| Mushing
Through The Mountains Story and Photos by John Geary |
| As you glide along
the snow, the wind whipping your face and snow flying behind you, you
get the distinct feeling that mushing is the only way to travel in winter. It doesn't hurt that you're passing through the Spray Valley, one of the Rocky Mountains' most pristine and beautiful areas.
Thanks to the dogs, any dog sledding trip always begins with a high level of excitement, whether it's just an hour-long jaunt or a two-day excursion. The animals are bred and trained to run, and they love nothing more than hitting the trail to burn off their energy. Before they hit the trail, they're worse than a group of kids at Christmas, waiting to be given the go-ahead to rush out to the tree and start opening their presents. They strain at their harnesses, yipping and yapping, as if the only thing in the entire world worth doing involves running down a winter trail. The dogs are not the only ones that have to be prepared. Snowy Owl clients receive a half-hour of instruction about the dogs and driving sleds. Once the dogs and the people are ready, then the fun begins. Clients have two options for any trip: a more relaxed mode, riding on the sled comfortably wrapped up in a blanket while a guide drives; or, they drive the sled, for whatever distance with which they are comfortable. "We like to include people in the driving," says Connie Arsenault, "so they get what we get from the experience of mushing through the back country." You don't have to be a fitness fanatic to try your hand at driving. Although a certain level of fitness helps, even couch potatoes can experience the thrill of driving a dog team, as Snowy Owl will adjust their tours based on people's fitness levels. Of course, the guides can always spell clients when they tire.
No other winter sport compares to the feeling of mushing. Cross-country skiing is invigorating fun, but because of the amount of energy you have to spend just skiing, you may not always enjoy the full beauty of your surroundings unless you stop. Snowmobiling lies at the other end of the spectrum. Everything whips by too fast from the back of a gas-powered vehicle, and the noise is distracting.
Snowy Owl offers two-hour, half-day, full day and evening or moonlight tours as well as an overnight trip. On all the tours, the guides try to impart a love and respect for the wilderness setting in which the tours take place. "Wilderness teaches lessons," says Connie. "It treats us all as equals. If we are arrogant, we need to be humbled, and the wilderness can do that. It's our teacher, reaching out to the natural element in all of us to teach us what we need to learn." That philosophy parallels Native North American philosophy and spirituality. Snowy Owl builds many aspects of traditional Native culture into its tours. All tours start off with an introduction that credits Native culture with the origin of dog sledding. A full-day, 10-hour package - "Spirit of the Dog Society" - lets guests take a break from mushing to learn other winter skills like snowshoeing, animal tracking and snow shelter building. The educational
aspect goes beyond simply hearing about how Native cultures lived day-to-day.
The guests on that tour also meet all 150 dogs at the Snowy Owl kennel,
helping to clean and feed them, load them into the truck and eventually
harness them to the sleds. On the overnight trips, entitled "The Ghost of Fortune Mountain," guests sleep in Sioux-style tipis, and experience Native story telling around the campfire. The overnighters are very exclusive, involving only four guests per trip. The "ghost" in that tour's title stems from the fact guests often hear - but don't see - wolves on these trips. Natives referred to wolves as ghosts, because while their howling lets you know they are there, you very rarely see them. Even the food contains a Native flavour. On the longer day trips, guests enjoy a traditional Canadian Native campfire lunch that includes foods like Native bannock and deli smoked beef (a modern compromise, since they don't have time to catch and smoke wild game meat) toasted over an open campfire. Buffalo stew is available on some trips. On our shorter trip, though, we finish off our day with hot chocolate and home-baked cookies around a campfire on the snow clad shore of Spray Lake. As I glance out across the snow, I'm already thinking about returning to do one of the longer trips, so I can perhaps hear the howl of the "ghosts" reverberate throughout the winter night … . MUSHING LINGO IF YOU GO: About The Photos: |
I
was one of several guests on a short day trip with Snowy Owl Sled Dog
Tours, a Canmore-based company whose tours run anywhere from a few hours
to a few days. The company, run by the husband-and-wife team of Connie
and Charlie Arsenault, also supplies dogs to other mushers - and occasionally
to Hollywood (Due South used Snowy Owl's Raja as Draco's action double,
while SnowDogs used their guides ).
Driving
sled dog team can be an exhilarating - and humbling - experience. You
may not realize just how fast you're going until you actually fall off
a sled moving at full speed, and sit helplessly in the snow, watching
your team continue down the trail without you. On this particular trip,
I avoided that pitfall, choosing to ride rather than drive, so I could
absorb the scenery and snap some photos as we slipped down the trail.
Mushing
combines the best of both worlds: enough speed, (but not too much),
combined with the silence of winter wilderness, broken only by the swish
of the sled runners along the trail and the panting of the dogs. It
also offers the unique joy of interacting with the dogs.