Our winter dog-driving season arrived with a rush in late November, finding us scurrying to complete our preparations. We have been obliged to re-route our main exit trail due to neighbourhood developments; this has involved clearing a path down a long hill and building two bridges to cross an irrigation ditch. From the ditch, the trail gives onto a wind-swept and featureless flat, where drifting snow quickly obscures any trail we break out.
As I write this, a snowstorm rages in the night. Tomorrow I expect to have to go out on snowshoes and cut spruce boughs, then attempt to stick them upright in the thin, hard-packed snow of the flat to mark the trail.
Just when we were at the peak of our frenzy of winter preparations, our long expected guest for the winter arrived, delayed by a major breakdown enroute. It has taken ten days or so to get him settled into one of our rustic outbuildings to arrange winter quarters for himself and to begin the hard process of acclimating the the wild Yukon weather.
Meanwhile the teams must go out! We are off to a somewhat sluggish start, handicapped by a difficult and unfamiliar new route by which we must access our old trail system. So far, only our best reigning command lead dog, Tonya of Seppala, is able to negotiate the new route reliably. The others will learn, gradually, when and as we are able to get them through it at all! Two days ago, a team went belting down the long hill, bounded across the bridges and came to a puzzled halt on the edge of the windy flat, unable to see anything resembling a trail. The leaders did a quick gee-come onto our backtrail. I tried to persuade them to turn and venture forth into the unknown, but they politely declined. We ascended the hill and returned home in a record six and one-half minutes!
Meanwhile, a couple of our females have belatedly decided to come in season; these are bitches that we really must breed, so in midafternoon I must supervise courtship sessions in the exercise yard. Our old girl Zaza and her younger lover Queequeg rose magnificently to the occasion yesterday and today, accomplishing their mission with politeness, finesse, and efficiency. I have to love these dogs for their extremely co-operative nature. Even in their most private affairs, they do their very utmost to please us. Zaza wagged her tail and kissed my face while we waited out the tie.
In the midst of it all, we have had to break the "L" litter to harness. Normally our Seppala youngsters are harness-broken at three to six months of age, but this litter slipped through the cracks. Two of them had single brief rig runs in the summer, but the serious harness-breaking in this one instance has been delayed until they are one year old. It has seemed to make very little difference. All five are running successfully. The two males bid fair to become wonderful hulking wheel dogs, while my pick puppy, little Lizaveta who has become a "girlfriend" housepet in my tiny shack, has abundantly confirmed my expectations for her. Hooked at double lead first beside her dam Kolyma, and then beside eleven-year-old retired leader Markobosco, little "Lizard" has responded in the finest Seppala tradition by driving straight ahead with great enthusiasm and a tight tugline. Believe me, it doesn't get any better than this, coming back from a one-mile puppy-training run knowing you have yet another "natural" Seppala lead dog.
Day in, day out, every day's work finishes at twilight with a wood-splitting session to renew the small indoor woodpile for the coming night and the following morning. Such are the realities of our early Yukon winter.
Posted by jjeffrey at December 2, 2003 08:59 PM