not racing

There is a little race called the Two Rivers Tune-Up that is scheduled over Thanksgiving weekend every year. It's an early season 'fun' race, designed to get everyone back in the swing of the controlled chaos of racing without the pressure of long miles so early in the season. There are two races - a 10-dog twenty-miler and a 6-dog ten. I was planning on heading out to cheer folks on, and when I found out that Harry Douglas didn't have a handler available I was happy to offer him whatever help I could. We chatted online about this and set a meeting time. I thought it would be nice to have something to do while waiting around in the cold for the race starts.

The next day, Harry caught me online and off guard with the question, "hey u wanna race?" My stomach flew into my throat. He had planned on running the six-dog, but he has a whole kennel full of potential racers. He figured he'd run in the ten-dog and let me take six of his around the shorter course. We worked out details and I didn't sleep that night.

A team sprints through a corner at the Open North American Sprint Championships in '08.

Deep down, of course, I want to race. Badly. I dream of finishing the Cooper Basin 300 and maybe, some day, the Quest. But this season's difficulties have made me acutely aware of how far I have to go to get there. It's a path I'm excited to explore, but I'm ever so cognizant that I'm still with sight of the first trail marker. And suddenly to be offered a ready-made team and an opportunity to race, even just for a few miles ... I was overwhelmed with excitement and also fear. But facing fears is why I started (and continued) running dogs in the first place. Jumping in with both feet is the only way to do cold water.

Brent Sass waves to the crowd at the start of the 2010 Yukon Quest.

 The next evening, at the Two Rivers Dog Mushing Association's monthly planning meeting, it was determined that the trails were in too poor a condition this early in the season for a safe race. For the third year in a row, the race was canceled. I was disappointed, and honestly a little relieved too. The pressure of taking care unfamiliar dogs on unfamiliar trails in my first race was a little daunting.

In the mean time, Harry had found out about my leadership troubles back on our trails. He generously offered to loan me an older lead dog of his that he won't be using this season to race or train puppies. I jumped at the opportunity, after all our false-starts, to try a different beast at the head of my crew. I planned on picking him up over Thanksgiving weekend.

On Friday night, I headed out to Two Rivers and picked up Billie. He's a nine year old from Ed Iten's kennel out near Kotzebue, Alaska. Ed has been racing and breeding dogs for twenty years! I was perusing the Iten Kennel site that evening, and although not recently updated I saw what appeared to be a familiar face on the dogs page. A dog named Pepper, who looked suspiciously like the happy goofball named Pepper in our yard, was smiling out at me from my computer screen. I wrote Aliy Zirkle a quick e-mail to confirm, and it is true: Pepper and Billie are not only from the same kennel, but are the same age and probably played and trained together growing up. Alaska is a small world, even for dogs!

Billie rode home in the cab of the truck with me. He is in the middle of shedding his coat (even though it was -40 all week last week!) and sat quietly in the passenger seat for about ten minutes before howling for the rest of the hour drive home. There was tail-wagging all around as we introduced him to the yard, and he settled in nicely between Norrin and Parka. Once clipped in, he sniffed and chilled for awhile but took up his yipping and barking again at bed time. Peter took him an elk bone from our emergency stash, and that was the last we heard from him until breakfast. Amazing how much a meaty, marrowy elk-bone will make you feel welcome in a strange and unfamiliar place.