even then that the new import bloodline would be essential for the long term survival of Seppala strain and for its genetic health.

That refusal in late 1995 caused Bragg and Boucher to explore other options for Seppala survival. The strain had eked out a precarious existence since 1939 in the closed stud book of CKC, steadily losing dogs and losing bloodlines to non-Seppala breeding programmes of various kinds, from show dogs to Alaskan huskies. It was more than time to put an end to this slow death by genetic haemorrhage. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was approached with the problem, and it became obvious that the relatively new (since 1988) evolving breed protocol instituted in the last revision of the Animal Pedigree Act was well suited to the needs of the situation.

Formal application was made to the Canadian agricultural authorities for recognition of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog as an evolving breed under the provisions of the Animal Pedigree Act, and in autumn of 1997 the Working Canine Association of Canada was federally chartered as an Animal Pedigree Association. From that time on the Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project has had official existence as a breed development project in Canada.