One of the ongoing chores of sleddog kennel maintenance is upkeep of the dogs' stakeout gear. Sleddog kennels in North America are almost invariably "colony style" with an individual doghouse for each dog. The dogs are tethered with a post, swivel and chain; a snap on the end of the chain attaches to a ring in the dog's collar. Tethered in rows with no fences except perhaps on the outer perimeter, the dogs can interact with their neighbours when and as they choose; fights rarely occur and each dog has his own territory where he can eat and sleep undisturbed. What is more, the dogs' owners and care-givers have free and easy access to each dog at all times, quickly, without opening and closing gates.
Those who know nothing about sleddogs condemn the colony system as "cruel" because the dogs are chained. It is to laugh! Sleddog psychology is such that dogs in "humane" pens and runs are less happy than those chained on stakeouts, because the penned dogs see a barrier between themselves and the rest of the world, while the chained dogs do not. Fence-fighting between dogs in adjacent runs is common. Penned as the French do it, "en meute" (as a pack), sleddogs will accumulate a mass of scars from constant fighting, while the unfortunate dogs who are lowest on the social hierarchy can never escape from their persecutors.
The colony dogs at Seppala Kennels bask in the sunshine, play with their neighbours, sit and watch birds, sleep in their doghouses -- and go nuts when they see something exciting like a squirrel or a rabbit. Also every day at suppertime! When they run back and forth or around and around on their stakeouts at full tilt, chains and snaps take a lot of wear and tear. Hence the need for stakeout gear maintenance every spring and fall.
Here's a chain worn so thin over the years that there seems little doubt that in another month, it will just go "ping" when the dog hits it. Several snaps have badly worn swivels and attachment rings. Our snaps are special: we brought back from Europe some "mousquetons de sécurité" made in France. They look like this. These incredible snaps, made of hardened steel and bronze, are impossible for a dog to open. They offer absolute security and unbelievable wearing quality. In most dogyards, snaps last for a few months, but some of these snaps have endured continuous use for over ten years. We have a welder friend build up the wear points on swivels and loops when they have finally worn nearly through, and they then last for another two or three years! But they aren't available in North America, at least not anywhere we are aware of. Common in France, Andorra and Spain, these superior-quality snaps are virtually unknown over here. I saw some once in a kennel in New Brunswick, but the importer had stopped bringing them in. (Can anyone help us find a source? We could really use a dozen new ones!)
As I go about my "blacksmith" work, lifting swivels out of the steel pipes in which they sit, cutting away worn chains with the bolt-cutters, hammering on split-links and cold-shuts to install replacement chains and rebuilt snaps, the kennel dogs sit in fascination, watching my every move with eyes glistening brightly. Their pleasure at having me working beside them in the kennel is obvious. As I move among the stakeouts checking their gear, I pause to notice individual dogs. Even the wildest, most bumptious males like Haakon, Pavel and Pyotr will calm down, put their ears down and give me shy little kisses when I kneel down to fluff the fur of their ruffs and scratch beneath their collars. It is a happy time both for me and for the dogs. They know I'm working for their welfare and comfort, and it's obviously appreciated.
Every night when I come back to our kennel from my online chores, I take Tonya into the cabin where Isa lives to get her supper. Also in the cabin are several of the older denizens of the kennel. The senior is old River View's Hurley, who will be fifteen years old in December. He's getting a bit tottery, but still hale and happy. Four of the "LL" litter, now almost twelve, are also inside. Plus Bosco, eleven this Christmas, and one younger female.
These old people all crowd around me the moment I enter the door. Old Hurley heaves himself to his feet, totters over and reaches up to tweak my nose gently or push his head into my lap. "Little Man" (Sepalleo) comes over, turns his back and sits, leaning against my leg. "Eegie" (Sepalleopard) and "Boo" (Sepalluna) join the party, Eegie maintaining his precious dignity, Boo wiggling and wagging her tail energetically. They break my heart, these old dogs. As they gradually grow frail and seem to become almost translucent, the beauty of their spirits shines through the failing bodies all the more strongly. Their simple, wholehearted affection just breaks me down. I don't want these beautiful people to grow old, get sick, and die or — worse — have to be put down.
I won't take an old dog to the veterinarian to die. I've seen the vets mess up too often. Our dogs are so perceptive, they would know as soon as we got in the truck what was happening. I won't cause them that kind of anxiety in their last hours. If an old dog is in pain or otherwise incapacitated, it's up to me. I owe them that. My old Winchester is the kindest way out for them; it's just a short walk down to the little bit of spruce bush that is our gateway to the Rainbow Bridge. I can carry them in my arms if necessary. I bed them down comfortably under the trees and sit there talking to them and stroking them for awhile. They know, I'm sure. But this way, there's no anxiety, for they trust me. When they're settled, napping or watching a bird, I do my job. It's instantaneous and always easy on the dog. Just hard on me, that's all.
But for now, every evening I squat down and bury my face in the ruffs of my beautiful old friends. There is nothing to compare with old dogs. They are a unique experience. Evil, pox and bane be upon those mushers who sell, put down or give away their faithful leaders and team dogs when they start to slow down a little with age. A sleddog who has faithfully served his driver deserves an honoured retirement, preferably in the house with the people he loves. A year or two ago I saw where someone was trying to sell a twelve year old Seppala. People like that deserve to die with no home, no funds and no friends — and to be reincarnated as swine.
Yesterday saw the first winter storm of the season blow through the Yukon off the Gulf of Alaska, bringing strong winds, rain, sleet and snow and dropping our temperatures below the freezing point at night and a few degrees above in the daytime. The Miners' Range acquired a menacing cape of snow overnight. Amazingly, many of the trees are still hanging onto their golden leaves, although these now carpet the ground liberally. For some reason, if we look east from the kennel, the trees are nearly bare. If we look west, they are a riot of rich cadmium yellow. In the exercise yard this morning, my leader Tonya took a critical look at the treetops to judge how close winter was coming. She didn't inform me of her conclusions. Tonya has been acting rather crusty of late, feeling her age perhaps, or maybe she's upset at the changing parade of younger second-string "girlfriends" that have gone through my shack recently — Nera, Magick, Lizzy and now Tonya's daughter Mokka. Although Tonya is puritanically stuffy about open displays of affection towards her royal self, she would prefer that I not cozy up to the youngsters either.
Last night was a two-dog night in the shack, though. In the transitional seasons up here, minus two degrees always feels colder than minus twelve in real winter, because our winter cold is a dry cold, while autumn inevitably brings a lot of damp weather. This afternoon, though the overcast weather continued, the wind died and the ground was dry again, allowing us to resume our trail work in comfort. One more good session will finish the Northeast Bush trail cutoff. Then we can concentrate on clearing the new approach to the dogyard, made necessary by a nasty neighbour who doesn't want us crossing "his propitty" with dog teams. Each year the gradual buildup of this tiny community twenty miles north of Whitehorse makes our trail arrangements a little more tricky. Fences go up, ditches are dug, next thing you know they'll be paving the side roads. Even in the sparsely populated Yukon, civilisation encroaches.
The Yukon continues to enjoy one of the most pleasant and extended autumns for years. Most years the golden riot of autumn colours is over by the end of the first week in September. Now it is the eleventh, yet at least half the leaves remain on the aspens and willows, bright yellow against the cobalt blue sky. Isa and I continue our trail work. Today we completed the renovation of the Northeast Bush Trail; tomorrow we will work on a new connecting trail that branches off halfway down it to rejoin the Winewood main trail. This branch will give us a new alternative route and a chance to sharpen up the lead dogs, who will no longer be so sure that there's only one way to run that part of the trail. Our objective is to add such options to the trail system where we can, to relieve boredom and improve our leader training.
Our patient work was rewarded in an unexpected way today by the solution of one of life's outstanding mysteries. As we walked up the trail with Tonya and her niece Lizzy towards the point where we left off working yesterday, I noticed a big patch of ground cover torn out and left upside-down in the middle of the trail. I said to Isa, "I don't think we did that." We continued on, reached our workpoint and tied the dogs. As I forged ahead on my knees with the lopping shears, cutting seedling willows out of the trail, just ahead of me I found The Answer to one of life's conundrums!
I know you have all heard people respond to some obvious question with a rhetorical question of their own to the tune of, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" I can now report with considerable assurance that the answer to that one (as usual) is "Yes and no." Yes, he does it in the woods, but no, he doesn't just do it in the woods — he does it right smack in the middle of my dogsled trail. So now you know it's really true, not just one of those things people say to sound smart.
One of the more underrated paths to serenity, enlightenment, spirituality -- whatever you care to call it -- is simple physical labour, performed outdoors in a natural setting. After two weeks of daily two or three-hour sessions, the brushing out of the "Northeast Bush Trail" has become a work meditation. On my knees with lopping shears, cutting out clumps of willow and taking out aspen and alder saplings, my mind goes quiet and my spirit tranquil. Tonya and Magick come along, tied out on six-foot leashes to nearby trees. Tonya sniffs around awhile, then lies down quietly, disappearing into the background with her black and tan Seppala camouflage. Magick frets, titters and tangles her leash, her white coat standing out sharply against the autumn bush colours.
The hard part of the job is finished -- the overgrown stretch that runs parallel to Horse Creek. Now I'm headed uphill, going westward towards the Miners' Range. Reaching a corner where the trail plunges into an area thick with willows, I recall that this turn has always had poor visibility due to the clumps of underbrush surrounding the poplar tree that marks the turn. After a lot of lopping, all that brush is cleared away and only the stump of one big willow clump remains, which the swede saw takes care of, cutting it off flush with the ground. Wow -- you can actually see the turn now. How satisfying. The sweat is pouring off me, but I'm content and happy with the fruits of my effort.
All around me the slopes of the foothills are golden. Here and there in cleared areas, tall stands of fireweed shed their cottony seed with abandon. I feel at one, in harmony with the trail on which I'm working and the world of nature and -- dare I say it? -- nature's God all around me. After 58 years on this earth I still cannot really decide whether or not I'm a theist, but I'm never any closer to being one than when I'm on my knees with a tool in my hands. These trails on which I have knelt to do my penance or my wordless prayer of work, a little later on will become winter paths to Glory as my sleddogs swiftly carry me along in a world of diamondlike clarity and snow-white purity of essence. Can a Trappist monk do any better than this? I hardly think so…
There's something very wrong about the direction that is being taken by the Internet. The days of its infancy are long past. It is a massive, significant daily reality for millions of people. For many of us it is our major source of information. But does it deliver information efficiently and pleasantly, in a user-friendly way? It does not!
Oh, yes, the search engines do an impressive job in their way. But considering the importance that their task has now assumed (in view of the fact that they are our only way of sorting through the petabits of data out there), their performance is sadly lacking. The energies of the companies that own them are focussed on the "search engine wars," the fight for market share and the ongoing takeover battle as search engines eat one another like Jurassic dinosaurs. Most of them rely on other search engines for the results they serve up, so no matter which one you use, the same sites appear, the same illogical inclusions and omissions occur. The free market "should" provide a number of competing services, each one of which offers its own product in its own way. That's not happening.
For instance. Search the web for "Natomah," the Siberian Husky racing kennel of Art and Judy Allen in the 1950s and 1960s. All you get is pedigrees containing that name, plus the Seppala News database which is devoid of any informational content for Natomah, though there's a page with the heading "Natomah Kennel." Anyone who wants actual information about Natomah Kennels will "search the web" in vain. Meanwhile, there is a page of basic information about Natomah Kennels and its bloodline available on my website at
http://www.seppalasleddogs.com/natomah.htm
It has been there for three weeks, along with twelve other similar pages offering basic information about other historic Siberian Husky bloodlines. None of these pages turn up in Google, MSN, Yahoo, Alta Vista, ExactSeek or other web search results. Three weeks is an eternity on the web… what's wrong with the search engines? My website's control software informs me that in the past three days the site has been visited by six different search engine bots, including Google and Inktomi, but whatever they are doing, they aren't indexing my site.
Oh, yes, I know. I can PAY to have these pages included in search engine results. I'm already offering free information that neither the Siberian Husky Club of America nor its thousands of greedy breeders, some of whom (to judge by the pedigrees turned up by the search engines) are using these very bloodlines described by my web pages, can be bothered to research and put online. I can pay a search engine to publicise the free information I'm offering. No thanks.
Add in ebay offering you an opportunity to buy and sell "natomah" online, the massive frustration of slow servers (it's still the "WorldWide Wait"), viruses, popups and all the other annoyances that we suffer in our daily quest for online information… and you wonder why we bother. And with that, I'm going out to enjoy the brisk autumn air and continue brushing out trails.
Summer has left the Yukon. The lower slopes of the Miners' Range are a riot of yellow and golden shades. The narrow leaves of the fireweed are all deep red now. Aspen leaves are starting to pile up in the ditches and low spots; some smaller stands of trees are nearly denuded, while the older, stronger groves are still green. The ever-changing Yukon skies today are filled with broad, menacing bands of purple stratus cloud hurrying up from the south. Last night it rained; at the moment the cloud is breaking up and it might clear off tomorrow. If you don't like the weather now, wait half an hour. This is the changeable season. A fire in the woodstove feels good in the evening.
A couple of nights ago the two Seppala bitches currently sharing my little shack, Tonya and Magick, refused to come inside. They were rushing excitedly around the wood pile in the dark. I went out to enforce my request that they come in, and heard an unfamiliar chittering. Got the flashlight and came back to remove a few loose chunks of firewood. When I did, out popped the brown head of a Least Weasel, eyes glaring redly in the light, complaining vociferously -- mad as hell, but not quite willing to mix it with a dog forty or fifty times his size! I grabbed Madge and Tonner and dragged them into the shack by their collars. Went back out and apologised to the weasel, who does good offices by keeping the field mice down. He was still in his dark brown summer pelage. Soon he will go snow white. These fearless little creatures are among the most fascinating of Yukon wildlife. If they get into the henhouse, they will wreak red ruin. Other than that, I like having them around and seeing them boldly going about their business in winter. If you live in a wall tent, as I did for four years, they are likely as not to move in with you, the better to deplete the rodent population.
The trail work continues, two or three hours of it daily. It's my promise to myself of a good winter's dog driving; dues paid to nature as an advance on winter snow. I've been indulging myself by browsing the sled builders' ads on Sled Dog Central, even though I know in the end that I will order my next dogsled from the local guy in Whitehorse who knows Yukon trails and conditions and can put together a durable sled for an attractive price. Some of the fancy racing sleds I've seen advertised go for as much as three thousand dollars (Canadian). Sometimes it seems like the veterinarians, dogfood manufacturers and sled builders are all part of a conspiracy to make dog driving into a rich man's sport. Just for fun, there's a link below to a three-thousand dollar dogsled!
http://gattsled.com/gattsledcom__products_long.htm