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Icebound: The Greatest Dog Story Ever Told.

A really nice documentary and also narrated by Patrick Stuart. What more do you need?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_umUicLjQ

Awesome video! So breathtaking and touching. By the way, I found this https://youtu.be/9GAHOKT2Uhk

A great documentary which, unfortunately, was only ever screened here in the U.S. (primarily in Alaska itself). The producer, Daniel Anker, has passed away (I met and helped him with research for this, and recently, trying to contact him was told by his wife that he had passed). Very sad news. He was a good man.

You'll note, during the film, they interview people who refer to the era as one of "tabloid newspapers", with editors and journalists often aggrandizing stories, and sometimes even creating ones. This reinforces what I have always said, folks: newspapers are a lousy and totally unreliable source for historical research. They can, at BEST, only be used to augment more reliable and steadfast material. Any book, any website (ANY website), any film or anything else which relies solely, or extensively, upon newspaper extracts for its research, especially from even the early 20th century, is of questionable quality or accuracy. And you need to be careful when being given such information by such vehicles or those who represent them.

Daniel Anker and his team spent a few years researching this material, and sought out not only documents from the time, but photographs, records and accounts by those who either are still alive (who are now very few in number, and who would all have been children at the time), or their descendants. THAT is the way to do research. And I saw his wealth of material. Trust me, he had a ton of it. This documentary is reliable work!

It has been shown on BBC here in the UK a few times which is how I originally saw it a couple of years ago so it is doing the rounds

He actually interviewed many more people, some of whom don't appear in this version of the documentary (I know, I was one of those who was there for the filming, in a posh apartment in midtown Manhattan some years ago...and I was one of the ones interviewed. As was Robert J. Blake, the author of the children's book "Togo").

Why he chose a scaled-down version of his documentary, leaving out much of what he wanted to show, is a question which bugs me a bit. There was so much more material, and several other interviewees. It may have been time constraints. Or production issues. I don't know. But in each of those interviews seen in the existing documentary, I don't recognize the apartment he shot in. So I guess he used none of those sequences. Unless there is another, longer (or alternative) version of the documentary floating around somewhere, or as yet to be released by his company.

The YouTube version posted here of the Icebound documentary that aired on BBC is a condensed version, running just under one hour. The full length version is 95 minutes. I watched the full length one about a month ago. It provides a more complete picture of the events. The credits list at the end of the film is also much longer. There has been a very limited release so far, with a preview in Alaska and a few countries in Europe a couple of years ago.

Mention has been made of how unreliable newspaper articles are regarding coverage of the 1925 serum run and related events. Furthermore, that they should not be used as primary sources. I acknowledge that some newspaper articles back then (and now) were not 100% accurate all of the time, but they certainly were not near as bad as has been portrayed in this topic. Let's use The Cruelest Miles book as one example. A respected and good historical account of the serum run and other events. First of all, see Page 295. There are 27 newspapers listed for the book. Next, see the Source Notes section on pages 269 - 291. There are 89 items of information referenced in this book where newspapers were used as the primary and/or only source. When we think of what was mentioned as tabloid periodicals, do magazines also fall under that same heading of not being credible? If so, there are 32 magazine articles listed as primary and only sources in the book. So if the theory offered about newspaper and possibly magazine articles being unreliable, not true, etc., then that would make The Cruelest Miles book not credible because it has at least 89 and possibly as many as 121 items of suspect or unreliable information in it.

Researching old newspapers is a time consuming and expensive process. It means going through many reels of newspaper microfilm for a larger project. Then there's the expense involved in getting the microfilm. To blanketly say that old newspapers are not credible, nor should they be used as primary sources of information is incorrect. They contain a gold mine of information. And in many cases they are the only place where that information can be found. A person must be willing to take the time and go to the expense of extracting the valuable contents from these old newspapers. In the big picture of this subject, a good experienced researcher can most often determine what is accurate and can weed out any relatively small amounts of fiction.

I suspected that the version shown in the U.K. must have been a scaled-down version. People whom I know, who saw the premier in Anchorage some time earlier spoke of more material.

But as to the question of newspapers as source material, since this will likely become a no-win circular argument, I will say this, and then I am going to try and ignore any further argumentation about this matter because it would be a waste of space and effort to continue this--what I said in my original post was:



Granted, my saying that they are "a lousy and totally unreliable source for historical research" was a bit...strong. They GENERALLY are, and I've seen that time and again researching 18th, 19th aaaand twentieth century newspapers from North America and Europe. They sensationalize, they often fabricate and they quite often exaggerate the facts that their journalists are covering. For the very reason mentioned in the video: editors want to sell papers. Selling papers involved selling a good story...even if it had to be made up entirely. Newspapers are often good for a few things: specific dates of historical events, SOMETIMES the identities of persons and locations involved, and basic factual information (prevailing weather, time of day, etc.). In general. Not always. And often not. I've talked to many authors of historical works, including degreed college and university professors, and museum curators, who have said likewise (and I will not get into a "okay, list them" argument). Book authors (and website authors) do use newspapers...often as secondary research material...just as the authors of The Cruelest Miles (the Salisburys) did. Of course, certain few people like to criticize that book for its many alleged "errors" in the information presented. So even if they are right in their criticisms (no book is perfect...and even professional historians make occasional errors in research and documentation), newspapers were involved in that research they did. They also listed many other sources for their research. And those weren't newspapers.

The bottom line is that it is very difficult to trust anything printed in newspapers except the very basics: dates, times and individual place and person names and identities. As noted in some worthwhile links (below):


"It is nearly impossible, after an event has occurred, to determine the exactness of every detail. Every recounting of an event involves points of view and opinion to some degree. The best sources will provide a consensus view and identify all information providers. The following statements should help you determine the trustworthiness of your sources:

...News organizations are businesses.

Cable news, radio shows, and other media sources must make a profit. If you use these as sources, you must consider their many stakeholders and political slants..."

(Source: http://homeworktips.about.com/od/paperassignments/a/Trustworthy-Sources.htm)


"When using newspapers and newspaper articles, remember that they may be biased. Using a number of different sources can help you get a clearer picture of what occurred, and negate editorial bias. Newspaper articles may also be inaccurate, because they are often written with a tight deadline, and in the rush to go to press, they may be poorly edited or incomplete."

(Source: http://guides.osu.edu/newspapers/evaluating)


Another good source about this would be: http://www.uky.edu/~dolph/HIS316/handouts/sources.html