We left Fairbanks at 1:30 am on Friday the 12th. 29 sled dog, Cosmos the Jack Russell and everything I need for the summer. They trip was okay but it was foggy, for the first half which is a bummer because it is such a beautiful drive. The stress, anticipation, and the fact that it was the wee hours of the morning got to me so I had to stop a couple times for a power nap. The trip was pretty uneventful except the couple times I had to stop and drop the dogs. It is quite a chore getting 29 dogs in and out of a dogs box that sits in the bed of the truck . I am lucky in that I can let my dogs free but the dogs I borrowed from Jason I had to hook up around the truck except for Rocky who is a good boy and will stick around.
On one of my stops on the border town of Beaver Creek I lost Venus. Its sometimes hard to keep track of everydog when you are watching 22 free dogs. So I went to load the dogs back up and I am wondering where is Venus??? I called and called and she was nowhere. Finally I went inside the the restaurant and asked. Now keep in mind that Beaver Creek is a Canadian town so everybody is pretty laid back, eh?
I ask the woman who is working as the clerk the waitress and the cook, "Has anyone come in to tell you they found a white dog?"
She looks at me puzzled, "Your white dog?"
Now I am puzzled, "Yes."
"No."
Oo....kay. So I go back outside and look some more. There is a hitchhiker hanging outside waiting for his ride to get up from taking a nap. I put ou some food and water for Venus and ask him to come inside to get me if she comes back.
I have lunch inside and no one has come in to report a found dog. Now I am gettting really worried, I have to meet the ferry in Haines so I can't hang out for ever. I go back outside and look some more. I walk way down a trail behind the lodge....still no sign. I go back inside and ask the woman behind the counter if she has heard any word yet.
"Has anyone seen my dog yet?"
" Is this the dog from a little while ago or a long time ago?"
" Um....has ayone seen ANY dog?"
" Oh, yeah a white dog came into the kitchen a while ago but we let it back outside."
What?!? Now I feel like Abbie in Wonderland talking to some cryptical prankster tortoise. I go back outside completely frustrated. I am on the verge of tears. I go over to the truck and look inside at the dogs. I find myself doing this often when I am upset or confused, its like I am looking to them for answers. Even stranger is thats usually how I find them too. I look up at the one the top cubbies, I see a white face with a little pink nose, its Venus!!! She is looking at me , "Can we go yet? Don't we have a ferry to catch.
So now I am happy again, off we head done the Alcan Highway, radio blaring, one happy little travelling kennel.
The trip is cloudy, which is kind of a let down because it is such a beautiful drive through the Kluane Mountains. It really is one of my favorite places on earth. Instead it is blowing and snowing until we get to Haines Junction where we turn South toward Haines. The sun pops out and the mountains tower around us. How beautiful! One particular place we stop is gorgeous. Way up in the mountains near the Takhanni River. The dogs run around and play in the patches of snow and the river. The sun is out and life is good.
As we drop down into Haines the first thing I notice is that the trees are huge. No more interior scraggly black spruce but big towering Old growth white spruce. The road follows the river and reminds me of Valdez in a way. The town is is cute little fishing town I stop at the Pioneer Bar to have some real fresh Halibut fish and chips and a celebratory beer. The locals are very friendly and it doesn't take lond for me to make friends. Infact I had to turn down some free beers and an invite to the other bar or else I wouls be a little tipsy getting onto the ferry. The ferry leaves at 2:15am so I go down to the end of the road to a little lake called Chilkoot lake to drop the dogs one more time before we load onto the ferry. We watch the sunset and is beautiful as it reflects pastel colors unto to lake contrasted by the silouettes of mountains that hold it.
I drive back to the ferry terminal and check in. While we are wating to load one of the attendents comes over and asks if I could please put out my wood stove in my camper. He thought thats what my exhaust pipe that runs up along the side of my dog box is! I explain to him that my exhaust is set up that way so I don't suffocate my dogs with carbon monoxide. By the time we get on the ferry I am exhausted. So I go up to the observation deck, which is outside and lay down on one of the lounge chairs. There I fall to sleep basking in the full moon that comes up over the mountains and seems to like a path on the ocean for us to follow.
I wake up to the intercom announcing that we have arrived in Juneau. The sun is up and I am excited. as I dirve the truck off the ferry I am greeted by a guy in a black sweatshirt with the Alaska Icefield Expedition logo on it. He tells me to follow him. We drive off to Temsco Helicopter Airport which acts a base office for AIE. There I drop all the dogs and we wait for instrcution from AIE. I need an escort to get up the road that leads to our camp, but no one knows who is going to do it. I later find out that to work for AIE you need to learn to go with the flow. Everything is dependent on weather, helicopter landings, cruise ship arrivals, and dogs, so that is to say everything can change in a moments notice. I talk to the guy who met me, he came up from Wyoming with his wife and the other 4 mushers that will be at the Sheep Creek camp with me. They all work for Frank Teasley who is a competitive Iditarod musher and runs a major tour kennel. They all came up in a modified school bus, 100 dogs 5 people, one of them 8 months pregnant, and one cat. That sounded like quite the trip.
While we are waiting one of the mushers who will be working on the glacier arrives, her name is Emily and she is running one of my favorite writers dogs, Gary Paulsen. She is really sweet and we play fetch with Cosmos and her lab husky mix. Finally a group of trucks comes down to the airport and they tell Emily that she has to get ready to take her dogs up to the Glacier, now! Her dogs are being kept up at the camp that I will be at so they decide that I should just drive her up to get her dogs and her truck. We drive through down town Juneau to get there. It is a quaint little tourist town, every little shop has a clever name, because everything is set up to accomodate the cruise ships. When these cruise ships come in the tower over the town making it seem smaller than it realy is. The whole atmosphere reminds me of Martha's Vineyard or Rehobeth Beach. We reach teh road that leads up to the camp. Which is about 4 miles south of town.
"Wow it looks like hobbits should live up here!" I exclaim as we turn onto the road that leads to camp. The bottom portion of the road is the home of the AJ Mine Tour. There are old mine buildings and equipment dotting the whole way up the road. We keep getting higher and higher, until we are far above where you can look out and see the ocean. There are a couple nasty switchbacks. It is a narrow one lnae raod and you definately don't want to meet some one coming the other way as that it is prety dangerous to back up with the huge dropoffs on the side off the road, so every trip up and down has to be planned. Especially with the bus tours for the mine that happen periodically during the day, that combined with the fact that AIE bearly got the permit to use the Sheep Creek Mine and the road make for everybody extra careful about their road use.
The higher we climb the more excited I get. The road finally ends up in a little valley nestled high up in the mountains.
WOW
Its like a dream come true! Mountains shoot up on either side, the tops are snow covered and there are waterfalls raging down everylittle ridge. And in the back is the biggest one Completely snow covered with a little glacier at the bottom. There tucked in this pardise is 150 dogs houses, four wall tents (one of which that will be my new home), a little fake gold rush town, and a big shop which is left from the mine and will be our kitchen, living area, showers and laundry.
Everyone gathers to help Emily load her dogs into her dog truck. Then I unload mine to their new homes. Its nice to get them permanently out of the truck. I meet all the other memeber of the Sheep Creek Camp, or Gold Rush Tours.
Matt Hayashida the head of the camp. An Idtarod musher who used to work for both Frank Teasley and Martin Buser. Then there is the 3 other mushers that came up from Wyoming in bus. Each of them is running a team of Franks Dogs. There is Amanda who is 24 outdoor education major. She has been mushing for a couple of years for Frank. She is an boastful and aggressive woman. A little crude and definately a tomboy. She is the one who brought the cat to camp. We get along but don't realy click. Then there is Dustin and Kym who are 21 and 23, a couple who also work for Frank. They are vegetarians, which ends up being very hard for them being that it is so expensive to eat that way in Alaska. We are cooked for but the company certainly doesn't cater to special diets.Remember I too was a vegetarian when I first came up to Alaska. It took less than 2 summers at fish camp for me to change my lifestyle. They don't ever seem very happy up here. I think Alaska is a little to "wild" for them. They are from somewhere in California originally and I think life is alot different there for them. Then there is Sean, one of the handlers and who is by far the most interesting memeber of the camp. He is from Texas, and recently graduated with a Economics Degree. But he has been inspired by writers such as Jack Kerouac and Hemingway to travel the world. He just wants to do as many exciting things as possible. I guess he finnally received an email that the camp was a go and he got the job and 2 days later he is calling Matt from Seattle telling Matt to meet him at the Juneau airport in a couple days! His next adventure is travelling by car with his friend who will be graduating with a law degree down to South America. He has absolutely no dog experience though so he has a lot to learn here.
Matt tells me to take iteasy for the day and to go into Juneau and check things out.
Juneau is divided into to basic parts. Downtown, and the valley (for the Mendenhall Valley). Downtown is the pretty front for the town all the cutesy gift shops, bars and restaurants. The mouantins in Juneau come right to the edge of the ocean. So the town is built in a small space. The streets are what I whould expect San Fransisco to look like in that the are steep city streets. The cruise ships dock right there next to it all and almost dwarf it in a way. Across the inlet or straight is Douglas Island. Which I hope to cross the bridge over to soon.
The Valley is more for locals in that there are grocery, and hardware store, and even a Costco. Everything the layout of the streeets, and the layout in the stores in Juneau seem cramped and choatic. Like everyone was just trying to stick everything where ever they could find a space. I buy a couple things and head back up to camp.
Life is good! What a perfect heaven this is as I fall asleep in my sleeping bag with Cosmos tucked deep down inside. It gets pretty cool at night so having him certainly is a bonus. We are finally at our destination for for our summer adventure.
I ask the woman who is working as the clerk the waitress and the cook, "Has anyone come in to tell you they found a white dog?"
She looks at me puzzled, "Your white dog?"
Now I am puzzled, "Yes."
"No."
Oo....kay. So I go back outside and look some more. There is a hitchhiker hanging outside waiting for his ride to get up from taking a nap. I put ou some food and water for Venus and ask him to come inside to get me if she comes back.
I have lunch inside and no one has come in to report a found dog. Now I am gettting really worried, I have to meet the ferry in Haines so I can't hang out for ever. I go back outside and look some more. I walk way down a trail behind the lodge....still no sign. I go back inside and ask the woman behind the counter if she has heard any word yet.
"Has anyone seen my dog yet?"
" Is this the dog from a little while ago or a long time ago?"
" Um....has ayone seen ANY dog?"
" Oh, yeah a white dog came into the kitchen a while ago but we let it back outside."
What?!? Now I feel like Abbie in Wonderland talking to some cryptical prankster tortoise. I go back outside completely frustrated. I am on the verge of tears. I go over to the truck and look inside at the dogs. I find myself doing this often when I am upset or confused, its like I am looking to them for answers. Even stranger is thats usually how I find them too. I look up at the one the top cubbies, I see a white face with a little pink nose, its Venus!!! She is looking at me , "Can we go yet? Don't we have a ferry to catch.
So now I am happy again, off we head done the Alcan Highway, radio blaring, one happy little travelling kennel.
The trip is cloudy, which is kind of a let down because it is such a beautiful drive through the Kluane Mountains. It really is one of my favorite places on earth. Instead it is blowing and snowing until we get to Haines Junction where we turn South toward Haines. The sun pops out and the mountains tower around us. How beautiful! One particular place we stop is gorgeous. Way up in the mountains near the Takhanni River. The dogs run around and play in the patches of snow and the river. The sun is out and life is good.
As we drop down into Haines the first thing I notice is that the trees are huge. No more interior scraggly black spruce but big towering Old growth white spruce. The road follows the river and reminds me of Valdez in a way. The town is is cute little fishing town I stop at the Pioneer Bar to have some real fresh Halibut fish and chips and a celebratory beer. The locals are very friendly and it doesn't take lond for me to make friends. Infact I had to turn down some free beers and an invite to the other bar or else I wouls be a little tipsy getting onto the ferry. The ferry leaves at 2:15am so I go down to the end of the road to a little lake called Chilkoot lake to drop the dogs one more time before we load onto the ferry. We watch the sunset and is beautiful as it reflects pastel colors unto to lake contrasted by the silouettes of mountains that hold it.
I drive back to the ferry terminal and check in. While we are wating to load one of the attendents comes over and asks if I could please put out my wood stove in my camper. He thought thats what my exhaust pipe that runs up along the side of my dog box is! I explain to him that my exhaust is set up that way so I don't suffocate my dogs with carbon monoxide. By the time we get on the ferry I am exhausted. So I go up to the observation deck, which is outside and lay down on one of the lounge chairs. There I fall to sleep basking in the full moon that comes up over the mountains and seems to like a path on the ocean for us to follow.
I wake up to the intercom announcing that we have arrived in Juneau. The sun is up and I am excited. as I dirve the truck off the ferry I am greeted by a guy in a black sweatshirt with the Alaska Icefield Expedition logo on it. He tells me to follow him. We drive off to Temsco Helicopter Airport which acts a base office for AIE. There I drop all the dogs and we wait for instrcution from AIE. I need an escort to get up the road that leads to our camp, but no one knows who is going to do it. I later find out that to work for AIE you need to learn to go with the flow. Everything is dependent on weather, helicopter landings, cruise ship arrivals, and dogs, so that is to say everything can change in a moments notice. I talk to the guy who met me, he came up from Wyoming with his wife and the other 4 mushers that will be at the Sheep Creek camp with me. They all work for Frank Teasley who is a competitive Iditarod musher and runs a major tour kennel. They all came up in a modified school bus, 100 dogs 5 people, one of them 8 months pregnant, and one cat. That sounded like quite the trip.
While we are waiting one of the mushers who will be working on the glacier arrives, her name is Emily and she is running one of my favorite writers dogs, Gary Paulsen. She is really sweet and we play fetch with Cosmos and her lab husky mix. Finally a group of trucks comes down to the airport and they tell Emily that she has to get ready to take her dogs up to the Glacier, now! Her dogs are being kept up at the camp that I will be at so they decide that I should just drive her up to get her dogs and her truck. We drive through down town Juneau to get there. It is a quaint little tourist town, every little shop has a clever name, because everything is set up to accomodate the cruise ships. When these cruise ships come in the tower over the town making it seem smaller than it realy is. The whole atmosphere reminds me of Martha's Vineyard or Rehobeth Beach. We reach teh road that leads up to the camp. Which is about 4 miles south of town.
"Wow it looks like hobbits should live up here!" I exclaim as we turn onto the road that leads to camp. The bottom portion of the road is the home of the AJ Mine Tour. There are old mine buildings and equipment dotting the whole way up the road. We keep getting higher and higher, until we are far above where you can look out and see the ocean. There are a couple nasty switchbacks. It is a narrow one lnae raod and you definately don't want to meet some one coming the other way as that it is prety dangerous to back up with the huge dropoffs on the side off the road, so every trip up and down has to be planned. Especially with the bus tours for the mine that happen periodically during the day, that combined with the fact that AIE bearly got the permit to use the Sheep Creek Mine and the road make for everybody extra careful about their road use.
The higher we climb the more excited I get. The road finally ends up in a little valley nestled high up in the mountains.
WOW
Its like a dream come true! Mountains shoot up on either side, the tops are snow covered and there are waterfalls raging down everylittle ridge. And in the back is the biggest one Completely snow covered with a little glacier at the bottom. There tucked in this pardise is 150 dogs houses, four wall tents (one of which that will be my new home), a little fake gold rush town, and a big shop which is left from the mine and will be our kitchen, living area, showers and laundry.
Everyone gathers to help Emily load her dogs into her dog truck. Then I unload mine to their new homes. Its nice to get them permanently out of the truck. I meet all the other memeber of the Sheep Creek Camp, or Gold Rush Tours.
Matt Hayashida the head of the camp. An Idtarod musher who used to work for both Frank Teasley and Martin Buser. Then there is the 3 other mushers that came up from Wyoming in bus. Each of them is running a team of Franks Dogs. There is Amanda who is 24 outdoor education major. She has been mushing for a couple of years for Frank. She is an boastful and aggressive woman. A little crude and definately a tomboy. She is the one who brought the cat to camp. We get along but don't realy click. Then there is Dustin and Kym who are 21 and 23, a couple who also work for Frank. They are vegetarians, which ends up being very hard for them being that it is so expensive to eat that way in Alaska. We are cooked for but the company certainly doesn't cater to special diets.Remember I too was a vegetarian when I first came up to Alaska. It took less than 2 summers at fish camp for me to change my lifestyle. They don't ever seem very happy up here. I think Alaska is a little to "wild" for them. They are from somewhere in California originally and I think life is alot different there for them. Then there is Sean, one of the handlers and who is by far the most interesting memeber of the camp. He is from Texas, and recently graduated with a Economics Degree. But he has been inspired by writers such as Jack Kerouac and Hemingway to travel the world. He just wants to do as many exciting things as possible. I guess he finnally received an email that the camp was a go and he got the job and 2 days later he is calling Matt from Seattle telling Matt to meet him at the Juneau airport in a couple days! His next adventure is travelling by car with his friend who will be graduating with a law degree down to South America. He has absolutely no dog experience though so he has a lot to learn here.
Matt tells me to take iteasy for the day and to go into Juneau and check things out.
Juneau is divided into to basic parts. Downtown, and the valley (for the Mendenhall Valley). Downtown is the pretty front for the town all the cutesy gift shops, bars and restaurants. The mouantins in Juneau come right to the edge of the ocean. So the town is built in a small space. The streets are what I whould expect San Fransisco to look like in that the are steep city streets. The cruise ships dock right there next to it all and almost dwarf it in a way. Across the inlet or straight is Douglas Island. Which I hope to cross the bridge over to soon.
The Valley is more for locals in that there are grocery, and hardware store, and even a Costco. Everything the layout of the streeets, and the layout in the stores in Juneau seem cramped and choatic. Like everyone was just trying to stick everything where ever they could find a space. I buy a couple things and head back up to camp.
Life is good! What a perfect heaven this is as I fall asleep in my sleeping bag with Cosmos tucked deep down inside. It gets pretty cool at night so having him certainly is a bonus. We are finally at our destination for for our summer adventure.
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