Sarah

My Journey Through The Dark:
Battling Depression and Anxiety

Sarah · March 17, 2015 ·

If you asked me what and where I thought I’d be this summer, it wouldn’t be sitting at home in Seward listening to the rain fall eagerly awaiting Iditarod updates and watching Travis’ GPS steadily move down the Iditarod trail. I wouldn’t be writing this blog post or answering phone calls and emails. I certainly wouldn’t be on facebook! If you asked me what I was going to do this summer, I would have told you that Travis and I had a plan. The plan.

By early June we’d had things worked out for the two of us. This was the year, I told myself, this was the year I was going to be able to run THE IDITAROD! After all, that is why I moved here four and a half years ago. Travis and I had arranged to buy a piece of property with a small cabin on it up north. We had worked out a great owner financing set-up and we were finally going to be up in mushing country. Not just for one season — but indefinitely. We were going to leave snowless Seward behind:no more rain to deal with, just dogs and trails and finding the time to run and explore as much as we were able. And so, with that end goal in mind, I worked hard this summer.

For a little over five weeks I managed our 60 dog kennel and two businesses by myself while Travis was stuck on bed rest after getting severly sun burnt. When it looked like he would finally be back on his feet, he contracted shingles. Looking back now, I’m not entirely sure how I slogged through running tours, keeping guests happy, and managing the early part of our season without my partner. To be fair, we had a great crew and they willingly picked up whatever slack I couldn’t manage. We moved forward as a team and the summer of 2014 was gearing up to be a good one. Throughout the summer I often realized that I wasn’t happy. I never felt like my work was done and the long daylight hours Alaska offers us translated into long work hours. I routinely stayed up trying to tie up loose ends or figure out simply how to do something better. I was terrible at prioritizing, which left me feeling rushed and overwhelmed even at the day’s end.

But I slowly figured things out and it would be ok, I told myself, because I had a goal that I was working towards: Putting a downpayment on this cabin so that I could run dogs and still manage our business. To me, that was the light at the end of a really long tunnel. When September finally got here and we were ready to close on the property, I almost couldn’t believe that THE PLAN was coming together. My hard work was paying off. I’d already started packing what I could and we were trying to figure out if we could rent our house in Seward out. I could envision myself training first on four wheelers, then sleds. I would stay busy with work but would also reconnect with the sport I was so passionate about but had felt so powerless to pursue these last two years as we tried to grow our business. If we were up north, I figured, I would be able to run our business and train. I had acknowledged the roadblock that was impeding me from moving forward and I was busting through.

That, of course, was when everything changed.

About two weeks from when we planned to move in, the sellers decided they wanted to keep the property. This couldn’t be happening, could it? A few days passed and finally, we realized, we needed a new plan.

The training runs at this point were short and our dogs had run tours all summer so were already in great condition. Travis and I began looking at real estate and, once again, found another piece of property. We talked with the sellers and began arranging our finances. It was slightly more expensive and we’d really have to stretch our budget but we wanted to live our dream! Wasn’t this the point, of, well everything? We finally figured out how we’d make things work and, after a lot of hard and careful thinking, made an offer.

Of course, someone beat us to it.

At this point, we started to get a little nervous. It was already the middle of October. Everything happens for a reason, I kept telling myself. Travis seemed less certain but still optimistic. It will happen, I kept telling myself, because it had to happen.

And then it all came together.

One night on craigslist, I found the dream property we’d been waiting for. This was why everything else had fallen through! We found 3 acres of property in prime mushing country, at a reasonable price. It didn’t have a house but had a small structure that we could make do with for the winter. We made an offer. It was accepted. The sense of relief and freedom I felt was so foreign to me after the constant stress of the last two years. Our hard work had payed off.

Travis went up to the property and began working. We’d signed preliminary papers and ok’ed it with the seller to put a dog yard in. It was starting to get cold and if we didn’t do it right away, we’d have no place to keep the dogs. There was no point in buying property if we couldn’t use it this season so Travis went up there, stopping at Home Depot and buying all the supplies we needed to put in a dog lot. Just a little while longer, I told myself. And I would be up there making things happen!

Travis called me from our new place. “I just drove the last post in!” He said. I could hear him smiling through the phone. Things never looked better.

Of course, that’s when the problems started.

As Travis drove the last of the posts into what would be our dog lot, a man on an ATV drove by with a chainsaw. Travis thought nothing of it. People in Seward cut dead trees up for firewood all the time and he assumed that’s what this man was doing. WRONG! It turns out he had gone down the trail with his chainsaw to cut trees into the trail so mushers couldn’t train. Apparently, our new neighbor was an anti-mushing zealot and he wasn’t afraid of starting a fight.

Being rational, we decided we would try to talk with him. My mom always tells me “you can’t make sanity from insanity” so I don’t know what we expected. The man was polite and he assured us that he had a family now and had moved on from that phase in his life. He’d come to accept mushing as a way of Alaskan culture and whoever cut those trees down it wasn’t him. He didn’t have time for that sort of nonsense anymore. We’d clearly worn out our welcome though. He didn’t want to chat and demanded we leave. The encounter left us feeling more than a little uneasy. But this was it! This was our spot in mushing country that we so desperately wanted! The man had said he wouldn’t be a problem and we took him at his word.

And for a three whole days he wasn’t a problem. On day four though he started hanging anti-mushing and anti-Iditarod signs up. He posted nasty things with arrows pointing at our soon-to-be property. We asked the local authorities to intervene but they said he could write and hang whatever signs he wanted on his property. We asked them to act as mediators and they told us that wasn’t their job. We weren’t sure what to do, but he quickly made the decision easy for us. He began cutting down trees and other brush to block trails with a new tenacity, not just to prevent us from using the trail, but to prevent all the local mushers. It got so bad that Alaska Dispatch actually wrote an article about the guy.

So we did what any young, smart couple would do: we decided not to buy the property because this was supposed to be our haven, our get away. With a crazy neighbor, we figured it would be anything but that. Travis was devastated. Whatever is beyond devastation, that’s what I was. By this point, it was early November and as much as we’d worked training the dogs around property hunting, we now could no longer do both. There were no rentals available because, in the summer when we would have normally secured them, we had already thought we were set. Besides, who wants to rent a house to someone with 60 dogs?

Training with the dogs slowly began to intensify and runs started to take longer and longer. Up until the end of October we had almost always run our teams together, with me following his lead but one day we were splitting up dogs for the next run and he said, “I’m running now. You run in a few hours. You can’t train with me anymore.”

At the time, I was less than receptive. I was angry and confused. I couldn’t train with him? Who was he to tell me what to do? And why couldn’t I train with him? He clarified: “I’ve taught you everything I can. The rest you have to learn on your own. You can’t train your team for Iditarod with me. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Now that I’m in a better place emotionally and can use my rationality, I understand why. At some point, you have to do things on your own. Mushing dogs is about being out on your own, knowing what to do, and having the confidence not just in yourself but also in your dogs that you can handle any situation that is thrown at you. It’s not that Travis didn’t want to spend time with me out on the trail. He was happy to do that. We love doing that. Travis simply wanted me to train my team. And when we went out together my team wasn’t getting trained — all they were doing was following his team around. Rather than creating my own independent unit, by following Travis around all the time my team and I were nothing more than an extension of his team. We weren’t on our own if we were out there with him and we weren’t going to learn how to do things on our own unless he cut the cord.

“Look, you will have problems. We all have problems. But you’ll manage. Have confidence. You are a problem solver!”

But this winter, it didn’t seem like I could solve any problems. I trained sporadically but without him as my safety net my worry often got the best of me. I got increasingly anxious about all the loose animals in our subdivision — chickens, turkeys, and small dogs — and my worry soon turned to paralysis. Eventually, I simply stopped training.

To top it off, we learned that our biggest vendor of the season was unable to pay us for the services we rendered that summer and we took a massive financial blow. I felt defeated on so many different fronts because, it turned out, nothing that I worked hard for had materialized — not even the money.

The constant rain that plagued Seward only added to my growing sense of disappointment and failure. A the end of November, a friend and mentor committed suicide and I was left with an even deeper sense of loss. Questions haunted me at night and kept me from sleep. Soon even getting out of bed became a challenge. More and more I found myself thinking of the Langston Hughes poem, Harlem.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore— And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

My life, it seemed, would try answering the question Hughes had asked almost 90 years prior.

I did a lot of writing. Looking back at my journals there are lots of statements like “it seems like every day is a fight and I’m barely making it through the rounds” and “I think I’m stuck in the same loops and cycles. Treadmilling myself into exhaustion. Why am I not making any progress?” I just couldn’t shake the feeling that no matter what I did, I wasn’t getting anywhere. All this work and there was nothing to show for it. All these things I had to do and yet I had no idea where to start.

Our financial situation only made things worse: Dog food. Mortage. Heat. Food. Gas. They added up quickly. Soon, my life became a precarious balancing act of figuring out when to pay what bill. It was ridiculous. I was sad. I was angry. Above all, I couldn’t believe any of this was happening because I had always worked to ensure that we would have enough money to feed our dogs. Suddenly, I was no longer sure. I was filled more and more with a growing sense of shame and failure. How could this have happened?

Travis could see me struggling. Through it all, he was there. We both made sacrifices. We worried less about the money. “I’ve always scraped by,” he said. And sure enough, so far, we have. In the good moments, we would joke about me “going crazy” but then there were times when he would sit down with me, genuinely concerned trying to figure out what he could do. Sometimes it was as simple as a hug. Sometimes it was him leaving to train and giving me my space. Both at times were needed. On more than one occasion I was extremely jealous of him: how did his life have so much definition and structure and mine had none?

After one of his training trips though, Travis came back with a two-place snow machine trailer that I could put dog boxes on. He knew I would feel comfortable towing it with my truck. “So you can train,” he said. “When you’re ready.” His idea was, that when it was done, I’d go train my team with friends. I wouldn’t have as much anxiety about training because I wouldn’t be alone and I would see that I was more than capable to be out there by myself. In short, it was his way of trying to make me a more confident musher. He knew I had it in me, I just needed to see it for myself and running with other people would show me that.

I began working on the project immediately with a friend. Building and painting the boxes flew by but shortly before completion I stopped working. All I had to do was screw the doors on and put a few bolts in but I was in such a funk that I couldn’t find the motivation to even do that.

“You should finish your trailer,” Travis frequently repeated. “Then you could go have some fun and get of the rain.” But I let the trailer sit. Day after day after day. Suddenly, a month had passed. Where had the time gone? The dog boxes still weren’t done. What had I done during that time?

“Really?” Travis said to me one day with a mixture of disbelief, pity, and frustration. “You still haven’t finished it?” And so, late one night, Travis finished my trailer so that I could leave and go train too. After all, that’s what I wanted, wasn’t it?

Days passed after it was completed but I still hadn’t left. “You going to leave?” He asked. “I can watch the kennel.” But I’d make excuses as to why I couldn’t go. My friends would ask why I hadn’t left to see them after promising to come visit and train with them. Often, I’d tell them I wanted Travis to train or that I needed to watch the dogs but, in reality, I simply couldn’t muster the energy to do, well, anything.

Through it all, Travis kept encouraging me to get out of the house, to go do things, even if it wasn’t running dogs — but it seemed the more I stayed at home the more I wanted to stay at home. I watched him day after day work towards his goal of training a competitive dog team. How was he able to get so much done? And, more importantly, why couldn’t I?

To me, my life had become a series of meaningless tasks. Cleaning the house. Doing Laundry. “Background Chores” became the forefront of my life. I never tried to take on anything big. I couldn’t handle big. And not trying to work away at a big project made me feel useless, lazy, and unaccomplished. Because we own our own business, I didn’t even have the structure of a job to fall back on to define my life.

“What are you doing with all your time?” Travis would ask.

I could never seem to find a good answer. What was I doing?

So, when things started to get more difficult, Travis did what he does best. He silently supported me. In January he asked for my help training his team. He wanted me to drive his team. It was very important, he said, that I helped. He needed my advice. It wasn’t true but it got me in the dog truck heading north and it temporarily gave my life more definition than merely eating and sleeping.

We spent a fantastic week running dogs and I felt free. Out on the trail, there were no bills to pay, no phones to answer or emails to respond to. There were no problems that had to be dealt with. Out on the trail, there was just snow, dogs, and a beautiful full moon. Life out there, it seemed, was perfect. Why couldn’t it always be this easy?

Unfortunately, we had to return to the real word. I got back to rainy Seward and started worrying about Iditarod Food Drops. By this time, I’d known I wouldn’t be running — how could I, I hadn’t trained! — but there was still the problem of Travis’ food drops. When it’s all said and done, food drops cost around $10,000. We didn’t exactly have that type of money lying around — we were living off of the few scant tour gigs we could manage this snowless year. Fortunately, we got lucky and signed on to do some film work. We did a short gig for TLC and another for Chick-Fil-A which helped break up the monotony, gave my life some temporary focus, and helped us cover our expenses. The change of pace and constant barrage of new scenery also started to break up the funk I had found myself in since the fall.

Slowly, I started figuring things out. I knew that this was not how I wanted to live my life yet I wasn’t making any effort to change. Here I was, with the person I love most in this world, living a life most people dream about and yet, I wasn’t living it. I was running from it. Why?

Something obviously needed to change.

For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I loved our dogs. I loved Travis. I loved work. I had a lot of really great friends. From the outside, my life was perfect! Something, however, was amiss.

Slowly I came to the self-realization that I was overwhelmed by all that we had on our plate: two businesses, 60 dogs, and the logistics of Iditarod. I spent a lot of time worrying about what could happen and what we should do, rather than simply doing things. Worry had paralyzed me.

“I’m worried,” I finally admitted to Travis one night.
“About what?” Travis asked.
“About everything.”
“Everything?” He asked.
“Yes, everything.”
“Well. That’s not good.”

So the next morning I sat down and made a list of everything that worried me. “Are you still at it?” He asked. He knew what I was doing and somehow managed to shower and get dressed before I stopped writing. “Ok that’s enough give it to me,” he said taking the paper from me. “It’s not even 9:15. Why are there 47 items on this list?”

All of a sudden, he just started laughing, which, honestly, was the perfect response.

It was completely absurd for me to have all this on my mind!

“No wonder you feel stuck.” He looked down at the paper and begin reading the items. “God. You think about all this?” He shook his head. “Wow.”

I immediately started understanding why I felt like I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. There was so much on my plate, I didn’t know where to begin!

Together we looked at the list. What were things that could wait? What weren’t? What on that list did I have no control over? What things on the list did I have some control over, but not entire control? And, most importantly, what on that list could we make disappear by simply saying today I will do this! Together, we found a few things we each could tackle that day to immediately shorten THE LIST.

So far, so good.

Slowly I figured it out. I started coming out of my funk. Travis, on top of training full time, started to take over some of the responsibilities in our business to lighten my load and I began realizing my own personal needs and wants. It seemed like ever since we started running our own business, I had put what I wanted on the back burner. I was living to work and not working to live. No wonder I was so unhappy — I wasn’t taking care of myself!

So in the recent weeks I have set about changing. It hasn’t been easy and it’s been a lot of hard work climbing out of my hole. I’ve focused so long and so intently on working that, honestly, I’d forgotten what it’s like to have hobbies. I started sewing and began writing more. I made an effort to call friends I hadn’t spoken to in awhile and also challenged myself to simply get out of the house.

Travis started cooking more frequently — and by that I mean, he perfected the BLT and the fine art of frying bacon. He started relying on me less for little things and I started to rely on him more for big things. We took a mushing trip together. I remembered that I’ve always known what to do on the trail. Why worry? And more importantly, why let worry stop you?

Most of all, I’ve learned to cut myself a little bit more slack, to have fun, to put myself first, and not to worry. Life will always present challenges that push us and force us to grow. I’m choosing to remember my dark time as a period of rest and renewal that led to growth. It’s always dark inside a butterfly’s cocoon but a butterfly needs that darkness to shift and change and grow.

I am spreading my wings.

And by all accounts, so is Trav. I’m so excited for him. I really couldn’t be any prouder of Travis for the race he’s run up to this point. I don’t think any musher out there has had tougher training conditions this year than Travis. He’s had to travel any time he’s wanted to train the team.

Can you imagine doing 15000 miles worth of driving and STILL training for the Iditarod? That takes some serious dedication. And look where he’s at! He’s been around 20th position the whole time. Just imagine how he does when we are able to live in an area that has trails out our back door. I’m super excited.

I don’t care what position Travis finishes in. I just feel like, once again, we are going places.

We are taking flight.

10941426 1055819311114079 6391066467996310559 n — After realizing I needed to work less and worry less, we went on the final training trip before Iditarod to Alpine Creek Lodge and were rewarded with beautiful Northern Lights.

My First Dog Sled

Sarah · January 10, 2015 ·

I remember – it seems like a lifetime ago now – standing in Travis’ old dog lot at his mom’s house four years ago. The leaves were just starting to fall off the trees and the wind would come along every now and then ruffling them up out of their loose piles in the dog lot and driveway. Travis spent his days working construction for a local builder. We spent our evenings together running dogs and dreaming of a future where we were self sufficient and making names for ourselves as racers.

That September for his birthday, I’d gotten Travis two new beefy snow hooks. Our first “date” months beforehand he had taken me mushing on the historic Iditarod trail in Seward and once, when we stopped to rest the pups, they eagerly pulled his snow hook. He had a rag-tag set up which included his hook being on a bungy line. When the hook popped, the line stretched forward and then snapped back, the hook almost hitting me square in the face. My goalkeeping reflexes kicked in and somehow I managed to either deflect it down or catch it.

He apologized profusely. “Ya I shouldn’t have it on that buts it’s the only rope I have.”
I laughed. I was having a blast.

We still joke about it. Those first runs we did together will always hold a special place in my heart. Our gear was often broken or pieced together. On one run, we had a stanchion snap, our brake bar fall off and we somehow managed to lose our drag.

We wouldn’t bring tools or sled repair kits. Often we were woefully underprepared but our logic was that we weren’t far from home — always less then seven miles. Nothing that bad could ever happen.

When things broke we’d take necklines and tug lines, splicing together spruce trees, duct tape — anything we could find and deem usable — to help us repair our sled and get back to the yard. We always managed. We smiled. We learned.

Looking back, we were a minor disaster but it never mattered. We had fun and we were training the puppies — now the core of our race team — and there was no stress.

We learned to fix what we needed to fix and we had fun doing it. At times I’d get annoyed we sure spend a lot of time fixing things I’d think and occasionally vocalize.

Travis’ response was always the same. “I’m a broke dog musher. I can’t afford new stuff.”

So we were resourceful.

But that fall day in 2012 when we were gearing up for our first full season of running dogs together, I can remember shivering from the wind. It was howling. We were hooking the dogs up to the four wheeler when Travis casually mentioned he’d bought me a present.

I was thinking maybe he’d bought me a new pair of gloves or a better rain jacket when he told me he bought me a sled my jaw dropped and I looked at him in disbelief.

“Where on earth did you get that kind of money?!”

He’d saved his tips from work that summer and slowly saved up. “It’s not like brand new or anything,” he said sheepishly “but it should hold together pretty good.”

From the moment we got it, it was a beautiful sled albeit well-loved and trail-worn. Made by “prairie built” it was incredibly light and fun to drive. It sported a bicycle seat on back and was the first “sit down” sled we owned.

The first time we took it out we had a blast, switching teams so we could both take turns driving it.

“You’re really good on that thing!” He said beaming at me.

We drove that sled everyday we had enough snow. It had sleek aluminum stanchions and a bright blue and yellow sled bag. Driving it, we felt like rock stars — not that we shared trails with anyone.

But then, of course the inevitable eventually happened: the aluminum stanchion snapped coming around an icy corner the following spring . We took necklines and a hair tie and part of an alder and made a quick trail repair that got us home. A local welder fixed it for us and before we could order a replacement stanchion the second one snapped.

Life happened. And what should have been a simple fix went untouched and sat in our garage waiting to be fixed. We started doing tours and business life soon took over. Suddenly it seemed we hardly had time for each other, let alone sled repairs!

A year went by and we still hadn’t fixed it. We’d acquired other sleds and drove those lamenting our lack of time and energy to fix my first sled.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I came back from a meeting to find Travis tinkering in the basement. I could hear the saw running and heard the occasionally tap tap. I opened the basement door to see what on earth he could be working on.

“No! You’re not allowed down here!” He said.
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s a secret.”
“Ok.” I said.

The new single stanchion dog sled Travis built me

He worked well into the night, not coming up for bed until 3am. And the secret he’d been working on was my dog sled — Except it wasn’t my dog sled at all. Travis had seen me eyeing our friend Wade’s homemade single stanchion sled and had apparently overheard me asking for advice on building one. Travis had taken the runners off my old dog sled and made a completely new creation.

Travis Beals lifting up the new dog sled he just built. It's made out of hockey sticks and is pretty light weight. — Travis Beals lifting up the new dog sled he just built. It’s made out of hockey sticks and is pretty light weight.

To say I’m excited to drive it is an understatement.

Isn’t it a thing of beauty? We can’t wait to try it out.

Travis Beals sitting on the seat he built for his first homemade dog sled

Playing Chicken

Sarah · October 24, 2014 ·

On Monday I didn’t want to run dogs but did anyways. That’s what you are supposed to do, isn’t it? The dogs needed to get out and were eager to go but I was in a funk. Iditarod, I told myself. So I rose reluctantly and headed out to the yard. The dogs eager heads popped out of their houses when they saw me. They quickly realized we were going to be heading out on a run.

I am slow and methodical when I hook up my dog team. I like them to be quiet but it takes time and patience for them to learn that. Today, they obliged sprawling out waiting as one by one their teammates joined them. When I hooked up my 8th dog, they finally started getting excited but I was able to calm them down.

“Good dogs,” I told them when they settled back down.

So I harnessed them up and they were patient with me, letting me take my time and reserving their excitement until the end when I had all 14 of them hooked up. They were excited. We took off and then —

Oh no!

An orange ball of enthusiasm rushed out of the woods and charged at my team. Before I knew it, I yelled: “MAX! GET OUT OF HERE!”

The ball of fur was Max, my pet dog. And when I yelled he turned remarkably fast, but not before my lead dogs brush him aside.

Ok, Disaster Averted. “Good boy Kermit!” I tell my lead dog. He didn’t let Max phase him and I sure wasn’t it going to let it phase me. I tried to calm myself and get that mediative composure that seems so engrained to dog mushing. Max has given me some great training the past few months and now he is slowly trotting behind the fourwheeler.

“Go home,” I growl. He looks at me and then slinks off as if to say “I was only trying to help.” And he has helped. He comes out of the woods at random intervals and uses his moose-sized body to charge the team. One of two things inevitably happens when he does this: my team is well behaved, ignores him, and continues down the trail… or all hell breaks loose. Max likes mayhem. But today there is no mayhem, today there are only dogs who listen and who know their job and who know that no matter what the big orange dog does, they just keep running.

Good.

So we continue on our run. And it’s starting to shape up nicely. They settle into a fast steady trot quickly. We are probably averaging about 9 or 10mph and I’ve finally partnered all the dogs in a way that I can stand. My team is a mess of gaits. Hardly anyone runs the same. I have the B-team, after all, but after several runs of moving dogs around, I’ve finally come up with some good pairs. Each dog matches their partner and they step in rhythm. I have the building blocks for a great team. Running with Travis for so many years though, I have caught on to some of his OCD about gaits, running, and rhythm and certain dogs, despite being great athletes, just don’t fit in. Finally though, I have matched them well:

Kermit* (m)– Bonnie (f)

Marlow (m) — Barkley*(m)

Sphinx (f) — Tamere*(f)

Dolly (f) — Varden (f)

Ayla (f) — Havoc (f)

Ginzu*(m)– Teddy (m)

Bud (m)– Big Guy*(m)

That’s the team I have been running and they look good together. But I am still missing a few dogs from my training pool: Pinky (f), Weiser* (m), Ray* (m), Monroe* (m), Mary*(f), and Madori*(f). I have 10 dogs who have run Iditarod*, 9 puppies, and 1 adult (Bud)who has never quite made it to race day.

We are starting to look really good and on this run, everyone is starting to finally gel. Yes. It’s happening. It’s hard not to get a little excited at how they work and move together.

So we keep running and we go by a neighbor’s house when all of a sudden — YIP YIP YIP — a small, pint size dog comes tearing across it’s yard and starts to chase me.

Oh no. One of my leaders, Bonnie, turns her head for a second to see what the commotion is. “Straight ahead!” I holler. The little dog keeps following me but isn’t gaining on me.

What do I do? I’m not sure if stopping is a good idea but I ams supposed to turn around in about 200 yards. I am terrified for the little dog. My dogs are well behaved. They are friendly. But this little dog wants to pick a fight with them. I have no idea what to expect from my own dogs — we routinely pass a Saint Bernard with gnashing teeth and a fat black labrador that likes to pretend its vicious, but these are big dogs and it’s become a game to my team. Those dogs have taught us how to speed up and run fast. They’ve taught the dogs discipline. So why would I expect my dogs to do anything but pass this little dog?

Because it weighed 15 lbs and it was wearing a sweater: my dogs had no idea what it was. Was it friend or foe?

We made the turn around and the little dog sat and watched us. My team picked up speed when they saw the small dog and the little dog began charging us head on.

Really? I asked in disbelief. You have to hand it to small dogs they are both brave and stupid. I don’t think this little dog quite knew the bargain it was trying to make with my team, so I stopped, got off my ATV, walked to the front of the team, and tried to get the little dog to go away. It just wouldn’t leave.

I could try to pass the dog — I am sure my team would pass it — but what if they didn’t? What if they thought this little dog was not a dog? What if they decided it was something like a porcupine? Sled dogs are famous for attacking porcupine out on the trail despite the fact that they get needle-nosed faces and then must spend hours having quills removed. Or what if this little dog tried to attack them? If it tried to bite one of my dogs, which I wouldn’t put it past the dog, would my dogs retaliate?

So we sat. We waited. My dogs barked saying “What the hold up?” The little dog was still determined to get in the middle of my team.

“Go Home!” I told the dog.

I sit and stared at me. My leaders eyed it as if to ask “What is that?”

We played a game of back and forth that lasted 5 minutes.

With enough cajoling the dog finally got off the road and well back into the woods. I didn’t wait. I got on the ATV hit the gas and we roared past the little dog.

Phew! Glad that’s over!

I thought I was in for a quieter run after this but when we made our next turn I spied, with horror, a flock of loose chickens on the side of the road. We were almost upon them when I noticed.

Maybe the dogs won’t notice. I told myself. I really hoped they didn’t. We slid by the chickens without the dogs noticing. I was so relieved. I did not want to see the chaos of having a chicken run through the team nor did I want to have to admit to my neighbor that one of my dogs ate her chickens. You see, getting one dog to go by chickens is easy but the more dogs you add to the equation the more dogs you have that could potentially be disobedient. It only takes one to think its a good idea. If one thinks its a good idea, if you aren’t quick about it, they all will quickly think its a good idea.

At this point I was only about 3 miles into my run and left with a question: Do I continue my run or should I wait? In order to continue my run I would have to run past the small dog and past the chickens at least another 10 times in order to get the mileage I wanted. I knew, at the very least, I had to run by the little dog to get back home.

So I ran back by and fortunately at this point someone must have noticed the little dog was missing because he was no longer out to chase me. And then the second question: do I continue my run? Do I hope the chickens have been put away?

I decided I would give it a shot. I came around through the neighborhood the reverse of what I did before. When I initially passed the chicken we were on the same side of the road and they were about 3 feet from my team. This time, I came from the other direction and called my team over so we would have the whole road between us. I eagerly scanned ahead to see if I could see the birds. I knew if I did see them I would simply call the dogs up and make them run faster. I figured that at faster speeds they would have to be more focused and would have less time to notice the birds.

But the chickens were gone.

Thank goodness.

We continued to have a great run. We ran about 14 miles before I decided that we should go home. Once in the yard the dogs were still eager so I decided to take them out for another quick loop and put on an additional 2 miles. What a mistake that turned out to be!

Dusk was settling in now and a woman was out walking her two small dogs on leashes. We see her frequently and pass without much hesitation. Today was different though. Today we passed and I got a small tangle with a dog so I stopped ahead of the woman. My leaders turned down a driveway and I went up to correct them. That was when the woman walking her dogs dropped the leash.

This small 10lbs dog came barreling through my parked team. Before I knew it my lead dogs (they are in training) were turned around looking at the little dog. My whole team just sat there staring at this dog, who kept barking at them.

I tried to get the little dog out of the middle but it was dodging my hands. I was calm. My dogs were calm. But this little dog was barking, darting back and forth, and trying to elicit excitement from my team. Fortunately, they stayed calm and inquisitive though they proceeded to dance around the little dog.

Eventually, I got it out of my team but we got massively tangled.

My lead dogs were next to my wheel dogs. My swing dogs were my lead dogs. There were tug lines wrapped around legs and the gangline had gotten tangled around my team. And my team just stood there. This would have been the opportune moment for a dog, or the whole team, to panic. It was a recipe for someone to get injured, but I remained calm and talked to them. “It’s ok, we’ll get you guys untangled” I undid tuglines and necklines and had a few dogs completely turned loose. They went over to the little dog, who was still there with its owner, wagged their tails at each other and came when I called them to get back to their place in the team.

I blocked the road and directed a few cars by as night settled in. “It’s ok” I kept reassuring the dogs while working out the tangles. The woman, who was watching this all unfold, must have thought I was nuts as I never stopped talking to my dogs.

Then, when I was almost in the clear the smaller of the two dogs got loose again. This time, my lead dogs held the team out. They knew they had a job to do and that they hadn’t done it before so now they better. The little dog tried to stir up trouble but my dogs, frustrated at our lack of mobility, were patient and it grew bored and ran back to its owner. I was proud of my team.

Eventually, after about 15 minutes, we sorted everybody out and we continued down the trail with a little more trust in each other, a little more patience, and a little bit closer to the startling line.

Volunteering with The Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association

Sarah · October 11, 2011 ·

One of our sponsors is the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association. Every year they kindly donate us fish after they have taken eggs from them and in exchange we try to help them out when they need it. They use the eggs they collect to stock the hatcheries. They also monitor how many fish they get as it is critical to fish and game for determining when they can open up to commercial fisherman in the beginning of the season. They have to let so many fish return to their spawning grounds so that the salmon population will stay stable before they can allow fisherman to start catching them. Good idea, because they sure are tasty!

The Bear Creek Weir, which is where we get our fish from here in town, has two big salmon runs. In the spring, they have the Sockeye Salmon, also known as the reds (for salmon illiterate folk like me) and here in the fall they have the Silvers.

Not really knowing a whole lot about salmon, I found coming down to volunteer some of my time pretty interesting. The whole idea is that we are helping the hatcheries and keeping the salmon stock healthy. To that extent, we’ve collected about 140 silver salmon eggs and fertilized them so far. It’s a pretty interesting process. First, the salmon swim up to the weir. It’s approximately a 7-mile swim from the ocean to the weir and takes the fish about 5 days. Then, the fish are forced to swim up into the fish trap.

identifier?continue=https%3A%2F%2Flh3.google — Salmon Fish Trap: This is the only opening in Bear Creek so the fish are forced to swim up into the holding pens.

Once in the fish trap they are sorted male/female. For every 3 females the weir takes 1 male. I’m still not exactly sure why they don’t do a 1:1 ratio, but I guess they have their reasons!

When enough fish have been captured, the weir performs an egg take. That’s when we go in and help them. Although no one part of the egg take is particularly difficult, when you add it all together if you don’t have enough people it can be a lot of work.

The first thing we do is kill the fish. We only kill a few at a time so that everything stays fresh. I ended up helping bleed fish on one of the days I helped for the first part of the morning. Essentially, I cut near the tail so that the fish would bleed out. It makes it easier to take the eggs and, more importantly, to get a kidney sample later on.

They put the eggs of three females in one bucket. Then, they take a male salmon and (this is kind of gross) they essentially squeeze the sperm out of him to fertilize the eggs. Once this is done, the eggs are put in a salt water rinse.

The fish, both male and female, are then taken and kidney samples are taken to ensure that they don’t have kidney disease. I guess it is a pretty prevalent disease among salmon and they are trying to ensure a healthy stock. From what I could tell (I mostly bagged kidneys) it seemed like the fish were healthy. If the findings show any of the fish have the disease, however, the eggs will be tossed out.

2011 10 10 11 04 18 291 — Kidney sample from the 80th female. This will be tested for kidney disease. If it’s positive, the eggs from this fish will be thrown out.

After all that has been done, Travis and I get to take some of the fish and the rest goes to other local mushers. It’s really a great set up and we’re really happy we have such a cool way to spend our time and to help out. We are extremely grateful that the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association helps us feed our dogs tasty salmon all winter long and that they provide us with such an interesting volunteer opportunity!

A Note On Blogging

Sarah · July 30, 2011 ·

Well, our goal for the summer was to get a website up in time for the fall. So far, so good. We’re on track to be done. We have a few more pages to iron out (our sponors’ page and how to sponsor, as well as a our dog section) but for the most part, Travis and I are happy with how things are looking.

We’re starting to try and figure out how we want to do our blog/updates. So far, they’ve proven to be a challenge: summer has kept us busy and, for the most part, away from one another. While Travis is working in Anchorage, I’m down in Seward taking care of the dogs and working full-time. Our dog adventures have been somewhat limited in the summer months due to heat and trying to get weight on the dogs in time for fall training, but we’ve gone on some really great hikes / free runs with the dogs.

Bud, Pilot, Apache, Weiser, Hatchet, Larry, and Curly all enjoyed spending time at the Seavey’s tour kennel in Seward but are happy to be back lounging around in the yard eating yummy kibble and fish, digging lots of holes, and getting lots of love and attention. Hatchet recently travelled up to Anchorage and is keeping Travis company while Travis works at the WildRide Sled Dog Rodeo.

In terms of updating, we’re going to be updating at least once a week when training officially begins. We’d like to provide more of a behind-the-scenes look into how we do things and will be posting as many pictures as possible. We’d love to post some videos too but right now the only way we can do that is on our point-and-shoot camera. We’re hoping to eventually require a GoPro camera so that we can take HD videos while mushing and not have to worry about holding on to the camera but…they’re expensive. Right now, we’re pouring our money into buying dog food…

Speaking of, we just picked up a half-ton of Eukunuba. We’ve been really happy with it so far. The dogs coats are looking absolutely incredible and we’ve gotten a nice deal on it though the bill is still pretty hefty. Anyways, I picked the dog food up last Tuesday when I was up visiting Travis. This probably sounds like no big deal, you know, all in a days work, except Travis’ truck is a manual and I don’t know how to drive manual.

“Here,” he said and tossed the keys at me. “You’ll figure it out. It isn’t real far. You’ll be fine.”

I was less than excited at the prospect of learning to drive a manual on my own in the middle of Anchorage but we needed the dog food and he couldn’t take the time off. So I obligingly hopped in the truck and…wait? How do you start a manual? It took me a few minutes to figure out then I popped her in reverse and…stalled. I proceded to pop along until I finally got to the feed store. Pulling into the lot, it was clear I had no idea what I was doing: everyone stared.

Still, we got our dog food and will be able to feed the dogs for another month or so. We’re heading up to Fairbanks tomorrow to visit Lance Mackey’s kennel and to look at some dogs. We’re not too sure what we have planned but it’s been awhile since we’ve really been able to spend time together without work butting in the middle of the two of us — really, since July 4th — so it’ll be nice to have a few days to ourselves.

We’ll take pictures and post them when we get back. That’s all for now…leave us a message if you stopped by!