The Longest Day
or
The Day the Dogs Came to Canada
I guess it is probably appropriate to start with a little background information. We have owned, raced and shown Siberian huskies (all with limited success) for about 8 years and have a kennel of 9, 10 or 12 dogs depending on whether you take this as the period I am writing about,
writing in or writing for.
I would imagine that everyone who has ever stood on the back of a rig or sled has from thenceforth harboured a fantasy of running a dog team across arctic wastes or through snowy forests, even possibly competing in a race such as the Iditarod or Yukon Quest. When I learnt about 4
years ago that the Royal Navy had an exchange posting in Canada (Vancouver, British Columbia I thought) a cog turned in my mind and a piece of the fantasy jigsaw dropped into place. I guess that last sentence would make a bit more sense if I explain that I am in fact already an aircraft engineer in the Navy, fulfillment of this part of the dream involved neither press-ganging nor a trip to the careers office. Once I knew about the potential posting I then embarked upon a remorseless campaign of harassing and haranguing the person who appoints us to our posts until he got worn down to the extent that the only way of ensuring his future peace and tranquility was in banishing me to the colonies (sorry for the turn of phrase Angie and any other members from the four corners of our Empire who are reading this).
From the point when he said “Please, please go” we had 12 months to prepare to move ourselves and 7 dogs from Peterborough in the south-east of England to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (only the opposite coast to our initial thinking - it is always important to be sure of your destination when you embark on these projects). This was also the point when the enormity of the task rose up and slapped us full in the face.
Moving the dogs was going to be the easy bit, what would we do about the house, the furniture, the van, Louise’s mum – not that we had to move her or put her into storage but we would have to at least tell her ... eventually.
To cut an extremely long story short we decided to sell up in England and buy a house in Canada. For some reason when you tell people you have 9 dogs (2 more appeared on the scene whilst all this was going on – thanks Alan and Penny for not attempting to discourage us from having more dogs and no you can’t have the Clampett twins back !!) they are not too keen to rent you their pristine little cottage.
Keelut and Medea preparing for their great adventure
We also thought that if we sever our physical links with the UK then if we decide to stay in Canada it will make the process easier. As an aside please do not let this article anywhere near Louise’s mum, having finally recovered from the shock of her only daughter moving across the Atlantic she suffered a major relapse when news broke that we have acquired 3 more dogs since arriving in country – if she knew we were contemplating staying longer we would be cut from the inheritance for ever!!
As well as sell up we also decided to ship our van across as we were going to need suitable dog transport immediately. I had two weeks from landing in Halifax to finalise the house sale and purchase, sort out all the furniture and possessions and settle into a new job and way of
life before Louise and the dogs arrived – the last thing I wanted to do was try to buy a new vehicle and build a dog box as well – my wood working skills are not good at the best of times! How I now wish we had decided to leave the van behind in the UK. Not only did it cost a fair amount to ship, but the friendly Customs staff insisted I pay $350 to have the wheel arches washed (something environmental but not in the least bit connected to Kyoto), again thanks to Customs it took days to register it as they couldn’t decide which bureaucratic form needed to be rubber stamped at least 100 times. It is now sat in a garage just up the road with a very sick engine as a collection of mechanics (would
that be a group, a grease or a fortune?) try to work out what a VW van is and what is the slowest and most expensive way of fixing it without parts.
Enough of these woes, back to the story. On 11 August 2005 (the very same day the puppies were 12 weeks old) Louise dismantled the kennels and sold the house in Peterborough, packed 9 dogs into a rented Luton van and set off to the airport. We had hoped our agents would have moved the dogs to the airport however their driver told us he was planning on having all 9 dogs loose in the back of his escort van (2 puppies and one bitch in season!!) and was going to take them back to his kennels for the evening. When he finally admitted that he had never even seen a husky before we quickly reverted to Plan A – do it ourselves.
Concurrently in Canada I was having such a relaxing day. I was closing down the rental house I had been forced to live in for a week. As the movers were packing up the government owned furniture at that house, the real estate agent phoned to say that Customs had relented, released our gear and the shippers had turned up at the new house with our possessions from England (rig, sled, harnesses, lines, husky/wolf pictures and ornaments but not cutlery, plates, pots and pans or other of life’s essentials which we didn’t consider packing). They were threatening to dump the lot in the lane and drive off, the realtor was scared stiff because she felt that they had driven straight out of
‘Deliverance’ and were about to attack her, (having met them later I think she was right – I hid their banjo) and the house sale had not gone through yet so they couldn’t get in the house. Apparently it takes about 8 hours for some clerk sat in a nice warm office in England to push the big button marked SEND thus transferring funds across the Atlantic – and people say that globalisation is a bad thing. I decided to insult the packers at the rental house by saying too loudly into the phone that they were the slowest movers I had ever come across, as they decided this was the signal for a ‘go even slower’ I jumped into the van and drove the 50 miles to the new house to try and stall the disaster there.
Fortunately the panels for the dog kennel which I had paid a princely sum to have delivered to the new house at 10 am had not turned up so I didn’t have to worry about trying to assemble an emergency dog run. The panels finally turned up at 1530 with the driver muttering to his assistant – “He’ll never have these kennels up today, don’t know why he was so insistent on having it delivered this morning eh!”
The kennels in an early stage of development
As darkness drew in I was sat in our new house, furniture scattered in every room but where it belonged, my suit cases strewn over the kitchen floor, our essential, and most expensive possessions ‘stored’ in a very rickety shed and dog run panels spread all over the field no closer to being assembled than they had been when delivered. All this and Louise and the dogs were still in the UK and not even in the air yet – I retired to bed too tired to do anything else.
At 3 am I awoke with a start. The only explanation was that my second sight had alerted me to the plane crashing, killing all on board - canine
and human. I struggled to put on the radio to get the latest news. North American FM – both types of music, country and western, but never any news. I finally managed to tune to an AM talk station and lay in bed for the next 2 hours listening to the traffic problems around New Jersey and the Bronx but no news. At 0530 I decided enough was enough, I would drive to the airport and join the other anxious friends and relatives awaiting news of the recently departed.
On reaching the airport I noticed that despite the horrors I had imagined the Authorities were still predicting the arrival of the Gatwick flight so it looked like my intuition and sixth sense had failed again. Oh well, time to do battle with Canadian Customs for about the tenth time since arriving in country. I walked into the Customs Office...
“Excuse me Madam but my wife is arriving from London with 9 dogs, is there any chance I could go through to the baggage area to help her through immigration?”
“9 dogs? You have 9 dogs? Jeez!”
You would not believe how many times I have heard that phrase over the last 3 months, it has surpassed the old favourite “Is that a wolf?” and is
on a par with “You have huskies in the UK, what on earth for?”
“Yes Madam, 9 dogs. Can I please go through?”
“No!”
“But…”
“No, wait in the arrivals lounge like everyone else!”
“But 9 …”
“Have a nice day!”
Bitch, sorry bitches, 7 dogs and 2 bitches (did I mention one was in season) and the nice customs lady wouldn’t let me help.
So I sat in Arrivals, the flight was late but did arrive even though it suffered an emergency howling on landing that resonated through the
passenger cabin (nice one Nero) and everyone came through into the Arrivals lounge. Everyone that is apart from Louise and the dogs, of course she had to speak to the friendly Customs officers in immigration. I recalled with fondness my own arrival at Immigration in Ottawa two weeks previously where the only thing I wasn’t subjected to by Customs was a full body search - shame. Anyway Louise emerged half an hour later to be greeted by her loving but slightly frantic husband.
“Where are the dogs? Are they alright? What has happened to the dogs?” I enquired lovingly.
“Hello Dear, I am fine thanks for asking, I have had a good but exhausting flight. I missed you too. Oh the dogs are over in the cargo holding area, the government vet will inspect them and release them to us. We just have to wait in … the Customs Office.”
There was no urgency at all – despite the fact that 9 dogs had been caged for nearly 10 hours (did I mention the fact that 2 were only 12 weeks old).
Eventually the vet came back in followed by two very surly looking Customs officers.
“Jeez, you have 9 dogs” said a stern faced officer.
“Oh how very perceptive of you, so very well spotted, that is obviously why you are the Customs Officer and I am the Customer. I could have told you that if you had bothered to ask you officious idiot! Are any of them still alive?” I thought
“Yes Sir.” I said.
“Quite thin” said the vet.
My god either he is hitting on me or they are going to arrest me for maltreating dogs.
“They are racing huskies” I croaked trying to draw a distinction in his mind between our dogs and the North American Show huskies.
“They are beautiful and in such good condition and so happy” said the vet who, it turned out, owned a Malamute/Wolf cross – no wonder he thought our dogs were quite thin.
“Yea, thanks for letting us look at them!” said the two cheery faced and ever so pleasant Customs officers as they wandered off to harass
someone else.
“Great” I said “can we collect them now?”
“Sure you can. Just gotta complete this mountain of paperwork, charge you a fortune for your inconvenience and leave you sitting around for another 30 minutes and they are all yours!”
An hour later we pulled into the cargo bay to be greeted by a cacophony of howling and a wary looking individual who clearly wanted 9
huskies out of his cargo area at the earliest opportunity.
There’s not much more to say about our own Longest Day. Louise saw the house for the first time and loved it (much to my relief and future harmony), the dogs were in excellent condition (even the pups), they loved their new kennels especially the way it resembled a load of panels lying around a field which meant they were living in the basement for the foreseeable future. Oh and the bat flying around the house that night and the following morning (inside not outside, including in our bedroom) isn’t even worth mentioning – that being the case I do wonder why
Louise never shuts up about it.
What else can I say? Trails. There are trails running straight from the kennels into the forest, there are trails just across the road, 2 minutes down the road, 10 minutes up the road, 20 minutes across the valley (although that one is only 10 miles long before you have to turn around and head back). In fact there are so many trails that I have nearly, but not quite, stopped saying “God did you see that trail” every 2 minutes. What
is more some of the trails are so flat and well groomed that even the other organisation that must not be named would run a rally on them - if only they were in the South East of England of course!
Charlie (The Non-Runner) – not amused that we found a trail right next to the
house
Having said all this we have been somewhat tortured in that Nova Scotia has been in the grip of about the warmest summer and autumn (not fall colonial brethren, autumn) on record so whilst all of you have been diligently training for ages we sit here at the end of October having only been out 6 times.
What about wildlife? Apart from the incessant chirping of the crickets, sitting on the balcony listening to the evening calls of the coyotes from all across the valley and the occasional deer that wanders out of the forest and elicits great excitement in the kennels there isn’t much to say. The
raccoon shaped dent in the front of the van - not worth talking about. The bat in the house – ask Louise, she’ll gleefully tell you all about it. The toads that make the dogs foam at the mouth when they lick them and the snakes that share the kennels – totally harmless so who cares. The porcupines, skunks and great big green, horrible, large fanged spiders that build the webs that wrap around your face every time you walk through a door – I laugh at them all, from a distance. The bear scat on the trails either side of the house – well they do
don’t they, in the woods I mean. There was the bird with the 10ft wingspan that hovered very low over the kennel as I stood down by the forest watching. A very tranquil scene until I realised that he might have a different, more carnivorous opinion of the 2 little puppies stood on their own to the one I held. It is hunting season at the moment so I should also mention the Shorter Sighted Canuck – another challenge we didn’t have to consider whilst training at Fineshades. There they told you which day of the year they would be shooting on, here you are fair game unless you are wearing a bright orange jacket – and that includes the leads dogs as well – cute and practical.
Poppy and Nero – Dressed
for the Season (The Hunting Season)
What else? Well we did travel 16 hours to attend a very enlightening sled dog trade fair in New Hampshire. (I am aware that New Hampshire should not be 16 hours from Nova Scotia but it was the first time I had used the GPS). This was a very interesting weekend because not only did we add our new puppy Caligula (Cal - Kelim’s Divine Emperor) to our growing numbers but also got to go out training with the Kelim and Sibersong Kennels. Fya and Nero even got to run as part of their 14 dog team which was a sight to warm Louise’s heart after spending 16
hours sat in a van with me discussing the joys of being very, very lost.
Caligula
We also listened to Dee Dee Jonrowe extol the virtues of dog sledding, bought a new sled because it is essential that we have 2 sleds (?!), drank a few beers with other mushers and came to the realisation that we husky people are the same the world over – MAD as a box of frogs! Ask us sometime about the husky owning livestock handler we met, very inseminating and I would imagine quite a handful of a job but possibly just a load of bull.
Fya and Nero with the Kelim Team –
They
are back there somewhere, honest
Racing? Racing is going to prove quite interesting this winter and I hope we’ll have something to report on in future letters. Distance is proving to be an issue for a couple of reasons. First off we have decided to try our hand at mid-distance so are having to revise our training schedule from: Get on the rig and go as fast as you can.
To
Get on the rig/sled and go a little slower but do it for longer (Welch and Fishback eat your hearts out. My new book should be out soon I just can’t decide on the title; either The Microcosm of Sled Dogs or I Know Nothing about Training and Racing Sled Dogs).
The second factor? Last winter we sat and deliberated for weeks over whether or not to make the 9 hour drive up to Fort William for our final
opportunity (for a couple of years of course) to run the Leanachan Lope. I have recently entered the Can Am 30 and this is going to be just about our closest race - a mere 8 hours away. Some of the others we are contemplating entering are in Minnesota and Michigan, over 30 hours drive away. Madness? Possibly but we have the opportunity of a lifetime. I would hate to think of us back in the UK in a few years time. Sorry I had better finish off that sentence, I would hate to think of us back in the UK in a few years time thinking I wish we had done that race, after all what is a 2 day drive in the grand scheme of things. To get to where we are today, sat in the middle of a forest in Nova Scotia as 2005 draws to a close, has meant a massive personal and financial commitment (the Navy paid for my flight across and little else). It would have been so easy at any stage to say forget it, let’s stay in England and just dream the dream.
Does the view on a
Saturday morning get any better?
However I am so glad that we have battled through all the stresses and strains (only a fraction of which are detailed here), made the most of what started out as a very limited opportunity and here we are starting to live the dream. It may be that this is the closest we ever get to either Alaska or long distance racing and in 2 years time we’ll be back enjoying Fineshades and Aviemore and Sherwood Pines and all the other rallies and people that we will genuinely miss this winter. (I’ll leave Louise to talk about the dog shows at a later date. I will not pretend I am missing any of those although, and apologies for being a traitor Alan, I have handled a dog in a group line up since being over here – they are not pressing charges though so that’s good). But for this winter and the next we will make the most of the trails, the snow and all that Canada and the USA have to offer.
As they say in the Canadian Air Force – more to follow eh!
writing in or writing for.
I would imagine that everyone who has ever stood on the back of a rig or sled has from thenceforth harboured a fantasy of running a dog team across arctic wastes or through snowy forests, even possibly competing in a race such as the Iditarod or Yukon Quest. When I learnt about 4
years ago that the Royal Navy had an exchange posting in Canada (Vancouver, British Columbia I thought) a cog turned in my mind and a piece of the fantasy jigsaw dropped into place. I guess that last sentence would make a bit more sense if I explain that I am in fact already an aircraft engineer in the Navy, fulfillment of this part of the dream involved neither press-ganging nor a trip to the careers office. Once I knew about the potential posting I then embarked upon a remorseless campaign of harassing and haranguing the person who appoints us to our posts until he got worn down to the extent that the only way of ensuring his future peace and tranquility was in banishing me to the colonies (sorry for the turn of phrase Angie and any other members from the four corners of our Empire who are reading this).
From the point when he said “Please, please go” we had 12 months to prepare to move ourselves and 7 dogs from Peterborough in the south-east of England to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (only the opposite coast to our initial thinking - it is always important to be sure of your destination when you embark on these projects). This was also the point when the enormity of the task rose up and slapped us full in the face.
Moving the dogs was going to be the easy bit, what would we do about the house, the furniture, the van, Louise’s mum – not that we had to move her or put her into storage but we would have to at least tell her ... eventually.
To cut an extremely long story short we decided to sell up in England and buy a house in Canada. For some reason when you tell people you have 9 dogs (2 more appeared on the scene whilst all this was going on – thanks Alan and Penny for not attempting to discourage us from having more dogs and no you can’t have the Clampett twins back !!) they are not too keen to rent you their pristine little cottage.
Keelut and Medea preparing for their great adventure
We also thought that if we sever our physical links with the UK then if we decide to stay in Canada it will make the process easier. As an aside please do not let this article anywhere near Louise’s mum, having finally recovered from the shock of her only daughter moving across the Atlantic she suffered a major relapse when news broke that we have acquired 3 more dogs since arriving in country – if she knew we were contemplating staying longer we would be cut from the inheritance for ever!!
As well as sell up we also decided to ship our van across as we were going to need suitable dog transport immediately. I had two weeks from landing in Halifax to finalise the house sale and purchase, sort out all the furniture and possessions and settle into a new job and way of
life before Louise and the dogs arrived – the last thing I wanted to do was try to buy a new vehicle and build a dog box as well – my wood working skills are not good at the best of times! How I now wish we had decided to leave the van behind in the UK. Not only did it cost a fair amount to ship, but the friendly Customs staff insisted I pay $350 to have the wheel arches washed (something environmental but not in the least bit connected to Kyoto), again thanks to Customs it took days to register it as they couldn’t decide which bureaucratic form needed to be rubber stamped at least 100 times. It is now sat in a garage just up the road with a very sick engine as a collection of mechanics (would
that be a group, a grease or a fortune?) try to work out what a VW van is and what is the slowest and most expensive way of fixing it without parts.
Enough of these woes, back to the story. On 11 August 2005 (the very same day the puppies were 12 weeks old) Louise dismantled the kennels and sold the house in Peterborough, packed 9 dogs into a rented Luton van and set off to the airport. We had hoped our agents would have moved the dogs to the airport however their driver told us he was planning on having all 9 dogs loose in the back of his escort van (2 puppies and one bitch in season!!) and was going to take them back to his kennels for the evening. When he finally admitted that he had never even seen a husky before we quickly reverted to Plan A – do it ourselves.
Concurrently in Canada I was having such a relaxing day. I was closing down the rental house I had been forced to live in for a week. As the movers were packing up the government owned furniture at that house, the real estate agent phoned to say that Customs had relented, released our gear and the shippers had turned up at the new house with our possessions from England (rig, sled, harnesses, lines, husky/wolf pictures and ornaments but not cutlery, plates, pots and pans or other of life’s essentials which we didn’t consider packing). They were threatening to dump the lot in the lane and drive off, the realtor was scared stiff because she felt that they had driven straight out of
‘Deliverance’ and were about to attack her, (having met them later I think she was right – I hid their banjo) and the house sale had not gone through yet so they couldn’t get in the house. Apparently it takes about 8 hours for some clerk sat in a nice warm office in England to push the big button marked SEND thus transferring funds across the Atlantic – and people say that globalisation is a bad thing. I decided to insult the packers at the rental house by saying too loudly into the phone that they were the slowest movers I had ever come across, as they decided this was the signal for a ‘go even slower’ I jumped into the van and drove the 50 miles to the new house to try and stall the disaster there.
Fortunately the panels for the dog kennel which I had paid a princely sum to have delivered to the new house at 10 am had not turned up so I didn’t have to worry about trying to assemble an emergency dog run. The panels finally turned up at 1530 with the driver muttering to his assistant – “He’ll never have these kennels up today, don’t know why he was so insistent on having it delivered this morning eh!”
The kennels in an early stage of development
As darkness drew in I was sat in our new house, furniture scattered in every room but where it belonged, my suit cases strewn over the kitchen floor, our essential, and most expensive possessions ‘stored’ in a very rickety shed and dog run panels spread all over the field no closer to being assembled than they had been when delivered. All this and Louise and the dogs were still in the UK and not even in the air yet – I retired to bed too tired to do anything else.
At 3 am I awoke with a start. The only explanation was that my second sight had alerted me to the plane crashing, killing all on board - canine
and human. I struggled to put on the radio to get the latest news. North American FM – both types of music, country and western, but never any news. I finally managed to tune to an AM talk station and lay in bed for the next 2 hours listening to the traffic problems around New Jersey and the Bronx but no news. At 0530 I decided enough was enough, I would drive to the airport and join the other anxious friends and relatives awaiting news of the recently departed.
On reaching the airport I noticed that despite the horrors I had imagined the Authorities were still predicting the arrival of the Gatwick flight so it looked like my intuition and sixth sense had failed again. Oh well, time to do battle with Canadian Customs for about the tenth time since arriving in country. I walked into the Customs Office...
“Excuse me Madam but my wife is arriving from London with 9 dogs, is there any chance I could go through to the baggage area to help her through immigration?”
“9 dogs? You have 9 dogs? Jeez!”
You would not believe how many times I have heard that phrase over the last 3 months, it has surpassed the old favourite “Is that a wolf?” and is
on a par with “You have huskies in the UK, what on earth for?”
“Yes Madam, 9 dogs. Can I please go through?”
“No!”
“But…”
“No, wait in the arrivals lounge like everyone else!”
“But 9 …”
“Have a nice day!”
Bitch, sorry bitches, 7 dogs and 2 bitches (did I mention one was in season) and the nice customs lady wouldn’t let me help.
So I sat in Arrivals, the flight was late but did arrive even though it suffered an emergency howling on landing that resonated through the
passenger cabin (nice one Nero) and everyone came through into the Arrivals lounge. Everyone that is apart from Louise and the dogs, of course she had to speak to the friendly Customs officers in immigration. I recalled with fondness my own arrival at Immigration in Ottawa two weeks previously where the only thing I wasn’t subjected to by Customs was a full body search - shame. Anyway Louise emerged half an hour later to be greeted by her loving but slightly frantic husband.
“Where are the dogs? Are they alright? What has happened to the dogs?” I enquired lovingly.
“Hello Dear, I am fine thanks for asking, I have had a good but exhausting flight. I missed you too. Oh the dogs are over in the cargo holding area, the government vet will inspect them and release them to us. We just have to wait in … the Customs Office.”
There was no urgency at all – despite the fact that 9 dogs had been caged for nearly 10 hours (did I mention the fact that 2 were only 12 weeks old).
Eventually the vet came back in followed by two very surly looking Customs officers.
“Jeez, you have 9 dogs” said a stern faced officer.
“Oh how very perceptive of you, so very well spotted, that is obviously why you are the Customs Officer and I am the Customer. I could have told you that if you had bothered to ask you officious idiot! Are any of them still alive?” I thought
“Yes Sir.” I said.
“Quite thin” said the vet.
My god either he is hitting on me or they are going to arrest me for maltreating dogs.
“They are racing huskies” I croaked trying to draw a distinction in his mind between our dogs and the North American Show huskies.
“They are beautiful and in such good condition and so happy” said the vet who, it turned out, owned a Malamute/Wolf cross – no wonder he thought our dogs were quite thin.
“Yea, thanks for letting us look at them!” said the two cheery faced and ever so pleasant Customs officers as they wandered off to harass
someone else.
“Great” I said “can we collect them now?”
“Sure you can. Just gotta complete this mountain of paperwork, charge you a fortune for your inconvenience and leave you sitting around for another 30 minutes and they are all yours!”
An hour later we pulled into the cargo bay to be greeted by a cacophony of howling and a wary looking individual who clearly wanted 9
huskies out of his cargo area at the earliest opportunity.
There’s not much more to say about our own Longest Day. Louise saw the house for the first time and loved it (much to my relief and future harmony), the dogs were in excellent condition (even the pups), they loved their new kennels especially the way it resembled a load of panels lying around a field which meant they were living in the basement for the foreseeable future. Oh and the bat flying around the house that night and the following morning (inside not outside, including in our bedroom) isn’t even worth mentioning – that being the case I do wonder why
Louise never shuts up about it.
What else can I say? Trails. There are trails running straight from the kennels into the forest, there are trails just across the road, 2 minutes down the road, 10 minutes up the road, 20 minutes across the valley (although that one is only 10 miles long before you have to turn around and head back). In fact there are so many trails that I have nearly, but not quite, stopped saying “God did you see that trail” every 2 minutes. What
is more some of the trails are so flat and well groomed that even the other organisation that must not be named would run a rally on them - if only they were in the South East of England of course!
Charlie (The Non-Runner) – not amused that we found a trail right next to the
house
Having said all this we have been somewhat tortured in that Nova Scotia has been in the grip of about the warmest summer and autumn (not fall colonial brethren, autumn) on record so whilst all of you have been diligently training for ages we sit here at the end of October having only been out 6 times.
What about wildlife? Apart from the incessant chirping of the crickets, sitting on the balcony listening to the evening calls of the coyotes from all across the valley and the occasional deer that wanders out of the forest and elicits great excitement in the kennels there isn’t much to say. The
raccoon shaped dent in the front of the van - not worth talking about. The bat in the house – ask Louise, she’ll gleefully tell you all about it. The toads that make the dogs foam at the mouth when they lick them and the snakes that share the kennels – totally harmless so who cares. The porcupines, skunks and great big green, horrible, large fanged spiders that build the webs that wrap around your face every time you walk through a door – I laugh at them all, from a distance. The bear scat on the trails either side of the house – well they do
don’t they, in the woods I mean. There was the bird with the 10ft wingspan that hovered very low over the kennel as I stood down by the forest watching. A very tranquil scene until I realised that he might have a different, more carnivorous opinion of the 2 little puppies stood on their own to the one I held. It is hunting season at the moment so I should also mention the Shorter Sighted Canuck – another challenge we didn’t have to consider whilst training at Fineshades. There they told you which day of the year they would be shooting on, here you are fair game unless you are wearing a bright orange jacket – and that includes the leads dogs as well – cute and practical.
Poppy and Nero – Dressed
for the Season (The Hunting Season)
What else? Well we did travel 16 hours to attend a very enlightening sled dog trade fair in New Hampshire. (I am aware that New Hampshire should not be 16 hours from Nova Scotia but it was the first time I had used the GPS). This was a very interesting weekend because not only did we add our new puppy Caligula (Cal - Kelim’s Divine Emperor) to our growing numbers but also got to go out training with the Kelim and Sibersong Kennels. Fya and Nero even got to run as part of their 14 dog team which was a sight to warm Louise’s heart after spending 16
hours sat in a van with me discussing the joys of being very, very lost.
Caligula
We also listened to Dee Dee Jonrowe extol the virtues of dog sledding, bought a new sled because it is essential that we have 2 sleds (?!), drank a few beers with other mushers and came to the realisation that we husky people are the same the world over – MAD as a box of frogs! Ask us sometime about the husky owning livestock handler we met, very inseminating and I would imagine quite a handful of a job but possibly just a load of bull.
Fya and Nero with the Kelim Team –
They
are back there somewhere, honest
Racing? Racing is going to prove quite interesting this winter and I hope we’ll have something to report on in future letters. Distance is proving to be an issue for a couple of reasons. First off we have decided to try our hand at mid-distance so are having to revise our training schedule from: Get on the rig and go as fast as you can.
To
Get on the rig/sled and go a little slower but do it for longer (Welch and Fishback eat your hearts out. My new book should be out soon I just can’t decide on the title; either The Microcosm of Sled Dogs or I Know Nothing about Training and Racing Sled Dogs).
The second factor? Last winter we sat and deliberated for weeks over whether or not to make the 9 hour drive up to Fort William for our final
opportunity (for a couple of years of course) to run the Leanachan Lope. I have recently entered the Can Am 30 and this is going to be just about our closest race - a mere 8 hours away. Some of the others we are contemplating entering are in Minnesota and Michigan, over 30 hours drive away. Madness? Possibly but we have the opportunity of a lifetime. I would hate to think of us back in the UK in a few years time. Sorry I had better finish off that sentence, I would hate to think of us back in the UK in a few years time thinking I wish we had done that race, after all what is a 2 day drive in the grand scheme of things. To get to where we are today, sat in the middle of a forest in Nova Scotia as 2005 draws to a close, has meant a massive personal and financial commitment (the Navy paid for my flight across and little else). It would have been so easy at any stage to say forget it, let’s stay in England and just dream the dream.
Does the view on a
Saturday morning get any better?
However I am so glad that we have battled through all the stresses and strains (only a fraction of which are detailed here), made the most of what started out as a very limited opportunity and here we are starting to live the dream. It may be that this is the closest we ever get to either Alaska or long distance racing and in 2 years time we’ll be back enjoying Fineshades and Aviemore and Sherwood Pines and all the other rallies and people that we will genuinely miss this winter. (I’ll leave Louise to talk about the dog shows at a later date. I will not pretend I am missing any of those although, and apologies for being a traitor Alan, I have handled a dog in a group line up since being over here – they are not pressing charges though so that’s good). But for this winter and the next we will make the most of the trails, the snow and all that Canada and the USA have to offer.
As they say in the Canadian Air Force – more to follow eh!
