Sheoudleak’s 15 Minutes of Fame

I love reading old newspapers. I started combing through archives when I was doing genealogical research. I was looking for obituaries, but often I would find interesting photos and articles on the same pages. Just like going down a rabbit hole of BuzzFeed posts, I would find myself in a rabbit hole of historical newspaper articles.

This is how I discovered the Arctic dog named Sheoudleak.  Sheoudleak was brought to Maine from the arctic but none other than Donald MacMillan, famed arctic explorer.  Macmillan was a graduate of Bowdoin college who made 30 expeditions to the icy north, most notably in the 1920s.  He had been on Robert Peary’s North Pole expedition in 1908 but frozen feet forced him home.

if you know anything about arctic expectations, you know sled dogs were imperative to the success of these journeys. These hard working dogs had adapted to the frigid conditions of the arctic, and were the only way to move supplies and equipment over ice and snow.

MacMillan liked dogs. In many photos, MacMillan has a dog at his feet or a puppy in his arms.  Sometimes he is surrounded by the frolicking beasts, looking rugged in bearskin clothing but wearing a bemused expression that tells me that “must love dogs” was a prerequisite for an invitation on his arctic vessel The Bowdoin.

What I didn’t know is that sometimes the Arctic dogs came home with MacMillan.  Sometimes he brought these dogs back as gifts for his friends. One such dog, Sheoudleak, was gifted to the Sewall family of Wiscasset Maine.  One article that I read said specifically it was for Henry Sewall, the son of McMillan’s good friend and botanist Charles S Sewall. 

Sheoudleak gave birth to 5 puppies a week or so later and this happy occasion was reported in the Portland Evening Express on November 8, 1924. There was a photo of Sheoudleak and a separate photo of a woman with the puppies - not just little photos either.  If there were hashtags in the 1920s, these photos would be captioned with #arcticdoglover and #huskypuppiesofinstagram. 

Try as I might, I can’t find any trace of Sheoudleak or her puppies in the newspaper archives after 1924. I’d love to know what happened to her pups. 

If you want to know more about MacMillan and his arctic adventures I encourage you to visit the Peary-MacMillan museum in Brunswick Maine. If you know more about Sheoudleak and her puppies, give me a shout.