Meet Jazz! …the Newest Member of the Stevens Pass Ski Patrol Team in Training
There's a new member of the patrol team at Stevens Pass Ski Resort who recreationists will be seeing on the slopes during the upcoming 2025-26 season.
According to a post by the resort on social media, "Jazz," a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, will be spending the next few seasons at Stevens Pass learning the requisite ropes for becoming a full-fledged avalanche rescue dog.
Although Saint Bernards are the traditionally-recognizable canine of choice for helping humans conduct avalanche rescues, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is also favored for such endeavors for many of the same reasons.
Like the Saint Bernard, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever possess an exceptional sense of smell. However, unlike their much larger canine cousins, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers are compact in size, which allows them to be carried easily on a handler's shoulders, ride on a snowmobile, or even take a chair lift when necessary.
In addition to these attributes, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is also highly intelligent and very agile, which further aids them in locating avalanche victims.
Both breeds also have an innately biddable demeanor, which makes them exceptionally trainable and eager to be partnered with their people pals for working duties.
According to the American Kennel Club (AKC), the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is the smallest retriever in the canine kingdom, standing only about 18-19 inches high at the shoulder with an adult weight of 37-51 pounds on average.
The AKC also describes the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever as an "upbeat athlete," who's always ready for activities like camping, hiking, hunting, and swimming - for which they possess a particular proclivity due to their webbed feet.
Despite advancing technologies, dogs remain the preferred instrument for assisting in snow rescues due to their keen sense of smell and natural ability to navigate austere terrain with ease.
Most ski patrol and avalanche rescue dogs go through an intensive, multi-year training before being ready to hit the slopes with their handlers, and things will be no different for Jazz, who's still just a puppy.
And just in case you were wondering...that barrel of brandy which is commonly depicted around the necks of avalanche rescue dogs in many older images is no longer a thing, so Jazz will not need to turn 21 in dog years before being able to go to work.
In fact, there's actually no historical evidence to support the notion that mountain rescue dogs ever carried such barrels, let alone their being filled with a potent potable of one kind or another.
The barrel myth was created after an 1820 painting by Englishman, Sir Edwin Landseer, called "Alpine Mastiffs Resuscitating a Traveler in Distress" became widely popularized.
Landseer's famous canvas portrays a pair of Saint Bernards that are assisting a man who's met with peril along his high-altitude travels, and one of the animals has a small oaken barrel around its neck.
Over time and based on this image, the barrel eventually became much larger and tales (or tails :-) about its contents being brandy, whiskey or other strong distilled spirits which might ease the pain and distress of a victim in crisis also became commonplace alongside.
The Saint Bernard became ubiquitously synonymous with avalanche rescues due to its use by the monks of the Great St. Bernard Pass hospice in Switzerland in the 17th Century.
Although Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers are a great choice for any ski rescue team, the breed is ostensibly rare within the trade and in general, as most of the breeds used around the world for such purposes today are often Labradors, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, and Border Collies.
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