Boreal forests of Europe are not very fertile places and, until recently, people who settled there found it hard to support themselves with either hunting-gathering or agriculture alone. They learned to combine the two, plowing in the summer and hunting in the winter. Hunting yielded not only meat but furs as well, which became more and more important as civilization progressed. Sable pelts fueled the expansion of Moscow’s reach to the East, engaging one indigenous people after another in fur trade and hunting. Everywhere from the Okhotsk Sea coast to the fjords of Scandinavia, hunters found an invaluable assistant in a medium-sized dog with pointed ears and a bushy curled tail that helped them harvest anything from grouse to bear to moose to marten: the Laika.

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