We are now in the midst of the darkest days of the Yukon winter, when the sun barely creeps above the horizon for a few hours, when morning and evening bring a long blue twlight, when the hours of nighttime darkness seem unending. It is the worst time emotionally for those of us who live in the bush. That it is also "the holiday season" or "the season to be jolly" seems an unconscionable irony. Rarely do we feel jolly at this time of year. The jolly times come later, during the long periods of high atmospheric pressure, the longer days of uninterrupted brilliant sunshine that usually arrive in late February and prevail through April.
It has been a dark and sombre time. Our dear old "Eegie," Sepalleopard from our first Seppala litter born in Catalunya on 29 November 1991, died in his sleep on the 13th. We also lost a 9 1/2 year old bitch to unexplained natural causes yesterday. Worst of all, one of our brightest young leaders just suffered an illness that may end her career prematurely; the outcome is uncertain, and this weighs heavily on our hearts.
The deep gloom is penetrated by a couple of rays of light, though. Isa's main leader, our broodbitch Kolyma of Seppala, whelped a litter of five on the 18th to eleven-year-old retired leader Markobosco. They are big, healthy, robust pups for sure; all five weighed 21 ounces at birth, real thumpers, yet Kolyma birthed them very handily with no trouble. She has a ravenous appetite now, as I guess the pups must also do! The three boys look as though they will very much resemble their dad, while the two girls are both Isabella whites. Another bitch, little seven and one-half year old Jinx of Seppala, whelped a litter of five to my strongest and most reliable first-string team dog Surgut of Seppala on the 19th, hot on the heels of her half-sister Kolyma. Jinx had a hard time with her whelping, starting with a pup that was rather too big to go first, successfully whelping five of the seven she conceived. Then she was too worn out to continue. She managed to produce one more, a bit too late for it to survive, then had to undergo a C-section to remove a last dead fetus. Nevertheless, she bounced back quickly from her surgery and is feeding her litter of five quite well, fanatically devoted to her pups.
So life goes on at Seppala Kennels in the Yukon. Death visits us on these dark days of the winter solstice, but so does birth, new life, hope for the future. When the present chinook thaw gives way to colder weather, we'll be back on the trail, teaching the current crop of yearlings the sleddog's trade.
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.