in the existence of any musher worth their salt, but minus forty and below is beyond cold. Soft winter clothes suddenly make sounds like crinkling vinyl. Every breath you take stings your teeth and sears the whole way down your throat and into your lungs. Eyes must be blinked frequently and any wind—no matter how slight—will make them water with tears that freeze almost instantly. Touching the brass snap of a dog’s neck or tug line without a glove will leave a blistering second-degree burn. Even your bones seem to feel brittle and frozen.
Still, not even a cold comparable to when the mastodons ruled this region could get Cole down. Part of it is her perpetually positive disposition. Deep down she has always had a soul as warm as a summer’s day that she draws energy from seemingly without trying or even knowing she is doing it. But on this night, a spectacular show going on overhead, and the dancing astral light of a rich, emerald aurora kept Cole from focusing on her numb fingers, toes, and nose. She maintained her race lead with thick-coated Goliath—seemingly at ease running in these temperatures—comfortably being her front dog much of the way.
On the third leg of the race, the last hilly forty miles to the finish, Cole continued to stretch her lead and again had the fastest run time of any of the racers. In the wee hours of the morning, to the fanfare of only a dozen or so people still up at that time, she came into the finish line with the team still raring to go. All the dogs were covered in a thick hoar frost that had built up from running through the steam cloud of their own exhalations. Back at the truck, after the dogs had their harnesses slipped off, received a light massage from Cole, and had all inhaled a warm, wet meal of meat and kibble, some still had the energy to wrestle and play.
Goliath, even though he’s grown too old to seriously train with the team, still loves to run along with the other dogs, and frequently assumes the lead position.
A clever reader may be asking themselves, how I would know, since I was still on the trail when Cole came in. I know because it was relayed to me and the rest of the race field during the finishing banquet when Cole was awarded with her first-place trophy and prize money, and bestowed with the Humanitarian Award again.
“Anyone who saw her team at the finish line would know why she was chosen for this award,” said the race marshal, and then continued to extol the ways Cole embodied the best example of the bond between dog and man, or woman in this case.
Winning the Humanitarian Award is always a prestigious honor whenever received, but circumstances in which this distinct privilege goes to the race winner are extremely rare. Sometimes to achieve victory, mushers will run their dogs hard, really hard, some could argue a little too hard, so the winning team frequently doesn’t look and feel as good as they should and the race judges pick up on that.
For Cole’s win, she didn’t drive the dogs to extremes, or even outside their comfort zones to stay in front of the competition. Rather, she had a clean run, her training was specifically dialed in for this event, and that resulted in the team peaking as desired. Basically it lined up exactly as planned. So, to get the Humanitarian Award too, it really spoke to how well Cole cared for the dogs, before and during the race, and since we’re always trying to foster the message of excellent dog care, it was gratifying to come out on top and be recognized for this devotion. The icing on the cake though came the next day as we grabbed a final bite to eat before getting on the road to head home.
This wasn’t Cole’s first win and we were familiar with the experience of Cole being treated differently after she came in first. Like high school, everyone suddenly wants to sit at the cool table. Mushers who a day before wouldn’t give you the time of day are now eager to come introduce themselves and pull up a chair to eat with you, or perhaps buy you a beer. To our surprise, the prerace nay-sayer—who ended up finishing a few spots behind Cole—sought us both out, and instead of currying our favor over a greasy cheeseburger or bottle of booze, he made a sincere apology.
“Ya know, I gave you a bit of a hard time about that dog with the thick coat, but he made the whole thing, and I’m not too proud to admit I was wrong,” he said. Then, turning specifically to Cole he humbly concluded, “Impressive run, Colleen. I’ll never doubt your dogs again.”
“For the record, he finished in lead,” Cole replied, to punctuate Goliath’s performance.
It meant a lot to both of us that this musher was man enough to come and admit his error, but particularly that the added accolade came from a racer as accomplished as we knew this man to be. Our team, Cole’s performance, and Goliath’s contributions in particular had left a lasting impression with this seasoned race veteran. We’ve always believed in our dogs unequivocally and unconditionally. In that memorable moment, despite how brief it lasted or fleeting it might have been for this other musher, it was nice to know someone else saw our dogs the way we always do.
Horsing Around
Realizing I was no longer alone, I dropped the ax and rubbed my bloody palms on the pant legs of my insulated work bibs. I hadn’t noticed the visitors at first, and now was feeling a little self-conscious about standing at the center of a thick coagulated puddle, and so many scarlet splatters beyond that, making the once-white snow around me look like a homicide scene.
I had woken up early, before the weak winter sun had risen, to begin cutting on the carcass while Cole went to work. Having already skinned it, and carved most of the meat off the bone in huge chunks, I was in the process of using my ax to chop out a rack of ribs when the vehicle pulled up my particularly long, purposefully secluded driveway. In that moment I had to have looked like a murderous lumberjack enthusiastically re-creating the infamous door-hacking scene from The Shining.
It didn’t help that I had barely slowed my swing when they first arrived. I had the radio blasting, so didn’t hear their vehicle’s engine, but uninvited guests always induce a hullabaloo from the dog yard. The explosion of barks announcing their arrival is what caused me to stop my now public display of dismemberment.
Leaning on my ax while I caught my breath and feeling my pulse come down from near–heart attack levels, I could see several well-dressed women and a male teen all nervously talking amongst themselves in a magenta minivan. Finally, after a few minutes, the boy must have drawn the shortest straw because he exited the vehicle and approached with clear apprehension.
Dressed in a dark suit, starched white shirt, and black tie, he walked to within a few yards of me and my carnage and then opened with, “Can I ask what you’re doing?” It was obvious, from his wide eyes and the porcelain hue of his face, he was sincerely asking.
“I’m cutting up some meat for them,” I explained, waving my arm toward the dog yard. “It’s … or rather, it was, a horse.”
He nodded thoughtfully, processing the information for a minute, but must have deduce nothing too nefarious was taking place. His safety secured, he didn’t waste any further time and cut to the chase.
“Do you have a few minutes to talk about Jesus Christ?” he asked.
I thought about it and said, “Sure, if you don’t mind helping me finish this.”
Mushers are many things: resourceful, thrifty, miserly, cheap. Whatever term you want to use, mushers tend to get good at saving a buck because the expense of running even a small kennel necessitates counting every penny. Dog food is exorbitant. And we’re not feeding the run-of-the-mill grocery store chow, but a specially formulated kibble with higher percentages of protein and fat to aid the dogs’ abilities to build muscles and contend with keeping on weight while burning thousands of calories per day
