This was yet another dimension of the knowledge gap — the ability to travel safely in Arctic conditions using dog sleds was itself a specific skill set, one that Iñupiat communities had developed over centuries.

Dog mushing in the Arctic was not simply a matter of hitching dogs to a sled and setting a direction.

It required knowing how to read the dogs’ behavior as an additional environmental sensor — experienced Iñupiat mushers could read their dogs’ reactions to ice conditions, to weather changes, to the presence of dangerous animals, in ways that extended their own perception of the environment.

It required knowing how to manage the team through extreme cold, how to prevent dogs from eating the harnesses (a real danger in starvation conditions), how to handle the dogs when open water or unstable ice required a different approach.