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.