Soldiers and Sled Dogs: A History of Military Dog Mushing »

As an arctic expert in Alaska, Charles L. Dean led the Army High Altitude Mountain Rescue Team and taught military skiing and mountaineering at the Northern Warfare Training Center. He is a former army officer who served as a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam and as a jumpmaster with the 82nd Airborne Division. He is now a retired fire captain from the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

Sled dogs have been serving humans since they were first tamed and broken to the trace thousands of years ago. Their history of supporting soldiers is much more recent and, for all its drama and heroism, remains little known. This hundred-year history of canine military service from the frozen reaches of Alaska to the snowy battlefields of World Wars I and II is told fully for the first time in this book by former army officer and longtime sled dog aficionado Charles L. Dean.

By way of original army documents, interviews with the last living dog drivers, and never before published photographs, Dean’s book tells a story that begins in Alaska, traverses two world wars and the Cold War era, and ends in the present-day Danish sledge patrol in Greenland. Here are the sled dogs drafted from Alaska and trained by French troops for use in the Vosges Mountains; improvised alpine sled dogs used by the Italians in the Great War; those deployed by the German SS in World War II; and others training in Montana’s Camp Rimini, Colorado’s Camp Hale, and Nebraska’s Fort Robinson. From the nitty-gritty of the making of a canine division to the high drama of dogs conducting daring rescues and parachuting to their destinations, this book richly supplies a missing chapter in military history and in the story of man’s best friend at war.

Fairbanks Daily-News-Miner

“This little-known piece of history is well-worth preserving, and Dean has done a real service to history buffs, mushing enthusiasts and dog lovers by salvaging it.”

—Shana Loshbaugh, Fairbanks Daily-News-Miner