Sled dog musher

‘Hard man’ Scotty never lost his Scottish accent

Born 150 years ago in the city as Allan Alexander Allan, “Scotty” Allan went down in history as being one of the founding fathers of the sport.

Alan Stewart (pictured right), who has dedicated the last 16 years to researching the Dundee man, told the Tele of the “hard man” who left Scotland to ferry a Clydesdale horse over to the states and never returned.

He would go on to be the most famous musher of his time, subsequently being recruited by the Canadian army to man a team of 410 dogs against the Germans throughout the First World War.

However, Alan said that he never lost his accent, hence the reason they called him “Scotty”.

The researcher said: “He was born in Dundee but his mother died very young — she was part of a huge family. His father was left and he had a situation where he wanted to get himself out of Dundee.

“He moved them all up to Orton near Rothesey. Scotty was asked to take a Clydesdale to South Dakota and he never came back.

“Clydesdales were worth a fortune in those days and the laird went to Scotty’s father and asked if he could take the horse over to America and come back — but he never did.

“He worked with horses Montana for five years.

“He then worked in a hotel in Seattle. In those days, it was a horse and carriage rather than vehicles.

“He was somewhat of a horse whisperer.

“He worked with them for a while and then he heard about the gold rush. He saved up his money and found himself travelling to the Yukon.

“In those days, that would take months or a year. He built himself a raft and headed up to Dawson Country and the Chilkoot Pass. in

“Alaska had the biggest gold rush in the world.

“He had 50 horses but they all died and he started using sled dogs.

“Then he started the sport with a few mates in Nome, Alaska.

“They had the first race in history, where the prize was £25,000.

“He was a very hard man — despite only being 5ft 4in, he was working in seriously cold temperatures, it was sometimes -50C.

“Sled dogs were the equivalent of Eddie Stobart trucks in those days.”

One of Scotty’s biggest feats was a 19-hour crossing of the Bering Strait with his sled dogs — it’s now impossible to do.

When the First World War broke out, the Canadian special forces paid him a visit in Nome and he was recruited, along with 410 dogs, to fight the Germans. After the war ended, Scotty was elected to the Alaska Legislature. Alan has run the Cairngorm Sleddog Centre, along with wife Fiona, for the last 15 years. It includes a museum dedicated to Scotty. He said that his fascination with Scotty had started when he was racing in the Pyrenees with 30 dogs — and that he found his story so inspirational. A friend pointed out that “a mental Scotsman” had fought the Germans with sled dogs up there. He said: “I couldn’t believe how steep it was. “When I started my sled dog business, I needed someone as a figurehead and I didn’t think that anyone was more suitable than Scotty. “That started me off in my research.” Scotty Allan died in 1941.

HE was a Dundee boy who became a pioneer of dog sled racing.