What was your best gift ever? Was it the one that you longed for and someone figured it out and gave it to you? Was it the one you never would have thought of, but when you got it you realized it was exactly what you needed? Was it the one that you gave to someone else and saw their joy? 2020 has probably been the most challenging year of my life, but it has been all of these gifts as well.
Although we are well past the spring equinox, the snow remains in Alaska. I walk around nearly 4 feet in the air. Looking around, I think back to myself, how high does this come up in the summer? Trail stakes stick up only one or two inches above the top of the snow. In summer they come up to my chin. Dog houses have become snow caves. The snow has continued to fall and fall this winter. This has been coupled with significant cold and wind. January ranked in the top 10 coldest January’s on record for Alaska. The temperatures were regularly 30 below zero. The cold tested determination and preparation. Now in early April, the temperatures are still falling below zero every night. I know the snow will melt sometime. Already the daylight lasts until past 9 at night. Max keeps telling me that he can’t go to sleep until it is dark. I worry what this will mean as summer progresses.
I have to admit, this is my favorite time of year. I love the lights. I love the short week leading up to the long weekend of Thanksgiving. I love the richness of the foods, the music, and the table. I love the emotional holiday commercials. But more than anything I love the feeling of anticipation.
And nobody does anticipation as well as a sled dog. Just a hint of action near the harnesses or the sled can raise excitement so strong you can nearly taste it.
You know how a certain smell can take you right back to your grandmother’s kitchen or your elementary school classroom? How hugging your child can allow you to feel your baby in your arms? The same is true with the dogs. Born and raised here at the kennel, each dog can take me back to their goofy antics as a puppy and the memorable times we have shared on and off the trail.
Summer is in full swing in Denali. The daylight is everlasting, the snow has been replaced by chattering creeks and wildflowers. As we hike on the trail Max comments, “I love the sound of Alaska.” I expected him to comment on the babbling brook, but instead his observations were keener than mine, noting “the snow, the animals, the wind.”
Puppies, like children grow up with astounding speed. One of the satisfying moments as a musher is when the puppies start running in harness like the adult dogs. While it can be a bit chaotic getting everyone to face the same direction at the same time, once you begin to move, its impressive how quickly they run like they have been doing it for years. The puppies charge down the trail, undistracted by obstacles, finding their footing at varied speeds and terrain.
2019 has roared in with personality. It began with three feet of snow in three days and now has dropped to 30 degrees below zero. The woodstoves are radiating with heat and the dogs are snuggled up in the straw. The snow, so light and fluffy as it fell, gains an ethereal quality in the cold. It squeeks under foot and breaks off in solid, yet light chunks as you chop it. The cold has come with a stillness that leaves the trees covered in snow.
As our summer days grow shorter, sunset becomes a dramatic Alaskan event. Perhaps it is the novelty of an increasingly dark evening after months of light. Perhaps it is the timing, nearly midnight in July and progressing earlier on a daily basis. Perhaps it is the low angle at which the sun depends below the horizon. Regardless, it lends itself to beautiful moments.
Summer in Alaska has such a magical feeling to it. There is something about the fact that it never gets dark that makes you feel like you are in a fairy tale. The summer light paints the mountains and the clouds. It illuminates the world all night long. When I wake in the night it looks like day outside.
This was the winter that kept on giving. We had a great snowfall throughout the winter. In April, when our days are typically warm and above freezing, mother nature decided to continue with her winter work. After getting over two feet of snow on April 20th and 21st, it continued to snow every day.
During the Iditarod race, mushers decide when, where and how long to rest their dogs. The only exceptions to this are the 3 mandatory stops. There is an 8 hour break that must be taken at the second to last checkpoint, there is an 8 hour break that must be taken at one of the checkpoints along the Yukon river, and there is a 24 hour break that can be taken at any one of the checkpoints. When to take this break is a big decision for a team. Not only is there strategy, but there is also luck involved. Weather and trail conditions can change and favor either the team that stopped early or the one that pressed on. As the teams stop for these breaks, it becomes difficult to gauge who is really leading the race.
While many people associate March Madness with basketball, here in Alaska it can mean only one thing: Iditarod. With intensity equal to the growing daylight, mushers and fans come together in Anchorage to celebrate this Last Great Race. It is a fascinating experience. The draw is so strong that I talk to fans and volunteers who have given up their entire year’s vacation time and money to come to the frozen North and get a chance to be near these incredible dogs. They come year after year, giving me the feeling that, like the mafia, once you are in the Iditarod family, there is no getting out. As a dog musher, the Iditarod is like an addiction. We made the decision this summer that Mike would not be racing this year. He wanted to have more time at home with Max before he starts kindergarten. However, I cannot begin to tell you how extremely difficult it is to not be racing. I am sure this feeling is shared by any of the others who have participated in this race either as musher or behind the scenes. We watch longingly, immersed in our personal memories.
There is nothing that makes you feel quite as cold as the wind and Cantwell is known for it. Mother nature has spared us for the past few years, but this last week the wind was back. Blowing with a passion out of the North, the snowflakes travel nearly horizontally creating white-out conditions. The snowpack is whipped clear of loose snow leaving a surface of polished ice. Daring to make my way 25 feet to the car is not only bone chilling, but so slippery I must hold onto the tailgate so as not to be blown across the parking lot like an ice skater. The temperature has hovered near 20 below. The defrost must work hard to hold back the ice pushing its way inward from the edges of the windshield and my windows at home build up ice near the bottom.
In the winter, everything becomes a little bit different. Chores that are easy in the warmth, such as hooking a dog to the gangline, become a challenge as your fingers freeze from the cold only to thaw making them feel thick and stiff. The windows of my truck freeze shut, refusing to roll down, requiring me to open my entire door when speaking to someone outside the truck.
One of the things that has been really enjoyable this fall is being able to train dogs with Mike and Max and I all together. Max has gotten big enough that it is easier for him to stay warm and, in the fall, we can train by having the dogs pull either our truck and our three seated four wheeler.
I live in a place where things change from one season to the next. The temperature, the daylight, the population, the types of tires on the vehicle. As we charge into fall, I see all of these changes moving along. The darkness has made its arrival. After so many months of light, it literally becomes difficult to see in the dark. I forget where light switches are and blink as if I could clear up the darkness. With the darkness comes the return of the stars and the northern lights. The leaves, too, are making their dramatic death ritual, revealing their brilliant reds and yellows, only to be soon blown away by the windy and rainy weather that often accompanies the arrival of fall.
It is usually right around 8 weeks old that the mother dogs decide they are done nursing their puppies. The sharp teeth and demanding appetites, convince them that their duty is done. Hopper is a single puppy. His mother, Nora, is ten years old, making the singleton puppy more likely. She returned to the kennel when Hopper was two months old. For a couple of weeks, Hopper played happily with the other puppies. But recently, every night when we were feeding the puppies, Nora would begin to howl. Finally Mike decided to put her and Hopper back together. Their reunion was joyous.
Summer is officially here in Denali. It has been a whirlwind of activity since the end of the snowy racing season. In Alaska, spring is called break up. The term is derived from the concept that the ice which has encased the rivers for the winter begins to break up into chunks that flow down stream. Break up means mud and snow that you can sink up to your waist in. In the kennel it means clean up. Straw is raked from yard, sleds are put away and four wheelers are tuned up. Parkas are stored and puppies are born.
It is one of those things that takes you back to a time or place. Maybe it is the smell of your grandmother’s basement. Maybe it is a song that makes you remember a certain summer. There is something about this time of year. I get the feeling when I look out the windows in the morning and I am able to see the mountains. The feeling comes again in the evening when the kennel is still light after dinner. I feel it when I am filling the stove in the morning. It is the extended daylight. It is the feeling of the snow under my feet, much harder than it is mid-winter, from the warmth of the sun heating it in the day, the cold of the night freezing it like concrete. All of these moments give me a feeling, a glimpse of a memory. It sends me to a different time and place. It makes me feel Iditarod.
It has been cold. Since Thanksgiving the temperature has hovered at 15 degrees below zero. In the cold, life becomes a series of tasks to keep things warm. Plug in the car, fill the wood stove, warm up the four wheeler, put the dogs in the barn. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
