Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

A section of the informally named “Beaver Pond Trail.”

“Do, um, do many people fall out of the sled?” he asked me, sounding rather more concerned than I expect he wanted to.

“Depends.” I answered. “Fast trail, tight corners…” I nod to the sled I’m getting ready, “big, bulky sled to steer. It’s possible.” I continued rigging the sled, getting it ready for our ride.

I had promised to take Chris, our neighbours’ visitor all the way from England, out on a dogsled ride around our property while he was here. A seemingly adventurous person – he’s passionate about deep sea fishing and has crewed for and ridden in hot air balloon races – I wanted to play up the sense of danger a bit. Afterall, it’s only a ride around the property. He wandered around the yard, taking in all the noise and confused organisation. Jenn harnessed the dogs that were going out and Hunter plunked herself in the snowbank, her new-found chair.

Baby watches Jenn harness Horton, who is watching Hunter make herself a chair.

With the trails the way they were, it would have been near suicide to take eight dogs and my usual sled, so I opted for the biggest, bulkiest sled we have: a ten-foot long from driving bow to brush bow, six-stanchion, wooden freighting style sled with three-inch wide runners. Sleek it isn’t. Nor is it fast because the runner plastic is all but worn off. It’s an absolute brute to steer: the most effective way is to use the brake because leaning doesn’t work and you’d better have had two helpings of breakfast if you think you’re going to man-handle it around a corner. It weighs close to eighty pounds; afterall, it’s solid ash with a five-foot long, one inch by one inch piece of angle steel for a brake. Add to this a passenger and driver and, yes, this would be a safe sled to take out. Right?

Rear view of the beast.

We began to hook everybody up: Dora and Risk in lead, Blitzi and Mouse in swing, Olive and Moxy in team and Horton and Hope in wheel. Risk and Blitzi came because they’d help keep us slow. Also, Risk is just about flawless with commands and we have recently re-routed the trails a bit, so I didn’t want to be jumping off the sled to put the leaders on the correct trails. Our re-routing takes us clock-wise on trails we have always run counter clock wise, and it’s a rare dog indeed that can forget habit for commands on their first and second outings.

An otherwise orderly hook up.  Horton’s lipping off about something, though.

With all the dogs hooked up and my passenger in his seat – a folded sleeping bag – I pulled the snowhook and shouted “READY?” The gangline tightened as the dogs took their positions and leaned into their harnesses, muscles twitching with anticipation. “OKAY! LET’S GO!” The dogs’ feet dug into the snow, lines pulled tight and the sled, with a jerk, flew out of the dogyard and into the first corner. As the dogs sprinted around the corner, it became apparent that the sled wasn’t going to follow them. Momentum was carrying it, me and Chris towards the scrubby bush on the far side. I tried to shove the sled around the corner, but that didn’t work, so I jumped on the brake and the nose of the sled swung around, nearly throwing Chris right over the side of the sled. Still on the brake, I slowed the team down enough to make the second corner, a few hundred yards further on.

Chris was really struck by the beauty of the surroundings. Nearly three feet of snow covered everything and it clung to the spruce and pines as though they were frosted with icing. Small saplings, bent from the weight of the snow, curved over the trail like archways and now and then a branch that I was too fed up to cut the last time I came out to clear the fallen down and snow laden trees would overhang the trail.

Video of part of the ride.  Music: Water From a Vine Leaf (William Orbit and Beth Orton)

Turning one corner, however, I immediately saw a problem. A spruce tree had fallen across the trail several days ago and although I had cut it, I had only cut out the middle: the bottom lay on one side of the trail and the top, the other. It was pretty clear that we were headed directly for the cut part of the top. The dogs made it around the spruce with no problem – there was better than a five foot gap cut out of the tree – but we were on target to bash right into it. When I had removed the section, I failed to account for the tiny, almost imperceptible slant of the trail, which was now helping line us up on a fair sized spruce log. At the last moment, I was able to haul on one side of the sled, lifting the runner so that instead of crashing into the log, we rode over it, one runner on the snow and the other on the tree. There was little time to exhale in relief because the lurching of the sled over the log had diverted our course directly into the path of a much more solid and firmly rooted spruce on the opposite side of the trail.

Don’t let anyone tell you that a dogsled follows the dogs. It doesn’t, especially when two thirds of the sled are in front of the pivot point. Once again, I had but one choice: jump on the brake. The nose of the sled swung away just in time.

Relieved, I’m sure, Chris laughed “Bet you can’t do that again.” And I was certain I couldn’t, either, now that I knew where my mistakes in handling the sled had been. But, I proved us both wrong. We had to take that very same trail one last time before the ride was over and I followed my first sled tracks almost perfectly.

Chris, I am happy to say, however, arrived back at the yard in one piece. He was even kind enough to say he enjoyed almost being killed.

As for me, between having to clean up fallen trees from every storm that seems to find it’s way here, and trying to avoid bashing into every other tree out there, my New Year’s resolution for this year is to cut every tree within fifty miles of here.

Back in the yard and unharnessing.

Hope (l) and Horton (r)

Olive gets a scratch on my way by.

**All photos and video are courtesy of Chris.  Thanks very much.