The dogs came to us from our friend Glenn who we met in Inuvik and who is now living in Yellowknife. So the 6 new dogs flew from Yellowknife to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to Churchill in one day. It was a nerve wracking day because we were worried they were go to be stranded in Rankin. Late that day we heard through the grapevine that in fact they were stranded in Rankin, so panic ensued and we got a contact from one of the mushers we know for a musher in Rankin. He happened also to be the mayor of Rankin who has something like 50 sled dogs there. So I ended up getting in touch with his wife and she was so wonderful, when I told her what was happening she left work and went straight to the airport looking for our dogs; she was going to take them to her dog yard for the night for us. Which was such a relief and so amazing since we had never even met her before. When she got to the Rankin airport they informed her that the dogs had actually made it on the plane and were on their way here to Churchill.
Relieved our friend Robert and I made our way to the airport to pick up the dogs and meet Marc-Andre as he was getting off of work. I think it was about 10pm by the time the dogs got off the plane and we loaded up our truck and Robert's with all 6 crates and drove to the dog yard. The days before Marc-Andre and I had used our seriously lacking carpentry skills to build dog houses for all the dogs and set up our little square of land in the big dog yard that all the mushers use. So in the pitch black we unloaded all the dogs and checked em all out to make sure they were all happy and healthy after that long day. I was so surprised that they were soo happy to see us. I was totally ready for them to be traumatized for the plane ride but Glenn raised them to be very well adjusted dogs with great demeanors. They were all bouncing around licking faces and checking out there new home.
We had taken care of these dogs for a weekend in Inuvik, and I'm not delusional enough to believe that they remembered us, but we certainly remembered them and all their different personalities. We all got along right from day one, only Nuna was slightly hesitant, she wasn't big on being touched or cuddled for the first couple weeks and would only come up to sniff you when you had your back turned. I was determined to win her over though so I brought her home and let her wander around and just hang out with me and she warmed to me after some time.
Now let me tell you about the first time we took them for a run, keep in mind there was no snow at this point. Luckily our friend Robert (also a musher) let us borrow his giant steel cart that he uses to give tourists rides. The first few times we hooked up the dogs we were on a steep learning curve and I think the dogs knew it, we were all trying to adjust to eachother. Our first approach for "hooking up" (which consists of harnessing and putting each dog on the gangline), was to take one dog at a time off their chain harness them and put them straight on the gangline. The problem with this was that that meant each dog was on the gangline for a long time before we are actually ready to go, and that means there is plenty of time to chew the tugline that is holding the dog in front of them to the gangline...because of this we have learned to start doing rope work making our own tuglines.So now we harness all the dogs before we put one dog on the line, it works much better that way and there is a lot less sprinting from dog to dog stopping chewing.
Before you can hook up the cart/sled needs to be anchored very firmly to something completely immovable because the dogs are so eager to go and so excited they can easily pull over 500lbs and take off without you. And yes we learned this from experience. I was almost run over by a huge steel cart a couple times, lol ahhh memories; you need to be fairly agile in these situations, so you can jump on and off a moving cart in order to avoid disaster.
After we had gone on a few runs we started to wonder how we were going to handle 8 dogs pulling a little like 30lb sled when they pulled the 500lb cart with such ease. So we borrowed a small plywood cart from another musher, I was hesitant because it looked so small I wondered how we would keep control, but it turned out we didn't have time to even worry about that. We anchored the cart to the truck hooked up all 8, and just as I was done unclipping the lead line and turned to hop on the cart the dogs took off without me or Marc-Andre on the cart... pause for reaction... before I had time to think Marc-Andre had grabbed the drag line that had been tied to truck (that had snapped) and was being dragged across that gravel dog yard on his stomach. The first thing I tried was to jump on the cart, but instead the cart just rammed into my leg and knocked me down. So as the cart was speeding passed me I grabbed onto the dragline with M-A and the dogs continued on for about 40ft with the both of us dragging and screaming for Nuvuya and Riel to stop, before we were saved by another mushers who came and managed to get in front of the dogs and stop them. At this point the dogs managed to get into a literal dog pile, a giant knot of dogs, harnesses and lines. We sorted it all out and took 4 dogs off the line, then went for a lovely ride. I think we were both so shocked and embarrassed that this happened, we didn't say anything about it until we were driving back home, and then we just laughed. No one was seriously injured (except my pants) and we learned what we can handle and what we can't, lol. Now it's a good story, and we were assured by Glenn that that kind of thing happens to everyone at some point when they are starting out, and it only happens once.
We've progressed leaps and bounds since then but I have to go over to our friends, Dan and Terra's, for dinner, so I'll start back at this point in the story when I come back.
Take care!
