::: I am going to try and write up an account of last year's dogsled adventures on my 24h shift days. I will post-date them to reflect the day I was stuck at work with no internet access. ::
In April of 2009, I brought a five-month old husky mutt home from the pound. I was hoping to turn him into a skijoring dog. Since I know that Alaska isn’t our permanent home, at least not yet, I had not caved into the temptation to start a sled dog team knowing I would have to get rid of the dogs once Peter got into Med school. This single pup seemed like a fair compromise. I spent some time that summer getting the pup familiar with a harness and pulling, but it wasn’t until Thanksgiving weekend that year that there was enough snow to take him for a trail run with skis. My friend Toni went with us to Creamer’s Field, and although it wasn’t a perfect two-miles, Pico figured out right away what was wanted of him and pulled like he was born to it.
After we were done, I drove to a local coffee shop to pick up cup for Peter and warm up a bit myself. In line just in front of me I recognized Sepp, a man I had run into several times when I was a tour guide to Coldfoot & Wiseman up in the Brooks Range north of the Arctic Circle. An old German trapper that makes his living on a dog sled, running hundreds of miles of remote trap line in the all-winter-darkness of the far north, he stood out even in the eclectic crowd of Fairbanks with his generously patched clothes and the ragged fur trim on every item from his home-made boots to his coat lining.
Uncharacteristically, since I was sure he had no idea who I was, I said hello, mentioned that we had met on a couple of occasions at the truck stop in Coldfoot and asked how his trapping season was going. In fact, I was curious as to why he was in Fairbanks at all, as trapping should be well under way. He responded brusquely that the trapping was terrible, snow conditions were the worst in years, and that he was going to Chile to stay with friends for the winter. He turned and shuffled forward with the line.
After a moment, he half-turned back towards me, “In fact, I’m still looking for someone to keep two of the dogs from my team while I’m gone. I am a bit worried, since I am leaving on Monday.”
It was Saturday afternoon. My heart was in my throat. I nodded sagely and let silence hang between us for a few moments while my mind raced.
“I might be able to keep them.”
He whirled around.
“But I don’t have a sled or dog houses at the momenet, and I need to make a few phone calls …”
He was already scribbling his phone number on a napkin. I took it and told him I’d give him a call that evening. And scramble I did. I called every dog musher I knew to see if anyone had a sled I could borrow. Asking to borrow a sled is like asking to borrow someone’s car. Worse, because sleds are expensive and take a beating, it’s like asking to borrow someone’s car for six months and promising to bring it back with plenty of door dings, cracked CV boots and thoroughly misalligned. I got no takers. I called around looking for spare dog houses, too. Nothing. Peter, at least, was supportive if skeptical. I called Sepp that evening, and told him that I would love to take his dogs, but that I had no sled and that without a sled there wasn’t much point.
“Oh, well I have an old sled you can borrow. It doesn’t look like much, but it ran the Iditarod in the ‘90s.”
I started scribbling furiously as he gave me directions to his house. Even though it was after dark, and the instructions involved parking at a dead end and hiking a half mile through the woods, it never occurred to me to hesitate …
No comments:
Post a Comment