MEREDITH — The Meredith Public Library, 91 Main Street, will be hosting a lecture on''Harnessing History: On the Trail of New Hampshire's State Dog the Chinook'' on Tuesday, February 19 at 6:30 p.m.
This event is free and open to the public. The lecture traces the history of the Chinook breed from its origins in Wonalancet at the Arthuir Walden kennel.
The breed's originator, Great Chinook, had a storied history of winning races starting with the first international dog sled race. Great Chinook won a race up Mount Washington, appeared at numerous winter carnivals and demonstrations, and mysteriously disappeared on his 12th birthday near the South Pole.
The story continues with Walden's own dramatic death in a disastrous fire while saving the life of his wife, Kate Sleeper Walden. The Chinook breed was continued with a heroic rescue and the work of dedicated breeders in New Hampshire and Maine and has seen a renaissance in recent years. The program includes information on the tradition of handcrafted sleds made of ash and sinew. Unique to this program is a visit and an equipment demonstration with the presenter's Chinook.
Bob Cottrell is the Curator of the Henney History Room at the Conway Public Library, a board member at the Conway Historical Society, President ex-officio of the Tamworth Historical Society and serves as an independent history and museum consultant.
He has a master's degree from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture in Delaware. He has worked at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art, the Crowley Museum and Nature Center in Sarasota, Florida, the St. Petersburg Historical Museum, the Conner Prairie Museum in Indiana and at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In 1996 he became the founding Director of the Remick Country Doctor Museum and Farm in Tamworth.
The  event is sponsored by the NH Humanities Council and the Friends of the Meredith Library. No registration necessary, but for more information call 279-4303.

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Chinook (Courtesy photo)