"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained… infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana, 1863 -1952 
philosopher, poet, cultural critic
(The Life of Reason, Vol. I, 1905)

Nor do I interpret Santayana to have believed that all past is bad, as he might have implied by using the word "condemned" in reference to repeating it. But before one can remember the past, laudable or otherwise depending whose past one is remembered, and then act accordingly, one has to know what that past really is. It cannot be treated like the game of telephone you might have played as a kid, or as an adult at a party where you may have had too much to drink; the first person tells a story and then whispers it to the person in the next chair who in turn repeats it to the next person in line and so on until the last person compares their often wildly divergent yarn to the original version. For canid examples consider Northern Inuits (sic) or blue-eyed racing "Greenland dogs".

When reviewing all the cited histories of dog breeds, the quality and accuracy of their pasts depend on the source of the information and the conclusions drawn (some of which become incorporated into that history) by the "historian". And when wildly inaccurate, these "factoids" often turn into urban legends that just don't ever seem to go away! The latest example of this appeared in the May/June 2003 issue of Mushing Magazine in an article entitled "The Origin of Sled Dogs" (see News Briefs in this issue of The Fan Hitch). 

I mention all this because it is yet another example of how the true description and to some extent the history of the Inuit Dog is still being corrupted by people who appear to neither bother nor try hard enough to do their research well. It also offers me yet another occasion to remind those of you in whose hands the future well being of our breed rests to not let the history of other former working breeds become our history. But more than this, it gives me an opportunity to openly express what a privilege it is to be on a first name basis with more than just a few of the people who are very much a part of the Inuit Dog's more recent past, those who made the history we so often refer to and rely on, and who have so generously shared their knowledge and experiences with me, the ISDI and you, The Fan Hitch readers. What has been handed down to us has either been experienced by them personally or provided to them from those with first hand experience with Inuit Dogs. Unlike what is received by the last participant in game of telephone, we have the good fortune to be offered this detailed and accurate view into the past. I am sure you join me in thanking all these history-makers for sharing their knowledge.

Wishing you smooth ice and narrow leads,

                                                                                                      Sue