Mostly we think of dogs as pets, or in many cases, companions. And then we have working dogs--sheep dogs, assist dogs for the blind or disabled, and of course watch dogs.
We read of heroic canines savings families by waking them to escape a burning building, or to alert others when their master is unresponsive. Police agencies use dogs to sniff drugs, track people or disarm gunmen. The latter group has undoubtedly saved many officers' lives and unfortunately some have lost their own.
I cerainly never saw anything heroic aout the rag tag dogs of the Coast Guard's Cape Sarichef Loran Station when I stepped out of the tracked amphibious landing vehicle on a cold February day. The cape juts out into the Bering Sea on the northwest corner of Unimak Island, Alaska.
A dog house sat against the north wall of the main building, which contained our living quarters. In my year on the island I cannot recall ever seeing a dog use the structure. Usually they curled up in a wind-swept snow bank running the length of the building.
Duchess, a German Shepherd, was the alpha female and mother of many of the dogs. Next in command was Ape*, a short-haired blond male of undetermined lineage. Many of the younger dogs resembled him. Inbeeding among such a small gene pool had begun producing pups with strange appearances and behavior. One looked like a smaller edition of Ape* except his lower jaw protruded beyond his muzzle. We called him Dip*.
In spite of unrestrained breeding enough dogs disappeared--probably killed by bears or wolves--for the population to remain around 16, the same as the number of personnel at the station.
Once a week we sent a vehicle over an often snow-covered pass to our airstrip 12 miles away to meet the mail plane, and every two weeks for supplies flown in from Kodiak. Ape* always trotted along. Upon arriving he drank from the stream near the runway, and then lay in the shade, tongue lolling. After we loaded the mailbags or groceries into the vehicle he jumped to his feet and started out. Often he arrived at the station an hour or more behind us.
During the summer we used a Jeep with a small two-wheeled trailer in tow. The Jeep was faster than the tracked vehicles, so Ape* fell farther behind. One day the driver stopped near the top of the pass and lifted the dog into the trailer. "He's old. He deserves a ride."
We had gone less than a mile before Ape* spotted a marmot and began wriggling through the iron pipes forming sides on the trailer. When he hit the ground we saw a jumble of legs and fur while he skidded and tumbled. By the time he regained his feet the marmot was out of sight.
One day two of our crew had close encounters with a large brown bear. I witnessed the second episode. The bear towered more than two feet above the five-foot-nine radioman backing away from him. One crewman measured the bear's footprints at 14 inches long by 9 3/4 inches wide.
The big bruin stayed around the station most of the night. That would not have bothered us except the loran watch standers changed at midnight, and the loran shack was 100 yards from the main station. Also at midnight the engineer of the watch replaced a chart in the lighthouse, 60 yards in another direction. It is daunting to walk in darkness, knowing an eight-foot animal is in the vicinity--an animal known to kill caribou with one swipe of a giant paw, or to turn over a Jeep.
That was when I realized the importance of Cape Sarichef's dogs. In the following days none of us left the building after dark without a dog and rifle. Our chief engineer kept a riflemen posted anytime he worked away from the station--day or night--summer or winter. The South Carolina native was not convinced about that hibernation business.
One time we received a directive from the district office in Juneau ordering us to get rid of the dogs. A U.S. Public Health Service doctor feared our animals might get rabies from wolves on the island. You can guess how that went over with the crew at Cape Sarichef.
I do not know if the order was changed or ignored, but Duchess and her family were still there when I left. We knew the wisdom of having dogs around while living on an isolated national wildlife preserve.