A few years ago we went on a dog sledding trip. Now, just picture sergeant Preston as he harnesses up his faithful dog King and the rest of the team. The dogs sit there patiently while he loads the sleigh with last minute items, locks up the cabin, takes a leisurely look at the morning sky, mounts the sleigh, hollers “on King” and the dogs come to life and gently move off into the forest. Nice picture eh? Yes, nice picture, but totally, absolutely wrong right from the beginning.
What really happens is that the dogs come abruptly to wild, frantic, maniacal life as soon as they see the harnesses. And they stay that way till the end of the day when supper is finished. In actual fact, Sergeant Preston would have had to anchor his sleigh to a tree with a grappling hook before he ever got a dog near it, and there would be no need to holler “on King”, because as soon as he unhooked from the tree the dogs would be off in a cloud of snow, with Preston if he were alert enough and hanging on tightly.
Before starting out on this trip we were naturally interested in any commands that we might use to “drive” the dogs. We soon found that any thought we had of “driving” the dogs was a total misunderstanding of reality, that there is a very good reason why the sleigh is shaped like a bullet… mainly because that’s how it behaves….you can aim it, but once you unhook from that tree, you have no control.
In fact, there are no commands… because dogs have no brakes, no steering wheel, no reverse, and absolutely no concern for your welfare. I doubt that they have any idea that there is anything behind them. Hence no commands. Well, there was one; it went something like HeYaaaaa, HewYaaaaaa, and sort of deteriorated from there on. However, they really need very little encouragement. Anyway there really are no commands, because you don’t really drive them, you just hang on. Well, Burton, the guy who owned the dogs, did have one dog, Sandy, his lead dog, who would ostensibly veer left to “haw” and right to “gee”. This worked not too badly, until Sandy saw a moose and headed for the bush.
They don’t even stop to crap, they simply crap on the run. Not a skill that you’d want to cultivate, but these guys do it, and do it well. They just spread their back legs a bit change to a gait where both back legs are moving in unison, and let fly.
Another thing that the new “driver” should know is that you will probably start out on shore and head out onto a frozen lake. Invariably there is a steep, twisting drop to the lake, studded with trees and other minor obstacles. Once you unhook from the tree, the dogs, who are fresh, excited (excited is such a weak word), and surprisingly powerful, and who have no interest in anything that they may be pulling, take off like a shot toward the lake, and keep on going. They do get a little bored on the lake and may slow up a bit in the fullness of time, but interest piques again as soon as they get onto a narrow, twisting portage trail crowded with trees, rocks and stumps and hills etc, and as the dogs turn corners, the sleigh slams against the trees (hence the bullet shape), and tips over. The sleigh is tough, and is usually not damaged. If you are not damaged, and intent on salvaging your pride, and would not want to have your team bound out onto the lake with you running behind screaming, you hang on for dear life, being dragged through the bush, until the sleigh finally gets tangled in a tree or rights itself on a snow bank.
Yes, there are brakes….. three of them. The first is a piece of snowmobile track about 8” wide and a foot long, that drags between the runners, that you can put your foot on to slow them down (this will in no way stop them, but putting all their weight on it may cause them to sweat a bit). Of course taking a foot off one runner, can have a deleterious effect on your balance, especially on an uneven portage trail.
The second brake, which worked fairly well on my sleigh, is an aluminum bar with two big prongs on it that you can force with a foot into the snow. It works well if you are on a hard packed trail. It’s particularly useful coming down hill through the bush on a portage trail where you have to apply vigorous brake to keep from over running the dogs with the sleigh, if not in preservation of your own health.
The third, not really a brake, is the anchor. It’s actually a large two pronged grappling hook, (mentioned earlier) and is made out of 1/2 “ steel rod. It’s on the end of a rope that places it near your foot. The idea is that when (if) you get them stopped, you throw this down on the ground, stamp it in hard with your heel, turn your sleigh on it’s side and sit on it while grabbing the axe to pound the grappling hook deeper into the Ice. Imagine Sergeant Preston pulling up dramatically in front of the miscreant and having to go through that procedure? Of course if there is a tree handy, you just toss out the hook on the way by and hope to snag it. Then, when you start out again, you unhook from the tree, the team immediately senses freedom and is off like a shot while you try valiantly to retain your balance, put on a brake, and stow the hook, while careening down a steep slope, through the trees onto the lake.
It’s fun though….. and by the way, none of the above is exaggerated.
The dogs are interesting. We had 21 of them, and they ranged from a couple that actually looked like real huskies, to big, long haired sad faced things, and small wiry, short haired creatures. In fact, the small dogs pulled harder than most of the big ones. But they all shared one trait; everything was done at full speed and right now. They were quiet on the trail, rarely fighting and barking. Even off the trail they were fairly well behaved until they sensed that it was nearly time to go, or time to eat, then they were in full cry continuously, until on the trail or eating.
Harnessing 21 dogs is real frantic. By the time you’re done its time for a little lie down, but of course, that’s not in the cards. They’re smart in a way. They know the routine, and they know what to do, they just have to do it right now. The result is that when you unhook them from their chains, you have to grab them by their collar and lift their front legs off the ground, that’s the only way you have a chance of controlling them. Even then it takes a firm arm.
But they know this routine, and actually leap into this position as you grab their collar. They knew when the trip was over too and were quiet then, just anxious to get into their cages. When we unharnessed them they’d usually run us to the truck and leap up as you lifted them into their little holes. He had a low box on the truck (sitting on the truck box so he could put sleighs and gear under it), with six little compartments with screened doors on each side. Once in there, they were content to just sit, no barking.
Harnessing them took over ½ hour. The lead dogs were harnessed first and if smart enough, would keep the traces tight while the others were harnessed. But they have a short attention span for anything but running, and we usually had to work at keeping them in line. Of course they are in full cry all this time. Some would even jump straight into the air they were so excited and anxious to get going.
We had 4 sleighs. Mine was the only manufactured one. It was all metal with an aluminum bottom about 5 feet long with nylon runners that stuck out about 3 feet behind, very light and short. I had 5 dogs.
Anne’s sleigh, as were all the others, was handmade, by Burton. They were nice sleighs, made of ash with thick nylon bottoms and runners. All the handmade sleighs had a canvas insert that closed at the top to keep your stuff from falling out as the sleigh bounced along behind the dogs after you fell off. Anne had only 3 dogs to start with, geared to her slender weight, then they added a fourth later. Even 3 were enough to cause whiplash. Except for falling off a few times on the portage trails, Anne did very well. (not that she fell off any more than I did)
Burton and his helper, Dwight, had 6 dogs each since they were carrying the food and gear. I guess he thought he would need a helper along with these seniors. He was right.
The dogs were remarkably well behaved in most respects, except for their hyper outlook on life. They were all very friendly and you could pet any one of them, but very few would approach you looking for attention. You could even take food away from them at any time and they would not so much as growl. (he took bones away from a couple of them). You didn’t try to pet them if they were fighting though…. And that was another application of the HeYaaa command, which, in general, just means stop whatever you are doing. (Mush was never used as a command…. Again, that gap between fact and fiction….. once those dogs are harnessed, there is never, ever, any need to utter any words of encouragement)
The food stunk…. The dog food that is. Soon after we stopped for the night, he chopped up a big bag of meat and fat scraps to give them a snack (about ½ to one pound each). He later took a 5 gallon pail, poured in dry dog food, water and more fat scraps and heated it on the space heater in the cabin (our food had to wait till the dogs were fed). They eat at high speed too.
The trip was fun. We left from a landing near his place, went across Eagle Lake, portaged into another lake, went down a narrow channel; a weedy place with a creek in the middle, and stopped there for lunch under an overhang on a huge cliff.
Lunch was corn chowder cooked over an open fire, bread, and cookies. The chowder was cooked in a pot that Noah probably chucked off the arc, and was served up in various containers from old margarine containers to broken plastic bowls. Very rustic. Very good..
We went over at least 4 portages on the way out to the cabin. The last was the worst. It was quite long, very crooked and narrow and full of trees and other hard things. I came off several times, managing to hang on until the sleigh got hung up on a tree, then drove the anchor into the snow while I cautiously righted the sleigh and attempted to get on, put on the brake, lift the hook etc etc all without loosing it again.
We stayed overnight at a nicely made log cabin, very rustic. Pots that have seen long use as mallets or some other hard use, a couch with the stuffing coming out, two bunk beds, a space heater, various animal parts hanging here and there, etc etc. Supper was spaghetti, salad and brownies.
Breakfast was pancakes and farmer sausage, quite good. Then Burton Dwight and I went across the small lake we were on, with one team, to get a set of moose antlers out of the bush. Anne stayed behind, not feeling too well. We left the dogs at the edge of the lake and walked in the “½ mile or so” to the swamp where the antlers were. There was a ½ mile in that hike all right, but we had to walk a mile to get to it. The antlers were quite large, he had been in there before and found them (with a dog team no less…. In some spots it was hard to get through on foot). The dogs didn’t like being left. I guess the worst thing in their lives is to be left behind. In fact the dogs we left at the cabin were in full chorus all the time we were gone.
The return trip was easier, only two portages and the longest was actually a snowmobile trail (a very narrow one) but it made it easier to handle the dogs because the brake worked better in the hard packed snow. Most of the trip was on ice though. He had to break trail for part of the way, which was no great problem because the sleighs were only sinking an inch or so into the snow, but was a bit crusty and slowed him us up a bit, with the result that our teams were crowding his and at times almost travelling beside his.
Anne rode back in Burtons sleigh partly because she was not feeling well and partly to be able to take some pictures on the way home. So Burton and Dwight each had 8 dogs in their teams. Dwight tied Anne’s sleigh behind his and in fact just rode in the second sleigh for most of the trip home. The dogs are just going to keep going till they get back home anyway, so you might as well sit down and enjoy the trip.
Which brings up another point. Dog sledding has never been accepted as an Olympic sport. You see, the feeling is that if you have no control over where or how fast you go, and are able to just sit in the sleigh while the dogs do all the work, you may be having a really great time, but you’re not really an Olympian.
I can tell you one thing though, we both hurt bad in a lot of places the next day so we were doing a lot more than just sitting for two days, and are quite thankful that, as much fun as I was, it only lasted 2 days.
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