Wednesday 18 December

This morning was leisurely, but with a focus on making sure we had a good breakfast, packing the car and outfitting all of us in extreme gear before we checked out: the cold weather gear turned out to be more important than we expected. It took about half an hour to find our way almost to Brad’s farm (not before we encountered a flock of wild turkeys wandering on the road.

Then we encountered a couple of unexpected hiccups: we reached the bits of the icy road that were uphill. Ice on a downward grade is difficult enough to drive on; ice on the up is even more problematic. Our first run up the hill finished about three quarters of the way up; Steve allowed the car to reverse, sliding back down about 100m to a flatter surface, where he got up a bit of speed. Up the hill we went again, a fraction further than last time, then slower and slower. We didn’t get much further before we stopped again. Steve and I got out, Dianne took the driver’s seat and we started pushing – uphill on ice with slipping boots. It didn’t work! (Would have been a funny pic, I'm sure!)

So Dianne and I started walking up the hill on the ice. We had not long passed one property when we started out and were relieved to discover that Brad’s farm was only about 200m further along the road. We were very grateful that at that stage it had warmed up to -7! We met Brad, who hopped on his tractor and went down the road to locate Steve who had again tried the hill and failed. Brad wasn’t able to do any better, so Steve parked the car and walked up the hill, about 300m.  So we were all safe but a lot of our energy had been used up getting there!

So up we walked to the pens where the dogs are kept.

They have only had a few brief runs so far. The season doesn’t start until Friday and it’s earlier than they expected (because of the early snowfalls) so the dogs need to get back in condition and the tracks have to be groomed before the crowds of tourists come. Brad had told Dianne that there weren’t any mushing runs until Friday (we were trying to book two teams so we could all go) but when she mentioned the reason for their interest, Brad said he would take me out because it was the only chance I would have.

We watched him carefully select first his direction dogs (closest to the sled), then his lead dogs, then six other dogs behind the lead dogs. Every dog was jumping around on its chain, barking, “Pick me! Pick me!”

 It was fun heading off on a very spartan sled, not strapped in or anything; very bumpy in parts, with no padding because the cushion had slipped. Sometimes the speed gets pretty high and sometimes it’s a slower pace. There are branches that hit you in the face if you’re not watching for them. Even with the speed, I felt perfectly safe because Brad is a solid weight and knows exactly what he’s doing.

The whole experience was exhilarating and exciting in the most incredibly beautiful surroundings. The snow was so deep and soft, none of the icy surface that it gets later. The bush is so breathlessly quiet when you stop: and, of course, there was no other “traffic”, just our one sled. I learned a lot about dog politics and relationships with each other and with Brad, as he talked about his world. The two direction dogs, for example were one totally blind and one going blind; they’re all so intelligent that they remember every part of the track.

After an hour’s ride, 12km, we were back. We had to walk down the 300km of icy road again and this time Steve was prepared with fast runs up the icy hills. Brad was about 10 mins behind us in his truck and would have helped if we’d become stuck again, so that was a good feeling.

Huntsville Maccas was our first stop for a coffee and to get out of our ridiculous layers of extreme cold clothing, back to more basic layers. By this time, it was snowing heavily again.

We had a look around a couple of the shops Dianne was interested in and then we went to Tim Horton's for a bite to eat (it was already 2.00) before we headed home. The run back to Kitchener took close to 4 hours, without a stop and was a good run, except for getting caught behind a snow plough for many kilometres.

It was a machine we hadn’t seen before, straddling both lanes of the highway, so the only way around it was to detour via an exit. The snow stopped about half way home and the roads were very good in parts, although icy for the last half hour or so.

Unpacking the car took a little while but we were soon eating another one of Dianne’s amazing meals and then all settled into bed to read or get an early start on sleep.