Backtrail: Holes In The Ice

Our second run began at the same little dead-end road two miles from the cabin. Peter helped me hook up again, and this time we only needed a little guidance to start moving in the right direction. That initial euphoria of flying down a trail behind a fresh team with the swish of runners the only sound caught in my throat as the field flashed by.

Unable to control where we were going, I just held on as Rsta took us to the left at the end of the field instead of right. We followed a fresh-looking snow machine track across a large frozen pond, over some smashed down, icy cattails and across a series of smaller marshy wallows. I worked my feet on the runners, shifting my weight and getting a better feel for how the sled responded to corners and straightaways and ruts in the trail. The dogs were in a groove, and settled into a nice trot. It was only a few short minutes before I saw powerlines and heard traffic on Ballaine Road. I had seen the "Caution: Dog Team Crossing" sign driving down that road a thousand times but had never noticed exactly where the trail came out to cross. On the trail itself, it was obvious. I don't know how I had missed it so many times before.

I slowed the sled, hoping Rsta would turn to the right or left so we could run along the road and perhaps loop back to the cabin. Instead, she plowed ahead to the asphalt. I stopped the sled and called for her to turn. "Gee ... gee" ... she jumped, banging against her harness straight ahead, not looking at me. "Haw, Rsta, Haw ..." she dug into the snow and inched the sled forward. I lifted my foot for a second to get a better grip on the brake. As soon as they felt the tension slack, the whole team jumped forward, and Rsta was on the road before I could get the claw back in the snow. For the moment there were no cars, but with a 50mph speed limit against us I didn't want to linger. I tried to drag the sled backwards, but realized the futility of this move the instant my foot left the brake again - the dogs were now all in the road and I had the brake set in the last bit of snow before the asphalt. I took a deep breath, let the brake go, and ran along side the sled as the dogs tore forward across the blacktop and onto the trail on the other side.

We ran along what I have come to know as the northern of the two Goldstream Valley trails for about twenty minutes. With a big, wide trail ahead of us and no options for turning, the three dogs trotted along contentedly and I settled into a blissful trance. I was mushing! We had successfully crossed a major road! What could possibly go wrong!?!

When we did get to a major trail intersection, I stopped the sled and tried to get Rsta to turn to the right. I knew there was a major trail along the southern edge of the valley, and I assumed this southbound trail connected to it. It would be a perfect loop. "Gee ... gee." Nothing. I set the snow hook as deep as I could and stepped off the sled. As soon as she saw me approach, Rsta turned around and ran towards me, causing a tangle in the lines. I sorted it out and dragged everyone out straight, then carefully moved the whole line at a 90 degree angle to the sled. I ran back to the runners to pull the snowhook ... and Rsta followed right behind me, pulling Pico and Arwyn around with her. Tangles. Arwyn's foot got caught in a neckline, Pico's harness was wrapped around his belly. Rsta had woven herself between the gangline and Arwyn's neckline. I straightened everyone out and walked Rsta back out front in the direction I wanted us to go. I walked backwards to the sled, yelping "No" at her every time she tried to turn and follow me. Back at the runners, I pulled the snow hook and said "let's go." Rsta immediately turned to the left and pulled us back onto the main trial. I stopped the sled and set the hook again.

The second time Rsta took the sled into a U-turn, I switched her out with Pico to see if he would understand where I wanted us to go. I lined him out and followed the same procedure of walking backwards to the sled while trying to verbally stop him in his tracks. Unlike shy, sensitive Rsta, my yelling "no" did nothing to dissuade him. He dutifully turned and followed me back to the sled, tail wagging full speed. I wanted to scream in frustration. Rsta and Arwyn started to whine with anxiety. I stood on the runners and took a deep breath, trying to calm down enough to deal with the dogs gently. Pico gave me a long look, then suddenly turned and bolted excitedly back down the trail hitting the end of the tug at full speed. It only took me a second to see that Arwyn's harness was wrapped around her belly, but she was running now, too, and I wanted to let us get at least a few yards down the trail now that we were moving. I stopped the sled and managed to get her untangled before Pico had a chance to come back to investigate.

And we were off again. We went down a slight dip in the trail, and crossed a creek. The trail we were following now was well defined with snow machine tracks and went straight across and up a gentle slope on the other side. Pico ignored this, took a sharp left-hand turn and plowed up the narrow, winding creek following a single set of cross country ski tracks that were not only lonely, but looked old. We had been out for an hour already, and I knew we didn't have much daylight to work with. Despite my attempts to make a nice loop and head home, we were headed east again, away from the road. The banks of the creek, after just a few yards, became steep and forbidding. There was no way to turn around, even if I could get the dogs to do it. I let them run.

Five minutes later, craning my neck up to both sides trying to find a likely way out of this mess, I was nearly thrown off the runners as the team took a sharp left turn. I jumped off with one hand on the handle bow to steady myself and saw in a flash or horror that the right runner was skimming over the edge of a blue-black hole in the ice, the size of a small hottub. Unfazed, Pico jumped up a short incline and onto a wide place in the creek behind the hole; a beaver dam or something had formed this small pond and the hole must have had something to do with a little waterfall or eddy where the creek started flowing again. The cross country ski tracks were gone. Pico stopped and turned to look at me, then turned and tackled a startled Arwyn, barking for her to play. More tangles.

I put Rsta back up front, and she was eager enough to head back down the creek the way we had come, giving the hole a much wider berth than Pico. When we got back to the packed trail, I sighed with relief as she turned left, the way I had wanted her to go, south and west in a loop back towards the road. We bumped up over the creek's banks, then out onto another pond. This one was big, and the trail was initially packed hard. A minute later, the dogs feet were sinking into deep snow and the snow machine trail became a faint trace under newer snowfall. Then it was gone. We were at the end of the huge pond, facing the right direction to get home but with no trail to follow.

I was certain the trail I wanted (the south-valley trail, which I had skied the winter before) was just on the other side of a big stand of white spruce ahead of us. Rsta stood still, up to her hocks in snow, looking back at me for direction. I took my foot off the brake and she took two steps forward into the deepening snow at the edge of the ice. She stopped. I pushed the sled. It scooted ahead and she walked forward until the line was taunt again, the stopped and looked back. I pushed the sled forward. Nobody moved, and the brushbow nudged Arwyn's back legs. She balked sideways and dragged Pico with her. I quickly pulled the sled backwards to put tension back on the lines before we could tangle again. Rsta, in the mean time, wrapped herself and her lines around a bush on the edge of the pond. She was now much more interested in some old rabbit tracks than the fact that she was in harness in front of a sled. I walked forward to grab her collar and unwrapped her, leaving the snow hook on the sled.

I was exhausted and frustrated, and had also become convinced that the trail I wanted was just through the trees. Not knowing what else to do, and with my aforementioned propensity for inertia, I let go of her harness and started walking. To my great relief, all three dogs followed me. The snow quickly came up to my knees, and I post-holed on into the forest at a snail's pace. The deep snow and drag mat kept the sled from sliding into Arwyn and Pico. We were making steady progress ... and then we hit the trees. Or rather, the sled hit the trees. Moving over downed logs and small bushes under the snow, I did double-time, walking ahead, then back to dislodge the sled when it caught on something under the snow, then forward again. I was sweating through all my layers, hat and gloves off, thighs aching with the effort. We inched along through the spruce. Back and forth. The trail was just up ahead. I could almost see it through the dense overhang. I plowed on through the drifts, the dogs seeming happy with the new arrangement of follow-the-two-legged-leader. The sled lodged again. I looked up to gauge our progress, and realized I could no longer see the hills, or the sun, or the pond we had left. We were a hundred yards or more past where I thought there should be a trail. Nothing.

Just a few more yards. We moved forward. The sled snagged again. I went back. The drifts seemed to get deeper with every step. I wallowed, looking back at where the dogs were stuck against another sapling, sucking in cold breath, looking through the trees for any sign of the trail I knew must be just up ahead, just past the next drift.

As the trees got even thicker, the snow pack lessened. The dogs were now following just at my heels, then next to me, then suddenly they were ahead and the sled was just out of reach. I ran forward to grab the handle and jump on the runners. Just as I took the first step, Arwyn, Pico and I saw the same thing off to the left. A steep drop off, a creek, and a snow machine trail right down the middle. The two of them leapt off the trail and down the bank, dragging a yelping Rsta and rolling sled with them and leaving me high up on the bank, alone. I jumped down after them, caught my foot in a root and fell hard onto the ice. I looked up just in time to watch the sled disappear around a corner, upstream and heading decidedly away from the road without me. Then silence. I was too exhausted to cry.

Instead I took a deep breath, struggled to my feet and started calling for Pico while jogging up the creek. I cannot begin to describe the relief I felt when I saw the sled parked in snow just two bends ahead, the dogs standing contentedly waiting for me to catch up.

When I reached them, I realized immediately that Rsta was a wreck. She was tangled up in the lines, and shaking hard, trying to pull away from the other two dogs and sled but unable to get any distance. Even after I straightened her out and sat with her in the snow for a few minutes to help her calm down, moved her away from the other two dogs and got everyone pointed in the right direction - downstream - she refused to run up front. I switched her with Pico for lead, but he had lost all focus after his adventure and would only stay up front long enough for me to walk out of reach before turning around to play tackle the two trapper dogs. I tried Arwyn next, but when she realized I'd put her up front she simply laid down in the trail and rolled on her back.

I stood on the runners at a loss. We were going nowhere. It was getting dark. I knew this creek would take us back to Ballaine Road eventually, but I had no idea how far away we were. This was not the trail I had been looking for, and deep in the creek bed I couldn't see the hills for context. Then I remembered something I had read two years before about the way sled dogs were traditionally run on the open tundra where there are no trees or trails. The dogs are hooked up one equal length lines, side-by-side in what is called a "fan hitch." They fan out but pull together, every dog beside all of his team mates. With three dogs refusing to lead alone, anything was worth a try. I un-clipped Arwyn from the gangline and attached her tug , along with Pico's and Rsta's, to the bridle. All three dogs were now side-by-side, none of them bearing the full stress or responsibility of being up front. Before I had a chance to stuff the gang line in my backpack, they were headed down the trail at top speed. I hardly had time to jump on the runners as the sled blew by.

I called Peter from the creek-trail and asked him to meet us at the Ballaine Road Trailhead. I was shaking with exhaustion, both mental and physical, and knew we would be lucky to make it just that far without further incident, much less across the road and through the marshes with their myriad of forks and side-trails. I have never been more happy to see my car that I was when we came around the last corner of the creek. The dogs recognized the vehicle and sprinted up the little hill. At home with the dogs snacked and bedded down and the sled unloaded, I stripped out of my soaking clothes, curled up under a pile of blankets and was asleep before I'd taken a second breath.