Thursday, February 4, 2010
Our last full day in Wyoming would become my favorite day of the whole trip. Ever since I first read it 30 or so years ago, I've thought Jack London's The Call of the Wild is perhaps the finest piece of American literature ever written, 11th-grade AmLit teacher Mrs. Berry's penchant for James Fenimore Cooper notwithstanding. I've probably read it 20 times, and can clearly remember the key scenes despite the fact that I haven't read it in the past several years. My grandfather and I even share a favorite quote, and occasionally recite it to each other as an inside joke:
"One devil, dat Spitz," remarked Perrault. "Some dam day him kill dat Buck."
"Dat Buck two devils," was Francois's rejoinder. "All de time I watch dat Buck I know for sure. Lissen: some dam fine day him get mad like hell and den him chew dat Spitz all up and spit him out on de snow. Sure, I know."
But it's one thing to quote Francois, or to read about the traces and all of the parts of the sled, or to understand the basic operation of a sled dog team. It's one thing to read:
It was inevitable that the clash for leadership should come. Buck wanted it. He wanted it because it was his nature, because he had been gripped tight by that nameless, incomprehensible pride of the trail and trace--that pride which holds dogs in the toil to the last gasp, which lures them to die joyfully in the harness, and breaks their hearts if they are cut out of the harness. This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and discontent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. Likewise it was this pride that made him fear Buck as a possible lead-dog. And this was Buck's pride, too.
It's quite another thing to experience all this, to have one's hand on the sled and foot on the brake. It's a visceral, primitive thing, the dog sled, and its engineering hasn't changed all that much in the century or so since Jack London penned his great novel. There's a creak of rawhide, a whispering sound as the sled glides over the snow, a sort of magic as the dogs raise hell wanting to go, then fall into silent contentment as their paws cover the miles. London wrote about the courage and heart of these animals, but no writing can ever quite capture it. Some things need to be experienced firsthand.
Incidentally, I found this neato page that explains the parts and workings of a dog sled.
When we first walked out to see the dogs, after the teams had largely been assembled, the dogs went absolutely nuts. They knew it was time to run, and they immediately began barking and howling with excitement. I started off in the guide's sled, and the wheeler who'd been harnessed up, Jackson, was lunging and jumping against the harness. He'd push and jump so hard he got all four feet off the ground, despite the fact that the sled was anchored in several different places:
Some of the less excitable members of the team stood there waiting, while others began barking or bracing their feet in anticipation of taking off:
The dogs get so excited and wound up that if things don't take off right away, the more energetic ones start picking fights with one another to burn off their excess energy. That's why Jackson's partner in the wheel position got hooked up last… he tends to be one of the fighters. Here's the view from the sled behind Jackson and Betty:
The wheelers are generally the biggest and strongest dogs, because they bear the lion's share of the responsibility for breaking the sled out if its runners get frozen. They also are the last to take a turn, so when the rest of the team has made the turn, the wheelers are pretty much pulling the sled by themselves. In Betty's case, she's a smaller dog than would ordinarily be in the wheeler position, but she's used because Jackson tends to get along with her better, and he's one of the largest dogs at the facility, so he can make up her share of the work.
Here's Lisa looking down from the runners while I ride in the sled:
The destination on this excursion was a hot spring that's cool enough to swim in, about 10 miles away from the dogs' home base. The water was around 110 degrees, very nice in the cold winter air:
The teams were kept in their harnesses and tied in such a way that the only dogs that could interact with one another were the partnered pairs at each position in the line. Most of them just laid down and took a nap, but this pair of lead dogs really liked playing with each other:
After we'd had our swim and eaten some lunch, we started packing things back into the sleds, and once again the dogs started going crazy. Here you can see a wheeler lunging against the harness, trying to break the sled free even though it's tied to a tree:
Meanwhile the rest of his team barks up a storm:
My team for the journey back were all straining at the harnesses, trying to get started:
The noise was deafening, with somewhere around 40 dogs all howling and barking at once. It was amazing then, that as soon as we pulled up the anchors and said "HIKE!" (apparently nobody says "mush" anymore), the dogs went completely silent and just started running, tails wagging furiously:
After a couple of miles, we stopped for team photos…
…though I kept trying to get good action shots of the team behind me:
And this led to my favorite picture from the entire vacation, one which somehow sums up the whole experience:
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