THIS Chukchi Harness is a result of +10 years of development -- more than 40000 miles (some 60000 km) of testing, trial, error and success while training and racing the Iditarod in Alaska. 

But the fundamental design that started this harness, is not mine. In 2011 a native Chukchi musher gave me one of the harnesses he had sewn himself and that is traditional in his homeland of Chukotka, Russia. That was the beginning of my harness,

 

Born on the tundra and a marine mammal hunter by profession, Mikhael "Misha" Telpin is a decorated sled dog racer but first a proud 'dog man' who lived his entire life with the Chukchi sled dogs as the primary way of transportation. The harness is a traditional of the Chukchi; Made to enable the dogs to pull both very heavy loads of what was harvested by the open water and carried back on sleds across sea ice, as well as travel at high speed over long distances. 

The Chukchi dog is, as all traditional high arctic sled dogs, heavily coated - but they are smaller in stature compared to the Canadian Eskimo or Greenlandic Husky, and are harder driving even often traveling loping over long distances. This is how they became knows as the 'fast Siberian rats' when imported to Alaska in the early 1900's where they absolutely dominated and swept the early sled dog races. 

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What sets the Chukchi harness traditional to the Chukchi dogs apart, is its more gentle, very low-impact design, by design. It sits quite loose on the dogs and rests above the shoulder / front leg extension at the same time its attachment point to the pulling line rests to the side of the dogs spine -- and it does not, like an X or H-back put any downwards pressure on the hips of the dog. And with no webbing under the armpits there is no harness rub. 

Because the Alaskan Husky that is racing today does not have the same heavy coat as a Chukchi dog, my Chukchi harness uses caribou fur as padding -- which makes it ultimately gentle on the dog. There is no friction to the fur or skin, and with that the heat generated by the harness as the dog's body pushes into the harness is absolutely minimal.​ This caribou fur is an integral part of why this is such an incredible harness for your dog.

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The Chukchi People are traditionally both marine mammal hunters and caribou / reindeer herders. That the undergarment used by an arctic hunter is traditionally made from caribou fur - which hairs are filled with air making for optimal insulation and that it easily let's one shake of condensation built up on the fur - is knowledge that I learned from the people of the North; and which brought me to use it on this dog harness design. So even in what I have made of adjustments to the design down to the detail of how every stitch is flat and never on the side that touch the dog -- originates with the knowledge of the Chukchi.

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In acknowledgement of this fact, 5% of the profit of each harness goes back to projects with the hunters facilitated by or in collaboration with their Seamammal Hunter Organisation.