Cold

When it's this cold outside, everything creaks. I swear I hear my truck groan as the engine turns over.

When it's this cold, the floor of the cabin is like an icebox. Last night, I sat a bucket down on the cabin floor that had snow on its bottom. This morning, the snow was still intact on the floor, despite the constant wood stove roaring, preserved by the cold air wafting up through the floorboards from the ground below.

Right now, it is -2 at noon. Tonight it will be -19.

When it's this cold, there's not much difference between -5 and -15. It's just damned cold. I splashed some water on the floor as I was filling my buckets for the dogs, and it froze within five minutes.

Every animal has the ability to adapt to its environment in order to survive in its current habitat. For example, the snowshoe hare changes the color of its fur to adapt to winter's white, and a cactus as well as a camel both adapt to a lack of water in their habitat.

Sometimes, people ask me if my dogs are warm enough in temperatures such as the current deep freeze in the Midwest.  I need only remind them of 7th grade science class - and adaptation - for a reply.

It is imperative that mammals who live in climates where the temperature drops this low adapt or they won't survive. Sled dogs have literally hundreds of years of genetic coding behind them that have enabled them to not only survive, but thrive in arctic temperatures. Although sometimes when the temperatures drop this low, I will bring a couple of my shorter-coated dogs inside, my dogs prefer being outside and pace and wait by the door when they're inside.

A sled dog rests at a Seney 300 checkpoint

Thick fur, calloused tough feet and long guard hairs covering ears are ways sled dogs have adapted to keep them warm in frigid temperatures.

Biologically speaking, maintaining body temperature in mammals depends on the balance between heat production and heat dissipation. We mammals are equipped with some basic ways our bodies create heat, like, for example, shivering. This is an involuntary response to extreme cold that gets us moving in a basic way to increase our body temperature. The basic respiratory rate of mammals also increases slightly when the temperature is cold.

There are a few ways mushers help Mother Nature out with maintaining heat production in our canine athletes. One is through calories. A basic way our bodies produce heat is through the ingestion and burning of calories. During really cold days, I will increase the amount of food I feed my dogs to help them maintain comfort and their optimal weight.

Another way we help our dogs out is with preventing heat loss through body-to-air gradient. Think straw! Lots and lots of straw or wood chips help the dogs "nest." Additionally, the snow packed around their houses creates a sort of insulation, like an igloo of sorts, which keeps the warmth inside their houses and the cold outside.

Sled dogs are quite naturally equipped to handle frigid cold. If anything it is we humans who haven't learned to adapt to climate changes.

The author, gearing up to go outside in negative temperatures!

 

 

 

 Stay warm, and as always...

But wait...there's more

The landscape here is transformative. It has, no doubt, changed me this fall and winter. But another element is transformative, too: the sense of community here.

Maybe it is because of this harsh landscape that the people who live here -- the people I've come to know as friends -- are the total opposite of harsh.

I have been humbled by the willingness and generosity of the people I am proud to call a community of friends here. Two such friends are Tom and Scott.

I had stopped the team to rest briefly and to offer snacks, and Tom and Scott - who had been expecting me at Jim Warren's cabin - drove snowmobiles out to where I was stopped and met me there. After snacking the dogs, Tom and Scott led me to the trail that leads to Jim Warren's camp, where I had coffee and warmed up. And, at 7:30 that night, in an almost total white out, they led me with snowmobiles down the trail to M-414 where I was back in familiar territory.

We parted ways at the intersection of M-414 and M-410. It was 8:30 when Tom bid me adieu and I ventured off with the team in the blinding snow. My eye lashes were popsicles and I could hardly see passed my wheel dogs, the snow pelted into the beam of my headlamp with such force. At one point, I turned the lamp completely off and ran by the light of a half moon.

My sled runners sounded like the hull of a ship parting cold water. At least that's what they reminded me of. They creaked rhythmically as they parted the snow, matching the cadence of the dogs' jingling collars. Even familiar territory can seem unfamiliar in a night time snowstorm, and it is easy to miss a turn. We flew down the side of County Road 410, finally turning sharply into the woods to head for home.

About three miles from the cabin, as the snow continued to fall in that stillness, I heard a low howl in the not so far off woods beside Seven Mile Fire Line road. This was not the howl of one of the sled dogs from the kennels in the distance. This was a different howl, a lone howl, deep and guttural.

The trail leading to the cabin is a quick 90 degree turn off Seven Mile Fire Line road. The dogs know it instinctively because it leads to home, and never fail to take it, even when I don't want them to. As the low howl in the distance became louder, we came upon the turn off for the trail to home.

Normally my leaders fly into that turn. Not this time. They passed it.

"Whoa," I called out to my leaders and gave a sharp "Gee!" command, telling them to turn right for home. Again, they refused. Their ears perked up, and the hackles raised on their backs.

The howling in the distance stopped in an eerie silence. My dogs insisted on going straight ahead up Seven Mile Fire Line, and for once, I didn't argue with their judgment.

Later that night, back in the cabin, I woke at 3 a.m. from the distinct sounds of coyotes yipping just outside. Big Brown, my lead dog who has become "cabin dog" woke from a dead sleep too and went wild, jumping for the door to see out the window. The mirthful-sounding coyotes seemed to be laughing outside as the snow piled up around us.

Ever mindful of the fire, I rose briefly to add another log, then retreated back into my fleece sheets for slumber, safe and warm in this quiet Heaven.

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure." Joseph Campbell

The dogs and I headed out yesterday for what I intended to be a routine 35 mile run/camp out. I had planned to run 17 1/2 miles over to a neighboring sled dog cabin owned by Jim Warren, let the dogs rest for an hour or two, and then head back. It had been six years since I had run the trails that lead to Jim's cabin, however, and last summer, a huge fire, known as the Duck Lake Fire, wiped out much of the wildlife on the trails between the cabin I stay at on M-407 and Jim's, transforming the landscape into something almost totally unrecognizable to me.

A good musher is a prepared musher, and I have learned to always pack in case of an emergency. Before any long run, my sled bag always has the following in it: sleeping bag, camp pillow, fire starter, waterproof matches, emergency blanket, axe, bolt cutters, compass, map of the area, water, one meal/snack, one cup per dog of dry kibble plus chopped meat blocks and dog bowls for the dogs. I also never leave without my cell phone (even though I very rarely get reception anywhere up here), and GPS. I also always travel with a multi-tool, two snow hooks (anchors that stop the sled), a snub line (a rope to secure the sled to a tree or other stationary object), extra booties and necklines/tuglines for the dogs and my sled, just in case.

As I headed out yesterday, I was packed for an emergency, but have never actually considered I would ever be in an emergency. I had a hand-drawn map a friend had given me the day before to help guide me to Jim's cabin, and the first ten miles of the route is a system of trails the dogs and I are quite familiar with and have traveled all fall and winter. It all seemed very simple. Right?

I turned left onto M-414 and headed toward M-435. All was going as planned. But somehow, I missed a very subtle turn off about 12 miles into our run. I ended up on M-423 toward the Rainbow Lodge, a main site of decimation from the Duck Lake Fire last summer.

This is not where I needed or intended to be.

It is exceedingly easy to become disoriented in the labyrinth of trails along the Lake Superior shores. This particular day, it was even more so. The wind was blowing fiercely from the northwest off of Lake Superior in 25-35 mile per hour gusts. The temperature was about 10 degrees, and with the wind, it was below 0. And it was snowing heavily - so heavily, that my tracks were all but covered by drifting snow shortly after passing through an area of trail, and at times I couldn't see for the snow.

I found myself in the middle of the area that had been burned in the Duck Lake fire, on M-423, a dirt-based, seasonal road that was a solid sheet of ice. The juxtaposition of the ice next to the barren landscape that had been charred only six months prior was eerie; I felt like I had entered an entirely different country.

I had turned off on several trails and roads, and realized I had completely disorientated my sense of direction. The wind was blowing across the barren and desolate landscape in a way I had never experienced. It was already 3:30 p.m. I had to consider my options. If I continued on, I would undoubtedly become more lost. I decided the best thing would be to turn around. Most lead dogs are excellent and following a scent trail, especially when it leads back the way they came, and my leaders are no exception.

The only problem was, I was on a solid sheet of ice, in a barren land. There was nothing to either hook a snow hook into or tie a snub line to in order to turn the team around.

I came to an area beside a large pile of stacked lumber. This provided a little break from the wind and I stopped the team and searched for something to hook to briefly. I took my big over mitts off, threw my snow hook in between two giant logs in the wood pile, said a quick prayer, and headed up to the front of my team toward my leaders.

Just then, Big Brown and Yeti, my two lead dogs, saw me and, on their own, turned the team around and headed toward me! Quickly, I ran back toward my sled so the force of their turn wouldn't snap my hook, but before I could get back on the runners, the hook popped and the team started back down the road of ice. I hooked my left arm into the handlebar of the sled, catching it just in time, and rode on my knees down the ice for a few seconds before righting myself on the runners.

So we were headed back, but without my favorite Outdoor Research over mitten - the left one. I had dropped it on the quick about face my leaders managed. My cheeks burned in the blowing snow and wind, and my left hand, which was now exposed, burned as well.

As we headed back, my trail already covered by blowing snow, I thought to myself about why it is I live for this.

This is fun to me. This is what gets my blood pumping: to be outside in the elements, far, far away from "civilization" and "society," in solitude where anything can happen and to be self-reliant. I am thankful for what my dogs have taught me, for even in the blowing snow and bone-chilling wind, they never faltered; they simply leaned into their harnesses, put their heads down and trudged on. They do not wonder why, even as their faces are covered with an icy mask of snow.

I celebrate the ability to deal with adversity and patience necessary to think fast here. I have a healthy respect for this landscape. It is harsh and indifferent, and so remote, there is a real threat of becoming lost here.

Perhaps I am a thrill seeker.

Here is one of my main leaders, Big Brown, who is neither big nor brown, enjoying some much deserved rest in the cabin after a hard day's run!

Here is a video clip of the wind and my team trudging along M-423.

As always...