THE HOWLER

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.

It only took a moment.  Even though it is known as moose flats, they surprised me as they stepped out from the willows.  I’d been watching the dogs.  Looking for changes in ear position.  Wondering, as one would pick up his head or look off to the side.  I’d seen some of this throughout the whole run, but nothing that warned me about these particular moose.  Cow and calf they hopped out onto the trail and began to trot across it.  The dogs love to chase, but they directly their energy forward.  From Whiplash and Jigsaw up front to Gremlin and Gunnel in the back all of them drove forward, but stayed on the trail as the moose found their way off into the willows on the far side.  Just as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared again.  And the dogs run on.

This is the first morning that I really have the feeling of getting up in the dark.  This becomes such a normal part of the routine the winter, but here at the end of summer, it feels different.  We are at the time of year that the amount of daylight changes at an astonishing rate.  Things that are done on a schedule show off the changes in daylight, as I struggle to find lights I haven't needed in months.  As I return people to their hotels after our evening tour I have to remember to turn on the interior lights and use not only my headlights but even the high beams on the ride back. It was 10:30 pm on August 14th the first time I saw the streetlights come on that mark the intersection of the Denali and the Parks highway.  These are, by the way, the only two streetlights in Cantwell.