This is part of a retrospective on our trip to see polar bears in Canada in 2002. In this episode, we ride a dogsled and never want to leave.
Monday, November 11, 2002
On our third day in Churchill, we woke up and decided to try something new for breakfast, so we walked a whole two blocks to Seaport Inn down the street. The food was better than at the Churchill Motel next door to us, but the service was lousy and it took forever to get served. Most of the restaurants are somehow attached to a motel, and there aren't many, so we had to take what we could get.
After breakfast, we boarded a yellow school bus for a trip to an old rocket launching site, now a repurposed into a scientific study center. At this point, I had finally gotten over my fear that polar bears were lurking around every corner. I was fairly confident that most of them had already hightailed it out of town and were more interested in tasty seals than humans for lunch anyway. The few we saw the day before seemed to be the lollygaggers, mostly young males unaware of global warming, who probably figured that they had all the time in the world.
We arrived by our luxury school bus at the scientific research center for a lecture and slide show by one of Canada’s best dogsled mushers. He
was a member of a trans-Antarctic Expedition 10 years before, and had some interesting slides about his trips.
Alexander immediately got antsy and took it upon himself to run out the door into another room. It was Frank's turn to give chase, so Frank missed most of the lecture. I felt bad for him, because he is an Antarctica buff and I knew he was dying to hear about the expedition. I went out to find the two of them so Frank could hear the end of the lecture. I finally found them in the staff lounge, where Alexander had managed to spill coffee, creamer, and everything else he could find all over the floor. Frank was upset with him, so I cleaned up, and took over child wrangling duties.
Outside, there were two teams of dogsleds hooked up and ready to take people for rides. Frank decided to opt out, and I hesitated at first, because I didn't know if Alexander will sit still through the entire thing. I reconsidered when I realized that I might never have another chance to ride a dogsled. I spoke to the lecturer/musher, and he agreed to take us on on a shorter ride. If Alexander put up a big fuss, at least I could take comfort in knowing that it would be over soon.
We stood by and watched Chris board a dogsled with a member of our tour group, a nice lady from Miami, Oklahoma. Next up were Ruth and Ralph, who went whizzing by in a flurry of fur and leather straps. The dogs were anxious to go and acted like they needed someone to put Ritalin in their doggy chow. They kept trying to pull before everything was ready. We learned in the lecture that a musher never says "mush!" to the dogs (that's some kind of TV fiction), but says "Hai!" and "Yaw!" to get them to go.
While the other members of our group were out dogsledding, we went back on the bus to warm up. The musher/lecturer's wife arrived with their little boy, who was about a year old. The boy had enormous blue saucers for eyes and was smiley and utterly charming. He and Alexander hit it off famously.
When it looked like everyone else had just about finished, we went back out and I decided to literally throw caution to the wind and "just do it." At first Alexander was excited to "go ride the doggies", but once we were seated on the sled, he started crying and wailing. I realized just as we take off that the dogsled team members had pulled the blanket over his head, so he couldn't see anything. I lowered it just enough for his eyes to peer out, but the rest of him remained protected from the wind.
We took off with a jolt that took his breath away, and he immediately stopped crying. Next thing I knew, we were rounding a bend around a small frozen pond and he was yelling, "Go, dog, go!" and clapping and laughing. I hug him tight to my chest, and the two of us yelled and whooped, having the time of our lives. I immediately regretted that we opted for the short ride, and wanted it to go on forever.
As far as Alexander was concerned, the ride could have gone on all day. When we finally came to a stop, he cried and said, "Again! Again!" I told him our turn was over, and he cried some more, and in a forlorn voice whimpered, "Doggies..doggies..." as if he were leaving his best friends behind. This was probably the highlight of his trip, aside from the snowmobiling with the Marten family.
The dogsled ride was certainly one of the highlights of the vacation for me. It was exhilarating, and hearing Alexander's peals of laughter over the sound of the wind whooshing by, is something I'll remember for the rest of my life. It was the sound of pure joy.
