Dog Sledding in The Great White North

By William Hawke

Creature Companions Editor had the opportunity to go dog sledding in Canada a while back. We thought the experience might be interesting to our Indian readership. Siberian Huskies are great pets by the way, but perhaps not suited for the Indian climate unless however, we're talking about Ladakh.

Back in 1995, while living in Montreal, I read an interesting advertisement in the newspaper about dog sledding adventures being offered from the Hotel Esterel in the Laurentian Shield (mountains) north of city. The ad read something like, “Become one with winter… go on a dog sledding adventure! This activity will put you in touch with nature like no other. Let man's best friend take you off the beaten track, through snow-covered forests and plains, beyond roads. Be soothed by the peaceful silence punctuated only by the sound of the wind and the panting of the huskies. Be on the lookout for fox, deer and moose tracks in the glistening snow... " After reading the advertisement I immediately said, "That's for me," and went ahead with the booking.

We (my former girlfriend and I) drove the 100 kilometres (northward) to the hotel on a Friday afternoon and stayed the night. During the check in process we also book a dog sledding adventure for the next morning. They told us to meet the Master Musher at 9 AM in the coffee shop for a briefing and to make sure that we bundled up warmly, because from there, we'd go straight to the dog sleds and from there, the trail.

At 9AM sharp, the Master Musher - a sweet French Canadian gal named Fran - walked into the cafeteria and announced that all Mushers (that was us) were requested to come over and join her at her table. Two other couples joined us and Fran commenced a crash course on dog sledding, where amongst other things she told us the commands for controlling the dog teams and methods to ensure the safety of the dogs.

Forty-five minutes later, we went outside to hook up our teams. The Siberian huskies were all tethered to stakes in the ice of the nearby lake. As we approached, they all started barking and jumping around. Siberian Huskies were first bred in Siberia for the sole purpose of pulling sleds full of cargo across the barren wilderness. They were born to pull and they simply love to pull. On this particular morning they knew why we were in their midst and in doggie language they seemed to be crying out, "PICK ME! PICK ME!"

Fran got all participants to help her select eight dogs for each of the four teams including her own. The sleds were anchored to posts so that the dogs wouldn't drag them away prematurely. Each sleds weighed no more than forty pounds empty and was built of birch. There were runners behind the basket (or body) of the sled for the musher to stand on. The rear part of the basket had a handlebar - the driver's only hold on the sled. Each sled was equipped with a brake - a spring-retractable wooden spike that the musher could drive into the snow with his foot. The dogs were hooked up in pairs on either side of a central gang-line of heavy braided rope. A stout tug-line connected the rear of each dog's harness to the gang-line. Each dog also had a neckline hooked to its collar to keep it from straying too far away from the gang-line; the neckline was made of thin rope and designed to snap if the dog should get wrapped around a tree or other obstacle that might cause choking. The Huskies were free to jump back and forth across the gang-line if the sled cut across sharp curves. The musher's only real control of this juggernaut is voice commands to the lead dog - the strongest and usually the most intelligent. This cleverly takes advantage of the dogs' wolf heritage - a dog team is basically a pack, and a pack always follows the leader, who in turn follows the commands of the driver.

Within half an hour, all the teams were hooked up and the dogs eagerly leaned forward trying to drag the anchored sled. Their feet kicked up snow behind them and they howled wildly, seemingly saying, "Let's go! Let's go!"

Fran instructed the female member of each team to get into the basket of the sleds and made sure that the mushers were all in position on the rails of their sled. She reminded us that the dogs only understood French and that we were only to give commands and encouragement to the lead dog. These consisted of: Bon chien (Good dog); Avant (Go); Whoa (Stop); a droit (right); and, a gouche (left). Then she got on the runners of her own sled and yelled, "CUT US LOOSE," to her assistants! Each sled team shot out of the starting position at about fifteen second intervals, with Fran the Master Musher and her team in the lead. Immediately, the huskies stopped howling and got down to the business for which they were bred and for which the live - pulling sleds over snow.

The first leg of our adventure took us across the frozen lake at about 40 kilometres per hour. My hat flew off but the musher behind managed to snatch it from the snow as he passed. On the far side of the lake the dogs automatically slowed down as we encountered the start of a well-beaten trail that led into the frozen forest. Our journey was a series of up's and down's across small hills and level stretches over fields and other small lakes. At one point we encountered a hill that Fran had specifically warned us about during her crash course. As instructed, I got off the runners and helped the dogs by pushing the sled up the 25-degree incline. Then the real challenge presented itself -going down the other side. This was a forty-five degree downward stretch of about one hundred metres in length. There was a sixty-degree turn to the right at the immediate bottom of the hill. The challenge of this stretch was to prevent the sled from overtaking the dogs - thus causing injury. I jammed on the break and down we went. I managed the hill without running over the dogs all right, but rolled the sled while navigating the turn at the bottom. My girlfriend fell out of the basket, but I hung on while yelling, "Whoa, Whoa," and it worked! The dogs came to an immediate halt. To ad insult to my injured pride, the lead dog looked back and seemed to say, "Stupid." I hastily got everything back in order and yelled, "Avant!" We were off again.

I had a male and female paired up in the middle on my team. The bitch must have been in heat, because every time we stopped, the male jumped on her back. When we stopped at a cabin halfway along the trail for refreshments and rest for the dogs, I mentioned the amorous pair to Fran. She took the bitch and connected her beside another bitch on the team behind. She hooked up a male in her place. After that, the offending male wouldn't pull. He continuously ran while looking back to see if some other male was getting the action. There were seven other dogs pulling, so his effort towards forward movement wasn't missed too much.

The adventure lasted about three hours, including the half-hour break. And it was an experience that I'll never forget. If any of my Indian readers ever visit the Province of Quebec during winter, I fully recommend the sport of dog sledding. If in Montreal, I recommend the Hotel Esterel, whose website is: www.esterel.com. Another website to check is that of Tourism Quebec: www.bonjourquebec.com. Who knows; you might find me on the trail, because I plan to do it again!