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Published: January 13th 2011
Back up to the Wild
On Thursday the 6th the four of us travelled us to Grand Marais for a long weekend of sledding and hanging out with the dogs. Linda and I first made a detour to the Vets to collect a ‘valuable’ substance from Phoneix! The Hedlund Breed are scarce and puppies are of great importance; One of Linda’s friends who lives in Alaska has a sister of Journey called Canyon (The journey litter was a BIG one!), and Canyon was coming into standing heat the weekend we were away. Now Phoneix has a BEAUTIFUL build and temperament and his puppies should…a big should! Be equally amazing so it has been planned for a while to breed him with Canyon. Only there is the slight problem of the distance….sooo…Phoenix’s ‘valuable’ substance had to be manually (yes I did say man-ually!) taken at a Veterinary fertility Clinic! Let’s just say it was an educational experience! On the floor of the vet’s room was a rug covered in ‘female scent’, the second we walked in Phoneix began rubbing himself all over it! Haha..dogs ay! The women then ‘helped him’ along a deposit was made while mentally scarring me
for life. But it was good news! After they have the sample the immediately put it under a microscope and check for mobility and count. His had excellent mobility and there were MILLIONS! Good boy 😊 The sample is they shipped to Alaska and put into Canyon, so hopefully puppies will be on the way soon! After this traumatic experience we continued our way to Grand Marais.
We arrived around 5ish and immediately unloaded the dogs. Dave (the welsh guy who owns the motel) Let us have 3 rooms and we split into pairs; Neil and Linda in one, Olive and I in the other and the 3rd and final room was the ‘dog food room’. Because Red Paw is fish based it kind of smells! (Something I didn’t realise being surrounded by it almost 24/7 UNTIL this trip! The poor bathroom will never be the same again) so no-one wanted it in their room. Due to water freezing real fast in the cold climate its hard to keep the dogs properly hydrated; so the kibble is soaked in water, and we also give them water twice a day (even though they don’t drink it!). Its due to adding
Ilo rolling around
aww hes so freaking cute :)the water which makes the food smell 100x worse!
On Friday we drove the dogs out to Linda’s Land. Neil and Linda then drove the snow-mobile around potential trails to find some good and safe ones for us to run on while Olive and I kept the dogs entertained. It was then I discovered that bellowing out Bobby Darin to them doesn’t even get a reaction! I guess my talent isn’t singing 😊
That night we met up with fellow Mushers, Kay and Jerry Sivet at Grand Marais’s awesome Pizza place Sven & Ole’s. (Seriously, if you lot ever go to GM check out S&O’s! They are so good).
On Saturday we fed the dogs then drove to our first trail; Boyd road. This trail is really near to Linda’s land and is a real cool trail! After watching the Disovery Channels Iditarod DVD I have been dying to do a tree channelled hilly trail and boy did I get it! Narrow narrow trail, sharp turns and continually up or down! Brillant! But…damn scary. Linda drove the first 3 miles out while I studied the trail in preparation for the drive back. With the trail being outlined by
snow-covered spruces and trees layered in frost is was like being in a magical wonderland! Truly, truly beautiful.
After running, Neil and Linda went back to the Boyd road with the snow-mobile to clear a few sweepers we almost hit and to further the trail. Meanwhile Olive and I decided to trek through the North Woods with Snow-shoes! Snow-shoeing is awesome. There was about two foot of snow and without these magical shoes I would have gone up to my knees, however with them on we barely sunk 4 inches! Amazing! I used Neils mahussive ones, and Olive used Lindas. I initially set off in search of the Moose pond we found on our earlier trip in November, however trekked us through the trees too early and we ended us surrounded by thick, dense branches impossible to get though without a damn chainsaw, with the Moose pond annoyingly close! Oh well, at least I got to see it once!
On Sunday we ran a 10.5 miles trail, on a snow-mobile trail. Now snow-mobiles can legally go up to 50 mphs on designated trails. A dog team can go up to 12 in a good consistent run, even less on
a hilly trail (which this was!). Imagine casually sledding then hearing the roar of an engine and in mille-seconds a snow-mobile races around the corner….scary! So we were continually saying GEE OVER to the dogs in an attempt to get them to run on the right side of the trail..mm…they didn’t really respond to this very well! So there was a constant fear that they’d be run over! But the views on the trail were AMAZING! You could see trees for miles and miles and there were rolling hills. Ah beautiful! At one point on the trail the dogs all looked right and we suspected there was some animal in the trees, hiding. Upon our return a short while later (after we turned around) there were fresh moose tracks and moose poop on the trail! It was still steaming! Dang-nabit we had just missed a moose 😞 Oh well! Moose can be really dangerous to a dog team, if they stand there ground or charge then they can trample and kill dogs which is obviously not good. After the run we chilled back at the hotel and packed up in preparation for leaving the next day.
On Monday we
Poor wolfy :(
I mean no disrespect by showing this photo, it is a simple matter of life and though sad is important educationally. left Grand Marais around 9:30ish and were driving for no more than 20 minutes when Linda suddenly cried out ‘Theres a dead wolf!’. Nooooo! Was my reply! There can’t have been! We quickly made around and alerted Neil and Olive in the Toyota behind. We then stopped and walked down to where Linda thought she’d seen it. Approaching an injured wolf is seriously dangerous so we walked with caution. About 10 metres away it was obvious it was long gone. The eyes were opaque bluey-white and there were droplets of blood around its snout. Linda went and checked its muscle movements in its legs (by gently using her foot this method can be used to see how long the animal has been dead, if the muscles move easily then it died recently, if the muscles are stiff then its been dead for a couple of days or more), its sex (female- this is useful to tell the DNR) and its general health- it had mange on its legs. Mange is a parasitic illness that apparently lies dormant in all canines and suddenly appears when there immune system drops to a certain level, not good! Linda also quickly recognised that the
animal was indeed a wolf and not a coyote by its general appearance. I then struggled with my ‘inner-self’ whether or not to take a photo. I have a great respect for Wolves and to be able to see a wild one so close was an amazing experience (even though the poor thing was dead) however I felt that taking a picture was real disrespectful…BUT this will probably be the only wild wolf I ever see this close up so I took a quick snap-shot. Others may believe this to be wrong but it was something I decided to do and can’t take back now! (I keep saying Wild wolf because in my mind hand-reared zoo-kept wolves are NOT the same as seeing a proper wild wolf.) But may that beautiful wolfy Rest in Peace. Linda then phoned the DNR (department of natural resources) to report the death as wolves are an endangered species in Minnesota. It’s illegal to kill one and/or take the body of one, also they must be reported to the DNR.
But on a good note 2 hours into the drive a furry creature ran across the road and Linda shouted ‘Wolf!’. I grabbed my
camera and watched as the wolf ran past the car then stopped on the other side of the road and just watched us! It was an amazing experience! However the only downside was the poor creature was covered in mange, its tail was virtually fur-less and it had mange patches all over its body. Mange is the only reason we would have seen it though, Healthy wolves stay well away from humans! We then got back to Watertown around 5pm.
All in all a good weekend!
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