We woke yesterday to snowflakes drifting carelessly through the air. They landed haphazardly all around us, stayed for but a minute, then melted. After the busy fall we’ve had, it’s hard not to anticipate the simplicity that winter brings. For now, we are content to be running dogs again on a four-wheeler that finally works. Happiness, is watching the smooth rhythm the team gets into.
For awhile, it seemed like we would never run dogs again. The chaos that followed the flood seemed unending. Rebuilding the doglot, demolishing the downstairs, picking up the scattered debris…but bit by bit everything has come into place. This past week, we were fortunate enough to attend a tourism conference up in Anchorage and it seemed like the first real moment we’ve had to take a deep breath and to think of all that has happened in the last month.
The Alaska Tourism Industry Association’s annual conference was a three-day event that combined workshops with networking which was great for our young business. We were fortunate enough to receive a scholarship courtesy of GCI to the event. The best part? We met a distant relative, Andy Morrison, who is the owner/operator of Alaska Backcountry Access, a company in Girdwood that runs snow machine tours and jet boat tours. Talk about awesome!
It was great to to have someone who was able to show us the ropes and introduce us to people in the industry. We were definitely the youngest business owners there and it would have been really easy for us to have been intimidated, but Andy took us under his wing and said “nope! no being shy dog mushers” and enthusiastically introduced us to people from all over the state. We learned a lot about how to promote our summer dogsledding business.
It was wonderful spending time with Andy and at the end of the conference he took us out on his jetboat…. for people who hand’t been out on the water all year it was a magical experience. Skimming out across the bay towards the endless horizon, made us want to run dogs more. There is something about traveling, no matter the means, that calms the soul. We took the boat out to Fire Island where they are currently putting in wind turbines, 11 of which are already installed, and their was something very beautiful about them. Their blades, slowly turning, had a sort of hypnotic beauty over us and it was hard taking our eyes off of them.
After our boat ride, it was time to say goodbye. We were both ready when the conference was finally over: we had a wonderful time but it was time to go home and take care of our dogs, whom our friends had been watching. Since we’ve gotten back we’ve taken two or three teams out a day. The trails are still limited due to flood damage but the dogs seem happy, at least, to be stretching their legs again. We certainly aren’t going as far as we would be had the flood never hit, but we aren’t worried.
The team looks strong, and more importantly, they look like a team. They’re strides are in synch with one another and they travel with a graceful elegances. Most of the time, it looks as if the dogs aren’t even really working — something that every musher aspires too.
We’ve already ran one team this morning under the cold grey skies that have descended on our quiet town. As I write this, the dogs sit outside their houses looking towards the sky. They hope, like us, that the tiny flakes we saw yesterday will come again and that this time they will stick.
