Who says us septuagenarians are too old to learn? It is
amazing what we grandparents can take in as result of grandkids. Today, I took
my two granddaughters (ages 11 and 9) to the library for a presentation by an
honest-to-God musher and learned enough to be dangerous. If your reading habits
allow a walk on the slippery path of odd facts, read on to learn another set of
reasons that those folks who live in the colder climes are sometimes considered
to have flickering pilot lights.
First of all, for you low-landers, a musher is one who
drives a dogsled through the wilderness along snow and ice covered trails; just
for fun, nowadays, but an essential mode of transportation before roads and
airplanes became the passing fancy that they now are. The speaker at out
library today is indeed a musher. She and her husband live in Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula where the snow is deep. They have Alaskan Huskies for pulling sleds – 150 of the
four legged critters to be exact, that they use for their dogsledding business
and their yearly entry in the Iditarod race.
Here is Roo, an 11-year-old Alaskan Husky who happens to be
one of her favorites who led her team of Huskies during her last Iditarod race.
She explained that the 45-pound female Roo is a little smaller than her typical
male Huskies at 60 pounds who pull in a team of 16 dogs during the Iditarod, a
race over 1,000 miles and several days long where the dogs and the musher spend
each night on the trail, regardless of the weather. She explained how the
musher feeds and cares for the dogs during the race with one of the important
tasks being to inspect their paws and replace their booties that last no more
than 100 miles, requiring her to carry dozens of replacement booties during the
race.
The lead dogs are the most important; they set the pace,
listen for direction from the musher, and keep the other dogs in motion. The
musher’s motto and main job is NEVER LET GO of the sled. The dog team likes to
run and absent an immediate command to the lead dog, the team will run away,
perhaps become lost, and the musher will have a long and perhaps dangerous walk
as she looks for her runaway team. Racing through the mountains is particularly
hazardous especially if the trail has ruts or a protruding rocks or trees that
can upset the sled. Our speaker showed one picture of herself being dragged
down a mountain trail as she held on with one hand to an overturned sled and a
runaway team.
The lead dogs must distinguish the musher’s voice amid the
cacophony of barking dogs. The beginning of a race is somewhat dangerous for
the musher since the dogs are excited for the start and anxious to run. The
musher must have a firm grip on the sled when she shouts, “Readeeey, Go!”,
because the sled is going to jump forward with the force of 16 dogs pulling
with all their might. After that, only four other commands are needed during a
race: Gee, Haw, Eeeasy, and Whoa!
The dogs are the athletes of a dog world. They develop
stamina through practice and their double layer of fur helps keep them warm and
allows sleep even when covered with snow and only a thin layer of straw for a
bed. The musher told us that if she had brought straw to the library, Roo would
have made his bed and went to sleep since he has heard her presentation several
times.
The lady musher explained that her kennel of dogs varies in
number between 120 to 180 dogs as new pups are constantly in the offing. She
said that the hard-working dogs push their bodies to extremes like female human
athletes and, like humans, have consequent low birth rates. She sells excess
dogs and retires older ones, making Roo one of the few older animals still working
even though she spends less time on the trail and now only for shorter runs.
The musher explained that her business includes offering trail rides to
tourists on a year-round basis and she has four handlers who see that each of
her dogs is examined and exercised daily. The musher personally clips dog nails,
sometimes a thousand in a single day. And I thought doing my toenails was hard.
It turns out that mushers do a lot of stuff with big dogs
that us ordinary folks would think unusual. My granddaughters now know all
about that, probably more than me and that’s why they can answer more Jeopardy questions.
I plan to spend more time in the library.
Want more about mushers? Here is address of the Michigan
musher who spoke at our library: www.natureskennel.com
