Tag Archives: dogs
Daazhraii
It’s snowing, which rocks. The trail down the valley looks like bubble-wrap and jolts the snowmachine with every tussock. The snow will soften it.
We went out several weeks ago and Geoff shot a caribou: a young male. We gutted it where it fell, leaving the entrails for the wolves and foxes. We ate caribou heart for dinner at camp that night before skinning and quartering it. All that week, we cut meat after school and into the evening.
Camp is about fifteen miles down the trail, and we broke another fifteen two weeks ago. Only seventy more to Venetie!
We had guests in camp the weekend before last. They didn’t visit while we were home, but the tracks were quite fresh.
There will be a new challenge as we push down the trail this weekend. His name sounds like something between black and swan in Gwich’in – closer to swan. Daazhraii. He is a malamute/greenland dog mix, and he’s a big boy – 20.5 pounds at 11 weeks. I am smitten, and Geoff is no better. He spent last weekend cooking and freezing caribou chunks for dog treats.
Bringing Daazhraii along will be tough. We’re bringing extra clothes in case of accidents, and I wish now that I’d found a light I could stick to his collar for nighttime romps. He’s an absolute sweetie and never wanders far, but I’d hate to lose sight of him out there. The fresh snow is nice though: his tracks will be obvious, and he won’t make it far, floundering along in the drifts.
Daazhraii: He snuggled up in my lap at Wright Air last weekend and showed his tummy to the world. I played with his feet and his ears and his tail and he just wriggled closer and went to sleep. He has learned to sit and come and look up when we say his name. He hasn’t mastered the bathroom, but he’s learning. The hardest thing has been leaving him for the day. I visit every hour between classes, but he still cries every time he’s left alone.
Bonus pictures:
In other news,
Inevitably, yet to my continual surprise, things are changing (as they always are).
I have moved into the cabin with Geoff. It’s a contradiction that I recognize. After all, I love living alone. Somehow, though, this makes sense. This arrangement is temporary, as is almost every aspect of my life in Alaska. That certain knowledge frees me from the burden of expectation. I am happy.
I like the warm, cheerful, cluttered chaos of the house. The cabin has no running water, and it’s small for two people who are used to living alone, but I like it. I like washing dishes with water hauled from school in jugs and five-gallon buckets and heated on a hot plate. I like going outside to pee and check on the northern lights. I like that I can see my snowmachine parked in the driveway from bed. I like the curios and bric-a-brac hung from the beams and tucked into the logs of the walls. I like that I am free to enjoy it all and not worry about what happens next.
As of last week, my freight canoe is finally done. Her name will be Lyra. In June Geoff and I will run down the Tanana and up the Yukon. We’ll take a break for dipnetting and in August we’ll run up the Chandalar to Venetie and then on to Arctic. Is it summer yet? I’m ready for the sun and the smell of green things and the hiss of silty water against the hull.
I feel like the universe is making me eat my words this month. I have decided that I am getting a dog. I feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite: I always swore I wouldn’t do this, and here I am looking for a puppy. Going out alone last week got me thinking: Why shouldn’t I have a dog for company when I go on adventures? I’ve been interested in skijoring since I first learned about it. Why shouldn’t I take my skiing up a notch and get a four-legged partner for speed over snow?
I’m in Boston now, getting ready for an awesome weekend with old friends. The important things haven’t changed.
Night Ski With Dog
skis growling on the white snow road
white dog wrestling her shadow in the streetlight’s glow
a wave around my ankles froths with night-blown snow
the wind alone draws me down the star-white road
We made snow angels until we were black and blue
Yesterday morning, I knocked on Ben’s door at about 9:00. I heard a muffled shuffling noise and a faint, despairing “oh no!” before he opened the door and let me in. He knew I was planning on coming, and was hoping I wouldn’t. The agenda: a ten-mile hike around Big Lake.
New snow had fallen in the night, but it wasn’t enough to break out the skis again. Those have been retired since the first heavy snow melted into a sheet of treacherous ice. Gingerly was a fan-favorite vocabulary word last week. P does an awesome impression of someone slipping on the ice for vocab-charades. We put on long johns, packed snacks and water, borrowed a GPS and a tagalong dog from Jake and Shannon, and set out, leaving a trail of boot prints in the fresh powder.
The snow masked the mountain in the distance, but it softened everything, muffling the sound of our steps in a heavy white scarf, and it covered the world with a fresh canvas for the little squirrels and hares and mice to fingerpaint on. It also hid a sheet of ice, left over from the last snow, under a slippery layer of deceptively crisp-looking new snow. I fell in an ever-more-balletic progression of styles. Once, I fell flat on my ass like a four year old. Another time, I wiped out, stood up, and wiped out again (Ben was laughing so hard he nearly keeled over too). Another time my right leg slipped out from under me and my left leg lifted in an elegant high kick as I went down. Ben was falling too, though not as extravagantly as I was, and even Angel (the dog) faceplanted a couple of times. I’ve got black and blue bruises all over my body, but I had a blast.
We met a fella from the village at this crossroads, and he sent us down the middle road, which, after a time, brought us to the shore of the lake. We didn’t dare try the ice, but there’s enough out there to support the snow, and the sky and the ground and the whole world looked like a blank page.
We walked on, exploring old four-wheeler trails along the shore until we came to a scrubby, marshy area at the north end of the lake. Here, it was safest to skate, plowing up an inch or two of snow in front of our boots with each step. We walked on ice dotted with grass clumps for at least an hour, picking our way through the low brush and scrubby trees, before we came to a trail on mostly high, dry ground again.
After about five hours, we made it to the landing at Big Lake. At some point since the last time we were there, some knucklehead took a shotgun and blew a hole clear through the outhouse. When he saw it, Ben exclaimed “well now it’s useless!” which made me laugh so hard I fell one more time.
chasing piggens 