Winter Diary Extract 2004 - 2005

It’s turned really warm, - 5°C. Made some phone calls for gear like hollow braided rope to make mainlines, tugs and neck lines. Also aircraft cable wire to run through the middle. John the vet is in town. Hauled cut wood out for three hours from fresh trails cut in the fall.

Added extra 150lb payload to sled. Ran Blitz and Spoons beside the sled. Everyone loves the tripe, chicken and Nutrience kibbles. Made new travel stakeout chain tonight. Thermometers slowly plummet again, -16°C today.

Fresh snowfall makes for good workout run on the river. See Saxon use his kennel box for the first time. He’s had it since September. It started out soaked in green wood preservative. Boy he’s tried hard to turn it completely urine yellow.
 

Three hour run with 500lb payload. It was a good run. Twizzle knuckled down and pulled hard alongside Cream. I’ve paired Saxon with Thule. They’ve worked well together this week. Piston and Marshall are full on nearest my sled.

I love to see them relish hard work and enjoyed every feeding time when they devour their feed. They earn every morsel and I make sure they get the very best including cod liver oil, eggs, ground chicken meat and tripe.
 

Next winter I want seal on the menu. Fat is the single most important ingredient to my dogs. Intake varies from 20% throughout the summer to almost 60% during winter.

At a week over five months old, today was a first session in harness for Blitz and Spoons. They too did well running their little hearts out. I attached their tug lines to the gear rail on my sled bow and watched them enjoy every minute. I made sure to keep their session short with them wanting more. At 10pm I ran myself for an hour on the river. Snowmobiles had made a good trail for me to run over.

Rabies shots were administered to Thule, Twizzle, Spoons and Blitz. I talked to a field biologist today who talked of the wolf packs in our area, packs of five and three. Last winter they saw a moose crashing through the willows, with wolves chasing sensing blood. This was the time when I was on the Mackenzie coming across wolf kill sites, one after the other. There was also talk of an old newspaper cutting of a woman walking her dog on a lead, here in Inuvik. In an instant a wolf ripped the dog and lead from the woman’s grasp. Only last night Albert, who lives in a cabin on the bank of the Mackenzie east channel, was talking of a pair of wolves howling to one another. They’re sorting themselves out for mating now.

Out on a training run at our turn-around point a storm stirred and worsened as we headed straight into it. At least it wasn’t too cold at -20°C. We were back at 11.30pm managing twenty-one miles. Blitz and Spoons loved their half hour run through deep snow before I put them away in their crate on my sled and I un-harnessed Twizzle for the last couple of miles. I didn’t want to push him too hard. I fed and shovelled snow from inside the pups’ pens as a snowstorm continued to rip across the community. The dogs are tired tonight and so am I.

Dawson City veterinary John Overell has given a lot of his time for nothing. If I phone on a trip he'll help. John spent most of the afternoon talking me through a few veterinary scenarios to refresh my skills. Storm continues to pummel Inuvik. I walked back from a friend’s place late tonight and felt at any second something could be hurtling my way to decapitate me. Thankfully everything missed.

Storm showing no signs of petering out, I cranked my wood stove up, fed and ran myself, leaning upstream into the wind. It felt like I was pulling a load of truck tyres filled with concrete. On the way back I felt as if I was breaking a land speed record.

Up until 2am calculating fuel, feed and my food for spring trip. I’ll make food and fuel caches on my way out. Also breakdown mileage per day to estimate journey time. All this will enable me to draw up an itinerary and emergency procedure to leave behind in case of trouble. It'll be a thirty-two day trip but will pack for forty-two. I’ll leave in March. Once this has been achieved I can draw breath and be pleased with a good season. April is glorious here, magnificent picture weather.

After four days the storm has blown itself out, now everyone is digging themselves out. Arctic coast Tuktoyaktuk residents also draw breath. Ninety-eighty miles downriver the community was hammered with eighty mile-an-hour winds burying everything in twenty-four foot snowdrifts. Wind caused land locked sea ice to crack, erupt and spew freezing sea water inland. Dogs died there.

After two days rest my dogs went hell for leather during their run tonight. An hour turned into three with intermittent brawling. This bothers me enormously. I can’t afford a single injury. Training time is precious and I wish they’d concentrate on the job instead of trying to empty each other on to the ice.