"We are here... about a race!"

I was fortunate-- thanks to hosting by Lara-Ke Kennel and a slew of friends-- to be able to fly up to Fairbanks this weekend and watch/handle/film one of the first sled dog races of the 2013/2014 season. Right now I'm sitting in the airport (for my commute back to work in Anchorage). I'm pretty sure they are basically waking the plane up now. Meanwhile, I'll try to write a little about the non-mushing side of a race experience.

I've gotten to race sled dogs off and on since I was 14. Because of the kennels where I worked and handled, I got to spend most of my time training dogs or racing dogs. Only over the last few years have I gotten, also, to handle for races. This is a unique and kind of weird experience, especially if you're used to being on the other side of the runners.

This weekend was no exception. It may have even felt stranger because I was not only on this side of the runners- I was on the operating end of a video camera as well.

The main reason I came up to Fairbanks this weekend was to do some filming for a project proposal I'm putting together.

Since it's in the works, I don't want to talk too much about it specifically, but it's a mushing project. What a great excuse to visit friends and see a race!

I ended up taking about four hours of footage at the race start, checkpoint, and road crossing. The race was populated by a huge range of experience. I even boldly did some interviews-- something I really don't love, necessarily. I know how frustrating it can be to be asked a lot of distracting questions when you are trying to get your head in a race space, or even just trying to figure out where that bag of booties you packed went. I tried to be respectful of my interviewees... I'm going to throw together a quick vid this week about the race, and I hope fans enjoy a glimpse into the start, especially. I'm not going to lie... I only interviewed people I know! So although Iditarod and Quest champs Lance Mackey and Jeff King were very much a part of the race, they have no idea who I am, and I didn't feel comfortable, yet, acting the paparazzi. I guess if I do want to keep filming races I'll have to get over it. Ultimately, while I love filming and I hope it brings a cool piece of the race to fans who can't be present, my real goal and desire is on the business end of the runners.

I was really impressed that the Two Rivers Dog Mushers Association handled a suddenly and surprisingly big field, as well as a plot twist in trail conditions, with apparent ease and dexterity. It wasn't easy, but I think their work was appreciated. I'm making this leap because as I filmed at the road crossing, almost every single musher as they popped up onto pavement for a brief second, shouted out to all the volunteers a resounding "Thank you!" I was really pleased with how grateful the racers seemed. I hope the volunteers who worked hard, seemed to be everywhere, stayed up late, broke trail, created a last-minute new checkpoint, and put on a really nice race felt as appreciated as they deserved. If not, let me express it from a handler/spectator perspective: Nice work TRDMA. And thanks!

Besides filming, I did a little handling. The main duty in this case was driving to the checkpoint to get dropped dogs if there were any. The way this race worked is that there were actually two races going on at once- the Solstice 100 and the Solstice 50. You can guess from their titles how long each race was. The 100 stopped at the checkpoint, rested a mandatory 4 hours, and went back over the same trail to return to the starting point at the Pleasant Valley Store. The 50 racers actually finished at the "checkpoint." This meant that all of their handlers had to be there and ready not to pick up a couple of dogs if necessary... But to load up a whole team as well as musher and gear. The real trick was getting back out of the finish/checkpoint. There was a real jigsaw of dog teams in place when I arrived at the Shooting Range where the finish/checkpoint was located. Don't worry, no one was doing any target practice while teams were around. This location was a last minute change. Normally for this race the checkpoint is Angel Creek Lodge, but due to recent heavy snows that bow tree limbs down and close off the trail, there was suddenly no dog team access to the regular stop. The race organization opted to turn a relatively open spot on the trail into a checkpoint with a wall tent, a barrel of water over a fire to provide water for dogs, and a little parking space. For 24 teams doing a layover and 19 finishing a race, it was as tight squeeze! But it was pulled off well.

Because it was tight, the race asked 100 mile handlers to not park in the checkpoint. We were actually easily able to find spots on the road, just a short walk from the teams on the "pond" where they were parked.

The checkpoint was a chance to be social, film a little, and talk dogs. With only a four hour layover relatively early in the evening, most mushers didn't try to sleep. I got to see teams all across the board. Since it was the actual solstice, there was only about three and a half hours of daylight. The race took off in light but the checkpoint was dark and the finish was pretty dark too. Out away from a lot of civilization, the starscape was massive and clear. As 100 mile teams left the checkpoint for their second leg, a rocking-chair half-moon rose orange and watching over the hills. I worked in Two Rivers for a (cold) season, so I'm used to it being well below zero when the stars shine out in December. It was a perfect temp, though, an easy couple degrees above zero. It was a beautiful night. As I watched the moon rise and the teams shush off into the night I was wishing the hardest that day that I was going out next with my team on quiet runners in the quiet snow.

I did have a job though: that was to take up straw. The purview of a dutiful handler. I helped pick up straw for four teams, the two Lara-Ke teams (Judy Currier and Chase Tingle), and the two Smokin' Aces teams (Matt Hall and Riley Dyche). The goal is to leave the camp site as clean as it was before the teams entered. 

After all four teams were out, it was about eleven. My co-handler Guro and I headed back to the kennel to tend to the two dropped dogs we had on hand, get a little food, and get ready to see the finish. Back at the store, we missed Aliy finishing by just a few minutes... About five to be exact. Matt Hall finished 5 minutes behind her, and we actually (probably annoyingly, sorry Matt!) drove behind his team on a short section of trail that is also the road to Lara-Ke kennel. He turned where the trail became dedicated trail again, and we zoomed ahead to try to catch finishes. We pulled into the parking lot just in time to see Matt arrive, but too late for Aliy. She was speedy! Instead of loading dogs into a truck for a really short jaunt back to their kennel, Aliy just drove her team home. The other SPK teams did as well, and so did Judy and Chase.

At the kennel, Guro and I helped unhook dogs, dole out a hearty feeding, and make sure everyone looked and felt good. Chase, Judy, Guro, and I went our separate ways for bedtime around 3:30 in the morning. It had been a long night, but a great one. I'm pretty sure I curled up and passed out with a list of new experiences, about 4 hours of great film, and huge smile on my face.

Two Rivers Solstice 100/50: Sled Dogs for America

I have a new "real" job, a really great one I might add. However, it's limited my ability to go out and be part of the mushing circles lately. This weekend, though, I got to head north to Two Rivers and hang out-- and do some filming-- at the Two Rivers Solstice 100/50 mile race. The 100/50 mile part means that there were essentially two races-- a 100 mile race that happened in two legs of 50 miles (with a four hour layover in between), and a 50 mile race that ended where the 100 mile layover occurred.

I have a lot more to say about this race. It was a much bigger turnout than expected, with about 45 mushers in both races. It's always fun to just get to hang around dog people... It was a blast to get to be around this particular race. One nice facet (especially for filming) was that the race was located just miles away from my host-house of Lara-Ke Kennel. That meant that between the start, road crossing, and checkpoint I could go back to the house and charge my cold camera batteries!

I got about four hours of great footage. I'm going to do a variety of things with it, but for now this is the first little piece I put together. It's another installment of Sled Dogs for America... a campaign for the best thing ever (and one without an election? Still you should vote...).

Here's the next video: Sled Dogs for America with Riley Dyche

Nostalgia

This morning I got to help out at Martin Buser's Happy Trails Kennel. I scooped, helped hook up, and rode along on a four wheeler run. It was a blast, and, despite a lot of new construction that has taken place since I first started mushing in 2000, really took me back to my early days.

I remember everything about the first time I ever ran dogs. I had asked Martin, really nervously, if I could have a sled dog ride as part of a school project I was doing on the Iditarod. Honestly, I'd been jonesing to be on the back of a dog sled for years. Being friends with the Buser boys had me so close to mushing... But so far. My brother and Martin's two sons and I would all play Legos, build forts, and do what kids do. We played with the puppies a bit-- This was one of our "jobs," to help socialize the young dogs. But that was the closest I ever got to sled dogs, really.

So finally I asked for this ride, and Martin had said yes. I remember walking out to the dog yard wearing whatever silly winter gear I'd found. The dogs went nuts. Martin showed me how to harness a dog. He talked about the way a dog's legs move. ("They don't have ball socket shoulders, like we do, so you can't pull their arm sideways.") He showed me tug and neckline and gangline. It was spring, after Iditarod, and getting warmer. Martin, his son Nikolai, and I all headed off on a puppy run, training young dogs how to run in the team. We did five runs that day. On the last run, with me driving, and Nikolai in the basket of the sled, Martin hopped off the runners just before our loop. It was a huge surprise! But off we went, Martin waving and grinning behind us, letting us figure things out on our own. We came to our turn, and called "Gee." I think I braked too late, or the dogs were excited to go "Haw" instead, so we had to stop and show them the correct trail. Nikolai and I worked together and got it done and in short order had picked Martin back up again.

Refreshment after the run

Going back to the kennel where I first learned to mush was very in keeping with the theme of this year. Moving back to my hometown has been a series of flashbacks, but also a poignant reflection on how much I have changed. This place has changed, too, in a lot of ways-- And in other ways, not at all. The dogs are older. Wandering around Martin's lot was a very old man dog, a black dog with distinctive orange and white markings. I thought I recognized him. I asked Martin who it was. "That's Van Gogh!" he told me, and I laughed, because I remember that dog well. I knew him as a puppy when I worked at Happy Trails fourteen years ago. He was a litter of one, and for some reason-- I can't remember why-- something happened to his ear. Maybe his momma bit it, or maybe someone else. Anyway, one of his ears was missing a chunk, so he earned his artistic name. So strange to remember that rough and tumble solo pup, now an old, old man, free to roam where he wanted.

The past two weeks, I've gotten to help at various kennels all over the state. I'm really grateful to be able to work with dogs, even if I'm not handling or mushing right now. It's incredible to see all these different folks working in different ways towards a kind of common idea. There are the races-- and that's important-- but more universally, there's a great joy in just running those dogs. Yes, everyone is eager for snow. But most of all, all these mushers walk through their lots, and you can see they are family with the canines who bark and keen to go. It's a dirty, messy, sloppy love. It's silly and not at all nice and neat. It's expensive, and time-swallowing, and hard work. I absolutely love it.

How I Feel About Things

Whatever your stance on things, currently, I think we can all get behind this. Chase Tingle, Judy Currier's handler this season (lara-ke.blogspot.com) features in this brief message brought to you by sled dogs everywhere. Especially in America.

Working on a Glacier

This summer I was lucky enough to work for a company called Alaska Icefield Expeditions, doing sled dog tours on the Denver Glacier near Skagway, Alaska. I got a ton of amazing pictures. You can check out my photo album by following this link:

Glacier Days: a Photo Journey

Here's a little preview of what's there.

Snow and Shadows

This is a post I wrote in my blog sevenjourney.blogspot.com while I worked for Mitch Seavey in 2009. That winter was one of the hardest, most instructive winters I've spent mushing! This is a post about repetition and endurance.

Snow:

The downfall. End of a kind. Kind of an end, better a beginning. Wake up, smell the dark, hit the snooze, roll and flop and grumble in your bed. Another day. Maybe the fiftieth in a row. Blends, though. Except darker, every day. Waking up not in sunlight, but in shadow. (Reading every night, and Left Hand of Darkness was a trudge. But it had moments, I'll give it that. Moments.)

Parents here today. A distinct and scary change in the pattern. A good change. A sweet moment, familiar, familial faces, smiling and proud of what you do. Your dog in the car, three times bigger than when you left. Not fatter (well, no, he's fatter, but not just), just bigger. Growing up. And you missed those five months. Weeks. Fifty days? Life-boat stranded time.

Same patterns.

Here you are, at this part again.
Here I am, at this moment of rest again. Like waking up. Out of some constant, constantly forgotten dream. Oh. I'm here. You're here. On the four wheeler. With the dogs. In your room. Listening to music.
It's all the same thing.
And it's all a good thing.
But this is how survival works.
You just scoop the shit in front of you. Just do the job before your hands.
Enjoy it.
Store it. Maybe your mind does this unconsciously, because you're going to look back in seven or eight months and wish for it, long for it, miss it like a metal nail piercing that present moment too.
Don't worry.
It will probably happen again.
Blink, and you're scooping.
It's snowed.
Snowed four inches. Not enough though.
But the sky is thick unaccountable gray, a wash, a shadow-eraser. The world is a little room, cushioned by the snow, and scraped clean too, emptied, turned over. Drained. Everything solid-- the few things left-- two trees, some ravens, the dogs who aren't white dogs-- everything floats. Blank box, without distance or dimension. A dog comes towards you, big as a mountain, but maybe as far away. Intelligent eyes. You realize you dream dog eyes, dog expression. Realize you communicate like that somehow, too.

Your own dog, today. Coby. Is stupid. Big and dumb. A lab. No, there is a difference afterall. His lion yellow eyes are dull and thick compared to clear bright blue husky looks, asking and telling and sure. Hyper in a way Coby never knew how. Still, he trusts you when you say lay down, and in the brief ride back from the restaurant, he lays his head on your lap and promptly falls asleep. Eyes don't matter. You miss him.

You blink. You're massaging some kind of homeopathic oil into the shoulder of a dog who doesn't care. Who endures it patiently. Unpleasantly. Boston doesn't like it. But he limps. Maybe it's because someone ate half of his tail when he was a puppy. Blood against the snow.

The snow starts piling up. First when you are scooping. Shallowing in the holes your shovel makes. Then it's a race against the white, trying to get it all done before it's all covered. Your parents are coming today. You hope they drive safe.

You are feeding. Scoop, an onomatopoetic word. The noise your half-thick soup makes as it plops into a can. Each dog a coffee can from which to eat. The most important part of their world. Except maybe trails and sleds and open glaring moons.

Blink, you're in a coffee shop near Girdwood. Waiting in line for half and hour, praying you don't get delayed, kind of hoping you do. Wanting just one moment of amenity. Service. Before fifty days.

No, that's a memory. It's fifty days. Fifty days in a row, but it doesn't feel like anything. It feels like everything now. It is everything. What else could there be? Choices and the sunny Minneapolis past fade into the snow. Like the shadows. You sing to the dogs while you feed.

In the sky, there is a gathering flock of snow. You barrel your way through the foot-high ground, the widening snow, extending snow. Everything is snow. If you look up, it doesn't stop. No end to the exodus of the sky. Hello sky. Welcome to the ground.

Don't even hope for sleds.
Now the trail must be packed.

What's worse than an unsteerable, complaining, gas-and-oil-belching four wheeler?
Of course a snow machine.

A slow laborious yearling run. It is smoother. It is louder. It smells much worse. Exhaust flying up into your face. Light pollution spilling to all sides. The dogs run. Wonder if they are trying to just escape the monster at their heels.

Blink and you're sitting. Waiting for dinner. Trying to make it.
The music never stops. You plug in every morning and charge up every night. Wonder if it's ironic your desired escape from machines. Electronics are elegant: machines are heavy-handed red necks with indelicate smashing fists and throaty furious yells. It's a good excuse. But you and I, we tell ourselves too often to believe it any more.

Really, you're scooping.

You've been scooping for fifty days. Non-stop. Never stop. This moment is an illusion. Somewhere you let your brain wander to keep away from the routine.

This is the routine.

Tomorrow it could all change.

Mushing with Mari circa 2002

This is a cute video I made when I was in high school. Old-school quality... You can tell how much I loved epic music. My dad, Jerry Troshynski, narrates.

Boots

There was a lake.

It was twenty miles from the Kennel, the apex of my forty mile run. I'd been across this lake many times, my team hugging the shoreline in a well-coordinated line of pairs. The dogs were seasoned now, at least more seasoned than they had been. Every dog in the team was only one year old, except Poydras, my reliable leader, my good boy. Putting up with all the hooplah of nine doofusy, excitable yearlings, with a stoic disposition, one ear up and one ear down. In the February air the breath of my team gathered up and clouded. I was a yearling, too, really, only fifteen and no more seasoned than them. It was my first winter that way, and I was learning. I had sat through tangles that lasted three hours. I'd worked night and day with the dogs, even camped under the moon and stars with them. I scooped and fed and watered. I cared for them. It was the best winter of my life, and this was the last run before the end.

I felt confident, which was the first of my mistakes. The next run I did would not be a run, but a race. Not training, but the real thing. My team was fast and together and unbeatable. I was right about that in some ways. I wouldn't be the one to prove it, though. But that is a story for another time.

On this day, this last run, I knew I was coming up on a lake. A frozen white I knew well. The trail was burned into the back of my mind, Gee here, Haw here. Left turn off the embankment down onto the snow-covered ice.

But one more thing I knew well, too, was the right hand turn I always saw, just before the Haw that took us onto the lake. This right hand turn went into the woods along the shore, up a hill and who knows where. I'd seen this trail over and over, and I was curious. I knew it met up with the lake trail on the other side of the hill. I saw the exit. It was a little trail option, less than an eighth of a mile, if that. I wondered what it looked like, up that hill, through those trees.

And since I was confident, and since I was curious, I didn't pay attention to the fact that there were no fresh tracks along that trail, not even from a snow machine. I didn't look up to where the trees were closer in. I was unbeatable, after all. I Gee'd my team over, and they took the right. We began to climb the hill.

In any good disaster, there are a few elements leading up to the climactic crisis.

When I came to the kennel that morning-- early enough to help with 5 am chores-- someone had taken the boots I normally wear. The boots we use on the trail are monster boots, puffy concoctions to put Frosty and the Michelan Man to shame. They come from Northern Outfitters. Mushers swear by them- Certainly my mentor, Martin Buser, did. He's run and won a few more Iditarods than I have, so his word on this holds water. The whole insulating system is a one-layer beast, made of thick synthetic foam that requires next to nothing underneath. With the boots, no socks. With the bibs and parka, maybe a set of long johns, but nothing more. Everything I wore mushing belonged to Martin and his family. Since his young sons (who were about my size) were just getting into mushing too, the family had invested in kid-sized arctic wear, including boots. They generously shared the gear with me. Today, though, one of the boys was using the smallest set of boots, the set I normally wore. For this run, I'd need to wear the only other pair available, another size up.

That morning, too, the kennel handler, Andy, had packed my sled. He had run the race I was about to four times himself, and he was fanatic about getting ready. "You have to pack like it's for the race," he told me, so he set up my sled full of everything I needed: sleeping bag, axe, snow shoes, dog food cooker, dog food, people food... And a pair of polypropylene socks he said he swore by. "But I don't need socks," I pointed out. It didn't matter: he stuck them in a ziploc bag and stuffed them into my sled.

When I set out on my run, the temperature was cold, but not too cold. Fifteen above, a comfortable cool. My dogs were happy and wired: my run was set to be fairly short, compared to the eighty mile treks we'd been taking. Why shouldn't I explore? Why shouldn't I take the right turn?

The dogs lunged up in speed to hear a new command. They are explorers, too, and a new trail is a thrilling one. We began to make the climb. Maybe then I noticed there weren't tracks on this hill, just fresh snow. A little trail breaking: good for them, I thought. And a little ahead were trees. It was the woods. What could I expect?

What I didn't expect, when I reached the top of that short climb, was the overgrowth. Every fall, as the snow begins to build, mushers go out into their trails and tend the routes. Trails that never see summer foot prints must be "brushed out." Willows and poplars crowd in during the warm months and try to take back the winter courses. Old trees fall and bar the way. Undergrowth springs up and remains dense and prickly after autumn kills it off. Snow machiners will sometimes clear the main paths; but it's the mushers who must tend those back woods trails that no one else will travel.

No snow machiner had come here. No musher cleared the way. This was a little turn option no one bothered with. At the top of the hill, it was no longer a trail.

To the dogs, this meant nothing. They stand two feet at the shoulder, at most, and to them it was just a new game to duck under the sapplings weighted down by snow, bowing and crowding over the only way to go. I, too, tried to duck, but even at my modest height of 5'2", I couldn't crouch low enough to avoid the whip smack of the hundred branches clawing out. Brush hit my face, my arms, my eyes. I had to keep my eyes open-- where were we going? I had to see! And there was nowhere to stop, and no way to stop. The dogs were too excited. Too revved on this new type of game. All I could do was dig in and hang on and--

A branch hit me square in the face and somehow the shock of it knocked me back, off the runners, off the sled--

But the number one rule in mushing, the first, second, and third requirement, the mantra you chant in the back of your brain is "Never Let Go of the Sled."

So as my feet and head and body went flying back in shock and disproportion, my hands clamped down with all the life I had.

Then I was dragging.

I've heard it called "Super-Man"-ing. I thought of it (even as it occured) as being Indiana Jones dragging behind the Nazi Military Jeep in the Lost Crusade. Either way, my iron grip hands were clinging to my upright sled, and I was dragging behind. Snow pounded, clung, dug at me. I scraped along the scraggy trail at a fifteen MPH clip. My dogs were in ecstasy, the joy of running wiping clean any care they might have had for their stupid two-legged pack-friend struggling along behind them.

There's a weird moment when you are dragging, without the ability to pull yourself up, where you have time to think of many things. The comparison of your present situation to super heroes and movie stars. The stupidity of the choices leading to this moment. And now, the feel of the trail tugging on your feet. Especially at your boots, which are too large.

There was little I could do. The speed of the dogs picked up: I could feel us begin to head down hill. The friction and G-force working against me defied my fifteen-year-old abs and arms, no matter how muscled they'd become since I started working with dogs. My boots were beginning to be pulled off my feet.

It happened fast, then. There was a distinct popping feeling, and my boot was gone, sucked off my foot and taken by the trail.

Maybe this powered me; maybe I knew if I didn't stand up my other boot was gone too-- However it happened, the next thing I knew I was standing again, wearing one boot and staring at a bare foot riding a runner on the snow. It was a ridiculous sight. I looked behind me. No boot to be seen. Nowhere to stop still-- I had to be able to tie the team to something solid, and these woods were all sapplings and brush. We were still careening down the hill at car-chase speed. I was using my bare right foot on the drag to slow us down, mindless of the cold against my toes, but mindful of the sheer stupidity of this whole situation.

The hill came down, hard, onto the lake. Still there was no where to stop, certainly no trees big enough at which to tether a team. No chance I'd try to hook down into ice and hope that would be enough. I wasn't going to make that mistake too.

The lake was big. The trail crossed the middle, here. I wasn't about to deviate from the set course, now that I had rejoined it. I had enough of exploring. But it was below freezing and my foot was remarkably bare to the world. I was twenty miles (two or three hours) from home. I needed my boot.

The team had settled down a bit, trotting at a sedate ten MPH. Still there was nowhere to stop, not reasonably, and every foot I traveled I knew was a foot I'd have to walk back. I thought about turning them around-- And thought of the disaster trying to U-Turn nine yearlings on a lake would be. I couldn't walk without being crooked. That wasn't going to work.

After what felt like a mere eternity, we reached the far side of the lake. There was a big tree there, sufficient to hold back a team of yearlings. I stopped and set my hooks, tied my team and sled firmly to the tree (all the while wobbling back and forth between my three-inch soled boot and my bare foot). I tied my leaders forward so the team couldn't move side to side, and unhooked all their tugs so they couldn't pull at all. I pulled out snacks and gave them all a treat. Then I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone.

"Hello?" answered Martin cheerfully. I imagined him in his office, taking care of daily paperwork.

"Martin?" I said. "I lost my boot."

There was a pregnant pause.

"What?" he finally asked.

I explained what had happened.

There was another small silence as he absorbed this.

"Well," he said. "You better go get it!"

He told me to tie out the team and feed them, to make sure they couldn't run. I was able to say I had done that much at least.

This was the tricky part. A dog team, given its own means, will happily take off without you. The team could really care less if you are attached to or involved with the sled. Thus the mantra: Never Let Go of the Sled. Now I would have to break the second most important mantra: Never Step Behind your Sled. Step behind the sled, no matter how attached or hooked or anchored the team may be, and inevitably your dogs will chose at that moment to break all bounds and disembark on a trip of their own, leaving you alone and bootless on the trail.

Then again, I couldn't mush twenty miles home without a shoe. That was asking for trouble, and throwing away a pretty expensive piece of equipment besides. As the man said... I had better go get my boot.

Lucky for me, Andy had ignored my protest about the polypro socks.

There was no way I could clunk my way back up the trail with one boot on and one boot off. To move fast, I had to remove the other boot. To try to give myself some kind of barrier from the cold, I'd need to use the socks. I pulled them out of the sled and looked at them dubiously. "These better work as well as you claim, Andy," I thought, and took off my other boot.

The socks were thin. Remarkably thin. Light; and warm. My one bare foot was grateful for a cover, little though it may be. I didn't have time to luxuriate. Both socks on, I began to run.

As I trotted back over the trail, I looked down. Amongst the pawprints and sled tracks, over the snow machine tread, I left size-seven bare foot prints in the snow. I laughed and laughed in my head. What would someone think when they came this way? "The smallest sasquatch in the world came walking over the lake today. I saw its footprints in the snow."

I came to the far shore, to the hill my team had flow down. A steep climb now. I dug in, a steady pace. The top of the hill, looking left and right. Ducking under brush and trees. And then... Down hill again? I had reached the beginning of the trail. No boot. I stood breathing hard, hands on my hips. This wasn't good. No choice-- I turned around and made my way back. Had to look again. Slower this time, walking now. Looking hard... And there. Off the trail, ten or fifteen feet. In a big clump of devil's club, of course. Thorns prickling every direction. I tip toed my way in, reaching with bare fingers for the very edge of the boot. Reclaimed. Victory. And of course I yet again only had one boot, so I couldn't put it on.

So I carried my boot back to my team, who had mercifully stayed put. They wagged their tales in happy confusion and greeting, and barked to know if we could go again. Both boots on, my sled re-packed. I hooked the team back up and headed home. This time, I stayed on the trail.

A Morning with Dogs

The musher wakes up to her alarm, looks outside. Stars glare back through the picture window in the living room. The moon makes five am silver, and she can see down in the dog lot: twenty-six brown houses, dogs hidden within. Milky, as always, is curled into a white letter Q on top of his. The musher smiles. Moving to pull on gear, to fight her way into a cover-all suit with the zipper stuck, and a pair of boots which are so worn out the sides collapse and refuse to be pulled up—this wakes her up, a little. The rhythm of warm water is soothing, lulling. She is still tired. When she walks out the door with two steaming buckets, gloves on, hat pulled low, the sharp force of cold hits her in the face and she is instantly alert. Behind her the door closes on the interior yellow-glow of warmth. She is in the blue.

The noise of the door closing, and the flickering lights of the house, have woken some of the dogs. They stand like wolves, leaning forward with keen eyes, until they see the musher step out of the shadows of the house toward the shed. A dog whines, low. In an instant, the quiet of the world is shattered into a raucous choir, a breaking chorus: the dogs bark. They howl.

Over the din, the musher fumbles with the latch on the shed door, and when it releases, moves a bucket aside to pull open the door. Her right hand is bare, the glove in her teeth. She needs to feel what she is doing. The shed doesn’t have a light, and she curses herself again for not putting one up this summer. If she can keep the shed door from swinging closed on its heavy hinges, the moonlight will be enough this morning to show her the food and supplements, the buckets and scoopers and little packages of additives. The truth is she doesn’t need the light. She knows it all by feel, just like she knows the path down to the lot, and the feel of each dog’s ruff, distinctly. But before that—and they howl for her to arrive—she has to mix the food. She puts the water behind her, finds the empty food buckets, crusted with a very little bit of last night’s dinner, near the garbage can of kibble. Her life is measured in buckets. Only eight scoops of kibble today, they’ve been getting a little heavy. Her hand gets cold against the worn wooden handle of the scooper, even colder touching moisture to unscrew the lid to the plastic bulk container of vegetable oil. She douses the kibble in it. Chips out frozen lumps of chicken fat, adds some to each bucket, and the supplement energy/vitamin powder over that. No meat today—raw and half-frozen—but the mix is repulsive enough as it is. The dogs can smell it and scream for it. She would stop and shake her head for a moment, but they are hungry and there is work to do. She pours the steaming water over the food: it melts the fat and mixes in the oil and powders. The kibble floats and moves, the whole mix a sudden rising stench. Somehow beautiful in its familiarity. Again, the second bucket. Food and water, mixed and ready. Breakfast.

A bucket in each hand, bumping against her legs and spilling over onto her already stained knees; she kicks the shed door shut, and makes her way to the rioting pack down below. A berserk excitement, not feral, but nearly: This is what they live for. This and running.

In the lot, the dogs lean, jump, wait for her with eager tails. Drool collects at the corners of their mouths, freezes in the fur of their lower jaws. Have they forgotten the last time they were fed? They chomp down their full bowls of food in three bites, so fast they forget again they’ve been fed, and clamor for more. But in all of this, never do they forget that the musher is boss, that later she will run them, and now she feeds them. They look at her with worshipping eyes. With intelligent, conversational eyes. Their excitement is the manic excitement of friends. They never forget she is a friend. A boss. A brother wolf, in the pack which is what the dogs understand themselves to be.

It is after, when they have quieted with the realization there is no more food for now, and some of them are still snuffling around the corners of their houses and circles for stray kibble, that she takes a moment to breathe, to enjoy. She has a shovel in one hand, another bucket in the other. The apparently untenable occupation politely referred to as “scooping.” It is not an undesirable job. Despite the mechanics of the operation, the actuality of collecting shit into a bucket and moving it away from its producers, the rhythm of it is calming. The service to the dogs: this is how she repays them for their kindness, their warmth and simple beauty. Their heart and their love of pulling. This is how she washes their feet.

They are comfortable with her. They watch her, and if they don’t watch her, they know where she is. Some of them play with each other, stretching to the ends of their chains and gnawing affectionately at the fur of neck and ear. Some growl, but it is playful. They are well-fed, cheerful to be up this bright moonlit morning. And gradually, as she scoops and listens to their noises, a quiet settles on the lot. The dogs, one by one, sit back on their haunches and watch her, each other. It is the silence of the final dark before dawn. The coldest moment of the night. The dogs watch. And then—it is difficult to tell who starts it, and the musher doesn’t want to look and ruin the rhythm—a dog looks up at the stars. Opens her jaw, to the moon and to god, and sings.

It is not the riotous desperate cry of “Feed me!” that came earlier. It is as silent in its chorus, when the others begin to join, as the quiet just broken. A rising cry, a keening choir. One by one the dogs join in, fade out, join again. Together the lot reaches one climactic note. The musher sings too, in her human voice as much as she can. It hits the peak of its chorus, and stops. Suddenly. The musher, once, may have been caught singing in the abrupt, dead quiet. But she has sung this song before, every morning and every night. The lot is more utterly still that it was when every dog but Milky curled up inside its house. The musher looks at them all looking at her. She breathes. The world begins again. The dogs move, subdued now. They are full and want to sleep. She keeps scooping, stopping now and again to pet whoever it is she cleans after.

When she is done, has dumped the full buckets of crap into the rapidly filling hole in the woods, she trades them for the empty food buckets, and carries those up to the house. She enters into a warmth that is more suited for her frail humanity. In silence, she builds herself a breakfast. Hot coffee, eggs, toast. Warmness seeps back into her fingers, painfully. She is grateful to be out of the cold. But her attention is preoccupied, as always. She sits in the living room and stares out the picture window. She thinks she might watch the sun rise as she eats, but part of her is hurrying too much. She eats quickly, watching the dogs move in and around their houses, washes the dishes quickly, and with her mind thinking three steps ahead, has pulled her gear back on before she remembers. Now she grabs heavier stuff, a pair of Cabela’s snow pants, weighted down in the pockets, and Northface boots. Layers over her polar-fleece shirt, and then a thick overcoat with a ruff. She is out the door before the sun has crested the rocky horizon.

The dogs half-ignore her now. They are always aware of where she is and what she is doing, but for now they have been fed, so they do not feel the need to explode into excitement. It will be hours before it is time to run. She will let the food settle in their stomachs. They listen to her work and are content. Above the kennel, the musher preps the snow machine. She wrestles a drag toward the back of the Yamaha, hooks it on and sets the clip. It will be a cold ride this morning. She pulls up her face mask and goes to the shed to fetch the helmet. It is less for protection from possible injury than from the cold. Straddling the machine, she chokes the throttle and then pulls the start. It revs to life. A satisfying noise, but she doesn’t understand the craze some people seem to feel for it. This is nothing like running the dogs. This is dirtier and heavier. This is polluted.

But she needs it. There are trails to clear. She checks to make sure her two axes are in place. Again, she curses herself for not picking up a chainsaw when she was in town last. It will take longer with the manual tools, but she has been working on these trails, trying to keep them clear. The machine is ready, and she has what she needs for the morning. She fires out of the lot.

The dogs wait for her; she thinks of them while she is working. They sleep soundly for a while. At one point after the sun has been up for a short time, a cow moose and her calf make a rustling path far across the field. The dogs rise and watch, and eventually Jabba barks, setting the whole lot off. The cow is perturbed. She moves her calf away. The dogs settle when the two “other” creatures are gone.

The musher returns, goes into the house to warm her fingers and eat again. It seems an irrelevant activity, and she might have avoided it if she hadn’t had to go to the bathroom so badly.

This time, when she steps into the dog lot, the yard erupts into frenzied noise. They know, and she knows: it is time to run. She smiles, and whistles, and the yard goes silent: it is a straining, edgy silence, as they watch her pull out the sled and get the lines ready outside the gates of the yard. A few whine low under their breath. She throws Jabba an arching glance and he grins at her and is quiet.

She begins to harness them, bring them to line. One by one they fill out the team. Only 12 will go today, because the trails are a little rough for any bigger team. The remaining dogs seem both about to burst with hope that they will be next, and to sag with the possibility that they will stay. They stand on their houses to get a better view of the line, and strain with all their might against their chains. Some of them lean so that they are hanging out in the air, supported by their collars and chain and panting.

As each dog comes to line, the world begins to fill with yammering howls. In harness and hooked up, the dogs may speak. They do, and the chorus builds from Jabba’s single whining yelp to Dejo’s low grumble.

The team is ready. She walks up the line once more amidst the yowling, checking that lines and harnesses and clips are in place; when she comes back to the sled, she zips her overcoat around her and pulls up her face mask. The motions are practiced: she pulls the sled back so she can reach the snub line (not that she can actually physically meet the dogs’ power here; she gains an inch, perhaps). With a bare hand on the metal quick-release and both feet heavy on the brake, she looks up at her team. They feel her standing there. One or two look back.“Ready?” she asks. They pound into their harnesses, and she says, “All right!” at the same moment that she releases the line. There is an explosion of movement forward, out of the lot. The time has come to run.

A Look at a Kennel

Silent Dog Film