The Gevær M/53-17 is a rifle that you and I would likely not recognize if we saw the name in print or heard someone talking about it in the gun shop. What you don’t know is that the Gevær M/53-17 is nothing more than a slightly modified M1917 Enfield, often referred to as “the American Enfield”. While perusing the internet I came across a blog post written by JWH1975 on the blog wwiiafterwwii about the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol’s use of the M1917 well past it’s expected service life in a guide gun sort of role.

The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol was formed in the early 1940’s to provide long range reconnaissance patrols on the northern coast of Greenland. During the war, the Germans had already established some weather stations on the east coast to aid the U-boat campaign, the sled patrol was responsible for keeping the Germans from establishing a presence in the north, and did so successfully.  After the war, the 50 M1917 rifles that the Coast Guard loaned the Greenlanders were conveniently left behind, serving the sled patrol since its inception about 75 years ago.

JWH1975 goes into wonderful detail covering some of the improvements that the sled patrol made to the rifle such as a new notch type rear sight, re-barreling, and even a notch cut in the receiver to allow the use of stripper clips to reload the rifle.

You can check out the full article on wwiiafterwwii by clicking HERE, I highly recommend spending some time reading some of their fascinating articles.