Dogsledding

Its warm, and the trail sucks, but damn it all we’ve started dogsledding anyways. We actually started a few weeks ago right after I got back from Christmas. It hasn’t been terribly exciting, I mean I love dogsledding but its mostly cruising along in the woods and trying to remember all the mistakes the dogs make so I can report them back to Don later. Enough about me being a tattle tail though and here are a couple of (slightly) more exciting short anecdotes from the past few weeks.

The first time I went dogsledding Don pulled me around behind the skidoo first for a bit so I could get used to the sled. It’s a fancy racing sled that steers a lot easier than any sled you’re likely to get at a touring company. I didn’t fall off so I guess I was ready, I have done this before… But anyways we get going, 5 dog team and it’s totally fine. Don’s stopped ahead and he takes some pictures and I go along and we’re maybe one and a half miles in. I’m going down this slight incline and there’s a turn at the bottom and I guess I haven’t totally gotten the hang of the sled cause I tip right over at the turn. Luckily there’s a lot of snow at this point in the trail cause it's an open field so I get to act as a snow plow which stops the dogs. I get up and we’re off again, so quick that Don didn’t even see me fall. The rest of the run was fine. 

A couple days later I’ve been dogsledding a few times and we’re headed out again. I get a six dog team, we go around the trail, everything’s totally fine, trails good, dogs are good. We’re headed back, Don’s ahead of me on the skidoo. We go around the last corner into the yard and there are some mushers visiting to use the trails. No big deal, the dogs are good at going by other dogs cause they’re racers and they’re trained that way. So Don goes by, we’re totally fine, and then one of the mushers, Mark, STEPS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. 

Presumably to go talk to Don who just went by on the skidoo. 

So while the dogs are trained to go past other dogs completely fine, they aren’t quite caught up with “plow down any human that’s in their way”. So the leaders stop, and the team bunches up because I didn’t see it coming either. It's not really good etiquette to step out in front of someone's dog team so it was kindof unexpected. I have since been reassured however that Mark was on a decent amount of migraine medication, so I decided to forgive him. But back to the present, my team's bunched up, I throw the snowhook down to go untangle them, somehow my wheel dogs (in the back) are in front of my swing dogs (in the middle) and everyone's all tangled up. This next part happened in a bit of a blur because when you’re trying to fix a problem in a rush wearing a face mask its hard to retain precise memories. But Mark’s wife or daughter and neighbour or daughter (not sure which) came over to help me and we managed to get them all sorted out. Then I go back to my sled, pull the snow hook and we cruise the remaining 50 feet into the year where Don and Mark are chatting. Mark comes up to apologize and everything is fine, I guess.

Then it got warm. Like 10 degrees celcius warm, everything started melting a bit and getting icy and the dogs don’t run as fast and they bite snow like crazy and it’s a mess. So we went back to running dogs in front of the skidoos for a bit because when you can’t put down a snowhook in the trail cause there's no snow, it gets dicey. Its just not safe to not be able to stop the team. After a few days it gets a little colder and snows maybe a centimeter so we decide to start using sleds again. On this particular day we were running four teams. Me and Don were going to run two teams at once and Faye was going to drive the skidoo, and then Don was going to run the two big teams and I was going to drive the skidoo. So I was going to go first, and then Don was going to quickly hook up his team and follow me. I get ready to go, stood on the sled, took out the snowhooks and… its important to note at this point that the yard is still pretty slippery. We had actually been wearing this boots with spikes on the bottom… anyways. And I take off. I immediately move my foot from the brake to the drag pad to slow down the team (standard procedure out of the gate) and slip. I can’t get my foot back on, we’re going really fast, and instead of falling to the side I fall to my knees off the sled, while the sled is still upright. Its hard to picture and it’s also hard to describe since in the moment I couldn’t even tell what was happening. I drag a meter maybe on my knees while still holding on to the handle bars and somehow manage to jump back up and land on the runners and the rest of the run was fine. Don called it luck, I call it skill.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got for now. Racing starts this weekend hopefully. First up is Preeceville, Saskatchewan. Apparently it rained there recently so if they don’t have snow, we’re not going to go, but hopefully they do. I was talking to Mark today (yeah, we’re cool) and he said that last year Don drove to the race, looked at the trail, and drove right back home. Mark ran the race last year and three of his dogs got injured cause the whole thing was an ice slick (reportedly). Here's hoping that doesn’t happen this year. 

New Years Resolutions

Alright so it’s been a while since I’ve done this. Excuses, right, I’ll just get to it then. 

I.... was knitting. 

Before Christmas I made a bunch of hats and scarfs and things for friends and family and it's basically a great way to feel productive while still being able to watch YouTube videos for three hours. So, that’s kind of what I was up to for a couple of weeks. I did have some stuff that I wanted to write about, but that I also did not want to write about. How to explain that contradiction? Well, sometimes people like to write to get out their frustrations and at the same time I didn’t really want to put a whole bunch of complaints I have about my position into writing because it just wouldn’t be productive. So, I’m very pointedly not going to write about sexism or speculate on how certain people’s attitude towards me might be different were I male.

What I am going to do is tell you about my Thneed. More like my sister’s Thneed actually since it was a gift.

“What is a Thneed?” you might ask if you are unfamiliar with Dr. Seuss’s story of the Lorax. To which I would reply with a quote from the book:

“This thing is a Thneed.

A Thneed’s a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need!

It’s a shirt. It’s a sock. It’s glove. It’s a hat.

But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that.

You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets!

Or curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!”

Now that you know what a Thneed is I must explain. I knitted a Thneed not in the sense of a multiuse garment crafted from yarn or wool. Or, if you are familiar with the book, in the sense that I destroyed an entire ecosystem just to acquire the materials to make my sister a Christmas present. No, what happened was I set out to make a sweater, but the result simply looked so ridiculous that it was more appropriate to call it a Thneed. When my sister first put it on after I finished following all the instructions and sewing all the pieces together, I laughed for a solid five minutes. She was not terribly impressed but I just couldn’t contain myself. I worked on it for three weeks, and it just looked so silly, the arms were too long, the collar too wide, the midsection much too short… But my sister took it off and I told her I would fix it and we ended up with this.

Which in the end, just looks more like I’m trying to start my own fashion trend. This whole story does have a point though believe it or not. The point is I made that, and even though it didn’t end up anything like I intended it to, it’s original, and it took some creativity, and I finished it. It’s a tangible testament to my efforts. Speaking of New Years resolutions. When people asked me mine this year it was “get my life together” which is a bit of a joke cause whose resolution isn’t? But I would elaborate and say something like “get a paying job” or “live in the same place for more than six months”, which are both things that I still aspire to, but then I read this article called “6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person”. And, in all honesty? Most of that article didn’t apply to me. It started off saying “List five impressive things about yourself” with the catch that you’re not allowed to list qualities, such as that you’re nice or something, just things that you do. Initially this isn’t super easy but considering I drove across the country by myself, it wasn’t as difficult for me as for the people I’m assuming this article is actually geared towards. But I read it anyways and I did come across something that inspired me. This one question in particular.

“How much of your time is spent consuming things other people made (TV, music, video games, websites) versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being.”

I might do things that seem impressive like drive across the country, run sled dogs, move to a completely different city, but I don’t create that often, or at least not as often as I’d like. Blogging is a good start because even if its not the finest of writing mediums the article goes on to point out something that my dad used to tell us. That it takes 10,000 hours of good practice at something to become proficient at it. The point is that I want to start working on my 10,000 hours, whether its writing, playing music, knitting or whatever, my New Year’s resolution is to start putting stuff out into the world that I've made. 

And I’d say I’m not off to a bad start already with that fine looking Thneed.

Article referenced:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

Also:      The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Crazy Tourists

Yay, more northern adventure stories! So in this one I’m going to talk a bit more about what I did up north last year in Inuvik (besides just dogsledding). When I got up north there were five people working at the business. There was the two owners, the kennel master, a German boy who was volunteering, and a local man who worked in the yard. The day I arrived I met the kennel master and the German boy, Jonas. The owners were away for the week on vacation I believe. The next day another Canadian boy showed up who was supposed be there for as long as I but he quit so he’s not super important to the story. In addition the kennel master was leaving for the summer in June (I arrived in May). The point I’m getting at is that within a month, I was going to be senior staff. This was a little surprising to find out.

 Come June we had three new staff members, all girls that I was theoretically in charge of as “Head of Housekeeping”. In addition to supervising the cleaning efforts at the bed and breakfast portion of the business, and being “Interim Kennel Master” at the kennel, there were multiple other facets to the business. It was a bed and breakfast, car rental, touring company, private cleaning service, and provided dog kenneling services. They had five cars they rented out. The tours included kennel tours, town tours, organizing flying tours, and Dempster highway tours. The bed and breakfast portion included airport shuttles. They also sold straw and dog food on the side. Basically I think you get the picture that there was a lot going on.

So one week, the owners were gone, I don’t remember exactly why, but they might have gone to Edmonton. They used to just kind of leave every once in a while, and then because the kennel master was gone for the summer, I was in charge. This specific week wasn’t super busy but there were a couple of things I had to deal with. There were some tours to Tuktoyaktuk going out, and there were some guests at the bed and breakfast. The tours to Tuk included a flight, where the pilot would point out landmarks of interest, and then a bus tour of the town with a local tour guide.  

The first tour group I’m going to tell you about consisted of about ten German people and two Swiss. So they had all come into the office the day before to pay for the Tuk tour and they have a guy whose helping to organize them so that goes fine. 

Just as an aside , I received about two hours (not even) of training in the office to learn how the tours work, how to process payments with the debit machine, what to do with the receipts, how to fill out car rental forms etc, etc… like, it was a lot to learn considering I’ve never worked in customer service in my life.

So this German tour group is good to go, they’re staying at a hotel in town and we’re going to pick them up in the bus tomorrow morning to go to the airport. Fine.

THE NEXT MORNING

 There’s a couple checking out and I stay behind to deal with them and send two of the other staff members to pick up the German tour group. I check the couple out and they also want an airport shuttle so I end up driving them to the airport. When I get to the airport and get them unpacked I notice our bus there and decide to go in to see my coworkers. I walk in and they’re standing off to the side so I go over and ask them what’s up. They say that they just learned that it’s too foggy to do the scenic flying route to Tuk but they can still fly straight there and do the bus tour. The Germans feel cheated and they’re not sure they want to go if they can’t do the flying part of the tour.

 The Germans are all standing in a circle by the desk talking (in German) so I walk over, bold as hell, and ask them if they’re getting on the flight. Their designated leader tells me that they’ve decided they don’t want to go if they don’t get the flying part of the tour, and they want to go back to the hotel. I turn to the guy at the desk and say “Is the flight canceled because of the weather?” and he says “No, they can still fly they just have to go straight to Tuk cause it’s too foggy to fly around.” So I tell the Germans “The policy is that if the flight isn’t canceled, I can’t give you your money back.” The flight guy behind me says “Do you want me to say it’s canceled?” and I just turn and give him a withering look, you know the ‘you're cute but just shut up' look. And the Germans start arguing with me “We were promised the flying tour.” “We shouldn’t have to pay because it’s not the full tour.” “We should get a discount.” That kind of thing. I tell them that maybe the owner would give them a discount since it’s not the full tour, but that I personally can’t authorize or guarantee that. I say that I can guarantee that if they don’t get on the plane, they get nothing back because the flight isn’t technically cancelled.

They ask me to give them a minute to decide so I walk back over to my coworkers. After a minute they tell me they’ve decided to go on the tour. I nod at the desk attendant, tell my coworkers “Let’s bounce.” And we walk out of the airport in slow motion V formation as I put on sunglasses and pop the collar of my jacket. Job done. 

Politics of Dog Food

Alright so when you have thirty eight dogs it takes a bit to feed them all winter. I think I mentioned before that the dogs eat mostly meat, and I definitely mentioned the chicken. The dogs eat a mixture of chicken and beef with some liver and fat added in sometimes. Only a small amount of kibble is added. This all gets mixed together in a large tub with hot water so the dogs end up getting this kind of soup to eat. They get fed once a day, after running. They also get “watered” in the morning before running. The “water” is just a watered down version of their actual meal.

So, I as before, I definitely mentioned the chicken (traumatic experience? Me? Pfft, no…) but that’s actually a relatively new operation. This is only the second year they’ve done it. Those chickens were laying hens that were done laying, and were just going to have to be rendered or disposed of. So the Hutterite colony instead sells them to the dog sledding community for 25 cents a pound. Not a bad deal.

Before Don used to get chicken from a different Hutterite colony, a little closer to where he leaves. I believe they have broiler chickens (for eating), and one of the ladies of the colony started collecting the pieces of the chicken that don’t get used and started grinding them up, and selling them to Don for dog food for something like 20 cents a pound. So, once again, stuff that used to be waste, now turning a profit.

Don worked for forestry in Alberta for many years. They’ve lived in the area for something like 40 years, and have been running dogs for almost as long. So Don’s done this Hutterite colony a lot of favours in developing their operation and getting various permits for things and helping them out by purchasing additional goods that they’ve made and stuff like that.

A bit about Hutterite colonies before I get too far. So I don’t believe that are Hutterites in Ontario, or there are very few, but initially I was led to believe they were like Mennonites.

Ok, also before I get too far, disclaimer, I did about zero to no research on this, it’s what has been told to me and what I’ve observed. Basically I’m almost definitely wrong at any given time.

Anyways… Hutterites are similar to Mennonites, however Mennonites have their own farms, and Hutterites live together in colonies of between maybe twenty to eighty people. They all help in the farming efforts. Also when Hutterite colonies reach a certain amount, they break off to form new colonies. 

So, what’s the problem? Well in addition to helping out the nearby Hutterite colony, Don helped them grow their dog food operation by telling other mushers about it. It became a larger operation, more people are involved besides just this initial lady, Sarah, who was a friend of Dons’. Also Sarah has gotten older, and younger people are taking over the position she used to hold in the colony. As a result of all this, the price has gone up. Now this new guy is telling Don its 50 cents a pound. So Don is pissed because it’s over double what it used to be, and even though its (A LOT) less effort than grinding up the layer hens, it’s just not worth the price anymore. So he’s buying less chicken from them and switching the dogs to this new stuff. Sarah is upset because she and Don had a good arrangement, and Don is a dependable customer. Now they have an excess of dog food, because the other people they were selling it to are less reliable, and Don doesn’t want it anymore because it’s too expensive.

This all culminated in a trip to the Hutterite colony the other day, for tea, at around 8:00 in the evening. All the Hutterites live on the farm in little complexes. So we drive over to Sarah’s, and sit around in their living room for a while. Sarah lives with her sister, Margaret, and their cousin whose name I didn’t catch was also visiting for Saskatchewan. Also their brother, Darius, was there as well. So we’re all sitting around the kitchen table for tea. I guess the chicken deal was the elephant in the room. Darius is one of those people who’s always joking around, so he starts needling Don about all this dog food they’ve got stored up in the freezer and how he needs to take it off their hands. This sets off Sarah and Don, who start up about their deal, and everything that’s been going on. Sarah wants to know where Dons getting chicken now, and initially Don won’t tell her, but then starts talking more about the grinding and everything and they actually guess which Hutterite colony it is pretty easily. So now that’s on the table, Sarah is also telling Don that she’ll sell him the dog food for the original price. Don’s nervous about getting involved with that because they’d be undermining the other man who is in charge now, and he doesn’t want Sarah to get in trouble. At one point they talk about how a handshake is worth more to them than a signature. Then they shake hands over something. Honestly it was difficult to follow, and it was like 11:00 at night by this point, way past my bedtime.

All in all, sled dog food is not acquired by just going to pick up kibble at the grocery store. At least if you don’t want to spend a fortune. I’ve heard a little bit about how a majority of mushers have deals similar to the ones above. People know local farmers or butchers that can get them meat somehow. It gets more complicated the more competitive you are too. Factors come into play like how coarse the meat is ground, and what ratio of red meat to white meat you should feed. In conclusion though I believe they ended on good terms, but Don’s also got all his food for the winter, so who know what it’s going to be like next spring. It’ll probably change again since the guy with the layer hens also wants to up the price to 35 cents a pound. All I know is that last year spring chicken grinding was April 13, and I am not going to be here. 

Fids, Sids, and Hutterites.

The last couple of days have been alright. The weather has been miserable and rainy so we’ve been working in the garage. Don’s got a whole bunch of ganglines to sort through and different bits of equipment so we’ve been polishing stuff up and organizing it.

Also I learned something. I learned how to splice rope together to make loops and stuff for the necklines and tuglines and everything. This is pretty exciting because so far I’ve been pretty bored and I know basically everything he’s showed me so far. So I got to make necklines yesterday afternoon and hopefully some more today. You get to work with these nifty little tools called fids, which are hollow and pointed so you can use them to pull the rope through itself. I think in an hour I made fourteen. Its’ kind of one of those tasks you feel like you could just sit and do for hours. Like I was put on the earth to make necklines and I could do it forever. I know eventually I’d get bored but it’s a good feeling while it lasts.

We also visited a Hutterite colony for tea, which was fun. I sat there mostly awkwardly while they talked about various people that they know and stuff. There was this was one guy, Darius, who kept making fun of me for being from Ontario. So one of the first days I was here I told Don this stupid joke that I read on the internet, and he actually thought it was really funny and now at all the social gatherings we go to he get me to tell this joke. And people actually think that its’ funny, and I’m like, it’s the dumbest joke. I also know I’m being a tease by not telling you what it is, but if I did then there goes my one contribution to the conversation. So you’re just going to have to come to Alberta to hear it, or if you just asked nicely, I’d probably tell you.

The Hutterite colony was nice though, we had tea and homemade sausage, and fruit cake, and this sort of really dry bread with jam. It was tasty anyways. I’m not sure about the distinction between Hutterites and Amish and Mennonites but the Hutterites definitely use modern technology, they’ve all got cell phones and everything, but they make their own clothes and pillows and blankets and some furniture. They also speak some sort of German. They’re really proud of their homemade stuff though and I don’t blame them cause its really neat stuff. I certainly couldn’t do it.

Yesterday we also changed the route we run the dogs on so its nine miles now I believe, it takes around forty minutes to run the whole thing. That’s almost three times as long as anything we did on the four-wheelers up north. And it’ll only get longer…

Dog of the day today is Sid. Sid is Jethro’s brother. He’s right on the corner so you have to walk by him all the time. He barks a lot, and he jumps on you, which we’re working on. But Sid also has magnificent posture. He’s got some extra space on the front of his house and he’s usually sitting there very straight and upright. He and Jethro run lead sometimes, they’re pretty good at it, even though Sid seems like a dumbass sometimes since he pees in his bowl. 

More grinding (and not the fun kind)

So recently stuff here hasn’t been very exciting. We took the dogs around a new field so now they’re doing longer runs. I don’t remember exactly how long cause it’s in miles and I’m not sure if I have the number right. The other day we did a little more grinding, liver this time. Instead of the three day ordeal chicken grinding was, this was pretty simple. It was more like day one, set the liver out in the sun to thaw. Day two, check to see how much the liver has thawed. Day three, grind liver for an hour. So I got to scoop the liver up into ice cream containers for storage. We also went to pick up more liver from a Hutterite colony. Also a rather uneventful day.
Three days ago we drove to Peace River to watch Don’s grandson’s hockey game. I think he’s like twelve. Their team isn’t very good and they go beat 7-1. But you know, I’ve been there so no judgment. When we were kids playing soccer we’d get ice cream if we won, but I was on a team that was so bad one year that my dad took pity on me and bought me ice cream if my team scored a goal.
Two days ago we added more straw to the boxes and then I got to clean up the dog yard while Don washed the four wheeler. Talk about a thankless job. I'd rake the straw on the ground up into piles and then the dogs would pee on them. Then as soon as I collected up the piles the dogs would just pull more straw out of their boxes. There's this Futurama quote that goes "When you do things right, people won't be sure you'e done anything at all." And I always thought it was super deep and everything, but yesterday it felt more like what working with dogs is like. As soon as you clean up their space they just mess it up again right away. Especially since they love peeing on clean new things.
I digress, yesterday I went into Grande Prairie with Faye to run errands. It's fairly nice but you can tell its newly developed. Like of course it's been there for a while but apparently the population has grown a lot more recently (like everywhere), and there's a bunch of new box stores and stuff like that. I'm not even sure what branch of science I'm trying to describe so I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about but you know what I mean. We also went to one of the most stereotypical western stores you can find though. It was called Keddie's I think, and there were just cowboy boots, jeans, cowboy hats, and horse stuff everywhere. The even had a life sized plastic horse that you could try out the horse stuff on. I got more work gloves cause my hands are already  getting cold in the ones that Don lent me. I'm wondering how long I'll have to live out west though before I finally succumb and buy a cowboy (cowgirl?) hat. Probably a while unless someone back home gets wise and I get one for Christmas... (I'm just kidding, I don't want that.)

Dog of the day is Eli. Eli is a rather pretty dog, he actually looks like a husky which is a bit of an oddity at this kennel. I like Eli because he’s starting to understand that if he goes on his house then I’ll pet him. This sounds basic but most of the dogs jump all over you when you’re walking around the yard so I try to encourage them to go on their boxes and Eli is starting to get it. So good on you Eli, keep up the good work

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The missing bowls

Another northern story! So this one isn’t as exciting as the last one cause it doesn’t involve fear or death threats or anything. But there is mystery (ooohh).

So up north after we feed the dogs we collect all their bowls and wash them as stack them up to dry. So there are 30 regular bowls that go on the counter and a couple puppy bowls that go under in a little cubby. We had six puppies but the puppy bowls are all a little weirdly shaped and honestly some were better than others. So one day we go to feed and I can’t find one of the “good” puppy bowls, so I just use one of the other ones. Everything is normal and we count all the bowls and there’s thirty and we move on and go about our day.  The next day someone else lays out the bowls and I just help feed and wash. Everything is normal again, but I’m sure you can feel the undertones of “everything is not normal” at this point.  So maybe another day or two passes without incident. All of sudden we’re down to five puppy bowls total. This is a problem, we have to go to the back and find another sort of dish to feed the dogs. We decide to have a staff meeting. Maybe less of a meeting and more of a “Where the hell are the bowls?” followed by everyone claiming to "not know". In all honesty I can’t remember who was around at this point but I think it was during the summer.  We decide that maybe our boss was taking them for whatever reason, she sometimes did weird stuff like that. Or that maybe someone with a boarding dog had left with them.

Cut to the next day, I’m washing dishes after feeding and someone, lets’ pretend its' Nic cause I already talked about Nic and I honestly don’t remember. So Nic is walking down the aisle with some bowls and all of a sudden he drops them all and there’s a huge crash as he shouts “Whattttt”.

And we’re like “What the hell Nic?”

And he says “Its Koko, I saw her!”

I say “Saw her what?”

Nic says “She’s stealing bowls!”

So we all go over to Koko and Ushuaia’s cage and Koko comes out of her box when we open the door. We go to the back to look in her box and she has four bowls in there. Four, Koko was the bowl thief. Mystery solved. There were a couple of times after that you’d see Koko pick up a bowl and you’d just have to tell her “No Koko, you can’t keep the bowls you hoarder.”

Koko was honestly one of my favourite dogs, and definitely my favourite puppy I think. We had a lot of crazy moments, and she even sent me to the hospital once (I had to get a tetanus shot, calm down). I was initially reminded of this story because when we were cleaning out boxes Jackson had a bowl in his box. I guess some huskies are just bowl thieves.

Here's a picture of Koko licking my face shortly she jumping into our canoe from the other canoe.

This is just a video of what feeding was like up North.