October 29, 2002

Every year, the weekend after Jamie’s ‘ButtonBox’ weekend, she holds her ‘Big Falls’ trip. Where Buttonbox is a fun, easygoing, weekend filled with socialization – Big Falls is WORK for dogs and humans!

Normally the trip is 120 mile round trip adventure. This year, bad trail conditions forced a change of plans and instead of trekking to Big Falls we headed out to a friend’s place near Marcell, Minnesota, adding an extra 22 miles to the trip.

The stories and adventures from the weekend are many, but I think my favorites involve our passage through the town of Big Fork on the way out and back. On the way out we passed through at around 12:30am. As we were watering dogs by the Big Fork River, the local police officer - Officer Babcock appeared. He chatted with Jamie for quite a while – after all, she is a celebrity in the state and then we ended up getting a police escort through town (not OUT OF – I’d like to make that clear!). Lights flashing he lead the 5 dog teams through town and then as we traveled a few miles along the end of the highway, he tagged along behind to warn oncoming traffic. When we came to the spot where we had to cross over the highway and onto the snowmobile trail, he blocked off the highway (although there was actually no traffic at that time of the morning) and directed up across. How nice!!

On the way home on Sunday afternoon, I felt like I was part of a bad western – you know the ones where the outlaw gang is riding into town and the Mothers are scurrying to get their children into the houses – as our teams threaded their way through streets of town, folks where hustling their dogs into houses and backyards! Too funny!!

The trip was definitely a tough and arduous one, but the team did wonderfully, even though dogs like Grover stayed home! All 5 of the 2 year olds made the trip and did great.  Olena is always one of the first on her feet ready to go!

Now we are doing some shorter runs for this week as I ‘wind’ the team down from the last few weeks of hard work.

All for tonight – despite two days off of running dogs, I’m still pretty tired and can barely keep my eyes open!!

Karen

October 21, 2002

This past weekend was Jamie’s legendary ‘ButtonBox’ Weekend – held at the beautiful ‘ButtonBox’ Campground on ButtonBox Lake near Togo, Minnesota. 

On Thursday morning a large group (probably about 14 teams) headed out of Jamie’s place – after 8 miles a few of the teams splintered off for a 12 – mile run to the Campground while the remainder of us continued on down the trail. The plan was for us to go out 20 miles to a nice meadow Jamie knows (and where we camped last year) and spend the night. However, within sight of the meadow, we ran into a little snag – it seems that the gully we cross to get there had washed out over the summer and we ended up having to make do camping in a slightly muddy clearing. The dogs didn’t mind much – especially when we cut some pine boughs and made them cozy little beds!!

After setting up camp and getting a meal into humans and dogs we kicked around the campfire for several hours, telling stories and laughing. By the time we headed for bed it was dark, although an almost full moon (somewhat obscured by clouds) made it possible to see. As I was about to crawl into the tent I stopped to take it all in – a spot by a running river, bathed in moonlight; dogs teams nested in the tall grass or snuggled into the pine bough beds; the coals from a warm fire still glowing; headlamps from friends moving around settling themselves in for the night and the fabulous glow of colored tents lit from the inside – how can anyone ever wonder why I choose to live the life I do! 

Young dogs, not yet experienced at camping on the trail made for a fairly short night and restless sleep. With only 3 ‘rookie’ dogs (Olena, Denali, and Nahanni) on my team I was spared having to leap out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night to check on dogs – and I may have been the only one that lucky!! At 4 am, Jamie and I gave up on sleeping. We restarted the fire from the leftover coals (thank goodness – big, competent distance mushers we are – she had a lighter that was out of fuel and neither of us had matches!) and cooked some leftovers for an early breakfast. As we puttered about discussing race plans for the upcoming season it started to snow. We quickly packed up the tent and our four-wheeler before all our gear got too wet. By 9 am everyone was up, dogs were fed, campsites cleaned up and we were on the way on our 24-mile run to the ButtonBox campground.

I had been very pleased with the way my team had run on Thursday’s run, but Friday’s was even better. Led by Camilla and Orion the team put in a solid run that only heightened my (cautious) excitement about this upcoming race season.

Many more teams, including folks from Michigan, Wisconsin, and even California, were already at the campground when we arrived. Quickly we were settled in and all enjoying a big potluck dinner! 

Almost everyone headed out for a night run after dinner. It was really neat to look over your shoulder and see a long string of lights from headlamps and four – wheelers winding through the trees behind. After about 7 miles, Jamie and I splintered off from the main group and headed back to her place. Our plan was to spend the night there returning early in the morning with teams that included the remaining 9 dogs from our main strings – we didn’t want anyone missing out on the terrific training experience!! We were back just in time the next day to hook up with everyone for a morning run. That night we all got together for another run – this time Jamie and I stayed. The weekend wrapped up with breakfast on Sunday and a nice run back to Jamie’s place.

Today will be a day off for the dogs and then Jamie and I are thinking of doing another overnight trip on Tuesday to check out some trail we hope to use for the ‘Big Falls’ Run next weekend! 

The dogs are all doing very well. The 2 year olds, with perhaps the exception of Kluane are fabulous. Olena, in particular had a BLAST camping!

I do have one bit of dog news that I have been stalling on sharing – Butchie has been cut from the main string. Our very first run here in Togo Jamie commented that 8 year old Butch was looking old. That had never really even occurred to me, but as I watched him through her eyes on the rest of the run – I could see it. His gait is just not as smooth and effortless and it was in past years and he has some trouble keeping up when the speed picks up too much. I talked to Mark and he was not surprised – he said he thought he could see it on runs at home too – seems that I was the only one blinded by sentimentality. Cutting Butchie is the end of an era for me – he was the only dog on my main string that has done ‘it all’. His ‘rookie’ race was the 1996 Race to the Sky. He was dropped that time, but never again – he has completed every race I have. It’s not like he hasn’t left us anything to fill his paw prints – Draco, Orion, Surge, and Squeaky are all main string ‘Sons of Butch’s’ – but I will miss him. Butch is hanging out here and leading some puppy teams for Jamie to keep himself amused for the remainder of our trip – he will do the same for us when he gets back to Alberta. I figure Butch and I have traveled over 10,000 miles together in harness over the years – he has thoroughly earned his retirement. Mark and I hope it is a long one.

NorthWapiti's Butch Cassidy SD - "Butchie"

All for today!
Karen

October 10, 2002

Oh my gosh – where does time go. I’m amazed that it has been over a month since my last diary entry. Shame on me! Lots to report on – in fact, so much that it is going to take me several journal entries to catch up!! I’ll start off with some current stuff!!

On the 30th of September I loaded up the dog truck and headed down to Togo, Minnesota for my annual ‘pilgrimage’ to Jamie Nelson’s place. I won’t bore you all with tales of all Jamie has done for me in helping me grow and develop as a musher – most of you have heard that many times before – but I think this time with her is one of the best things I can do for myself and my team as I prepare for Iditarod.

Space on the dog truck dictates that I must make my first ‘cut’ of the season to the main string before this trip. I know those of you that have been kind enough to sponsor dogs in our ‘Sponsor-a-dog’ program are keen to know who came along – I will say that this was the hardest cuts I’ve had to make and some really fine dogs got left in the yard at home (notably Striker, Rosie, Cassie, and Jumper) – but without further ado, here is the list of dogs that are currently in our ‘main string’:

NorthWapiti’s Super Grover – ‘Grover’
NorthWapiti’s Mr. Snuffleupagus – ‘Gus’
NorthWapiti’s Camilla
Ch. NorthWapiti’s Guy Smiley – ‘Smiley’
Ch. NorthWapiti’s Oreo
NorthWapiti’s Draco
NorthWapiti’s Orion the Hunter
NorthWapiti’s Sir Galahad – ‘Surge’
NorthWapiti’s Robert E. Lee – ‘Squeaky’
NorthWapiti’s Kobuk
NorthWapiti’s Denali
NorthWapiti’s Kluane
NorthWapiti’s Nahanni
Chuchinka’s Nikolai II – ‘Nik’
Chuchinka’s Pathfinder – ‘Chester’
Chuchinka’s San Antonio Rose – ‘Kaylinn’
NorthWapiti’s Valkyrie Kara
NorthWapiti’s Freya
NorthWapiti’ Oden
NorthWapiti’s Loki
Alaskan’s Olena of Anadyr
NorthWapiti’s Butch Cassidy
And
Ch. Kainai’s Anchorman – ‘Mannie’

I feel this is a very strong and solid group of dogs and so far, they are showing that out here. I’ve never had a team pulling as strong and consistently as this batch – especially this early in the season. That certainly has me excited about this coming winter! 

The weather in Minnesota has been good. We’ve been able to get out and run every day, which is terrific. The trails aren’t as muddy as normal, which is a mixed blessing – Jamie insists (and I tend to - reluctantly - agree with her) that nothing builds a team quite as well as learning to pull together through a mud hole – but it is nice not to come back from every run covered in muck!!! 

As always, things are buzzing out here - in addition to myself, Lynzie Bacchas, who is training for this year’s Jr. Iditarod is out. Lynzie is a neat 16 year old with a great amount of ‘dog sense’. I would think she is one to watch on the Jr. Iditarod trails this winter! 

This coming weekend is one of Jamie and Ann Stead’s Boot Camps (you can find out more about their Camps at www.mushingbootcamp.com). A number of the participants are repeat Boot Campers that are also friends of mine (including Lori Pedretti – our handler ‘extraordinaire’ from Beargrease last winter)– so I’m really looking forward to seeing them. 

Next weekend is ‘Buttonbox’ – a wonderful, by invitation only weekend that Jamie hosts each year at one of the local campgrounds. Lots of great experience for the dogs and a darn fun time for the humans!! Last year 50 some odd mushers and 397 dogs took over the campground!!
The weekend following that is Jamie’s annual run up to Big Falls – a 120-mile trip, broken up into a number of 20 and 30-mile runs. 

Then the last weekend I’m here is the 2nd Annual Big Dog Bash. It’s geared for Inuit dogs, Malamutes, Samoyeds, and the likes. Rounded off with Jamie’s Alaskan Husky team and my Siberians – it is truly a ‘multi cultural’ dog weekend. (If anyone with ‘Big Dogs’ reading this would like to join us – drop me an email and I will put you in touch with Scott and Terry Miller, who organize the event).

Well, I think that is about it for today. I will try to post some more entries in the next few days to let everyone know about other happenings over the past month!! 

Happy trails!
Karen

August 26, 2002

First off, I would like to congratulate Karen Yeargain of Tumnatki Siberians for the recent addition of NorthWapiti’s KitKat. Yes, we sold KitKat to Karen in Oregon. She was REALLY hard to let go, but I know she will fit in beautifully in Karen’s life and kennel. Karen has an awesome sprint team that is kicking butt in the western US and we are very flattered that she feels KitKat will be a strong addition to her team.

Karen has been in contact several times since KitKat flew out there on Tuesday to let us know how happy she is with her and how well she is adjusting. That helps make things somewhat easier for me on this end!

It was a really busy weekend around here. On Friday, my brother Jim and his girlfriend, Melissa showed up for a weekend visit. Mark’s youngest brother Brian and 2 of his children showed up for a short visit on their way to Mark’s older brother’s place. Older brother, Kelly and family live just 6 miles away, so they showed up too and we had 7 adults and 5 children in the house for dinner. For those of you that have visited our 950 sq. ft house, you know this was a tight fit! But a good time was had by all anyway!
The puppies got a lot of socializing with the nieces and nephews! It was terrific for them (the puppies, that is).

Mark got a cold on Saturday and wasn’t up to doing much, but Jim, Melissa, he and I puttered around the yard anyway. Jim and Melissa got out and did some blueberry picking – the crop this year is the best ever – the ground around our land is literally blue! I went out to round them up for lunch and took Visa and Fly out with me. Visa quickly discovered how tasty blueberries are and was gobbling them up off the bushes as fast as we were picking. Lucky there is LOTS to go around.

For dessert I did up a recipe from one of my Alaska cookbooks – fresh blueberries, sprinkled with brown sugar, topped with a scoop of sour cream! Sounds weird, but very tasty!

On Sunday we marked some of the trails for our Fall Warm Up next weekend. We put in a nice 1.5 and 2.5 mile loop that will be wonderful for folks with carts. Mark and I will guide the longer runs on 4 wheelers, so no need to mark those trails.

Well that’s the news for now! The temps have been warm and I only got one day of running in last week. They are predicting temperatures closer to normal for this week – my fingers are crossed!

Karen

August 19, 2002

All kinds of things happening around here last week (like what else is new?) 

First off, Lynn Alfino, who wrote that great article on me that appeared in Homemakers magazine showed up for a visit. Lynn is working on another project, which I let everyone in on at a later date, and wanted to do another interview with me. It was a lot of fun to do this one in person, rather then on the phone. Luckily, she stayed overnight, as we were chatting well into the evening – much past my usually 9:30 – 10 bedtime! 

NorthWapiti’s Alpha CD, SDX, TT (aka ‘Allie’) made a trip to the vet for surgery on Wednesday. Allie is almost 13 years old, so any surgery is worrisome at that age, but she has been having some coat problem that the vet thinks was hormonal and she had some mammary tumors that needed to go. Minus a few internal parts, she is back at home and doing well. Real well, in fact – I have lost my place on the couch, as she likes to hang out there with her Dad, who is her favorite person in the world. Oh well, she is entitled. For those of you that don’t know Allie, she was the last-born pup in our first litter. She was Mark’s obedience dog and finished her ‘Companion Dog’ title in only 4 tries. When we began doing longer races she and her half brother, Buddy were my main leaders (if any of you have seen our business cards or letterhead, Allie and Buddy are the dogs in that artwork). Allie was key in my 1994 Quesnel, B.C Gold Rush Trail win. She retired from the main string after the 1997 season, but for years after that helped train a number of the up and coming leaders in the kennel. We hope this surgery will allow us the pleasure of her company for, at least, a few more years. 

We were pretty excited; at least I was, to have the ‘Return of Psycho Coyote’ on Sunday. ‘Psycho Coyote’ is this brave, deranged, but entertaining coyote that lives on the ‘government land’ next to ours. Whenever we would go through what she perceived to be ‘her’ territory, she would charge down the trail after us barking and yipping. We didn’t see her at all last season and I was worried that she had moved on to torment someone else or that something had happened to her. On Sunday we were coming down a road a mile from home, when all of the sudden their was a bunch of barking, yipping and complaining from alongside the road – ‘the Return of Psycho Coyote’. True to form, she caught up with us and ran in the trees parallel to my team for a bit, taking short breaks to bark in her strange ‘psycho’ way. When we turned onto another trail, she fell in behind us. She followed for about 1/2 mile, even impatiently waiting 30 or so feet behind my 4-wheeler when I got off to undo a tangle. Then, I guess as we crossed out of her area, she vanished silently into the woods. I’ll be taking my camera on the next few runs to see if I can’t snap a picture of my favorite little weirdo of the woodlands.

The pups are growing like weeds – big, fat weeds actually. All three are wonderfully playful and cute - definitely my favorite age. As I’ve been leaving the yard with the dog teams the last few mornings, there has been a little line up of faces peering out from their house – learning by example, I hope! 

That’s all for now!!

Karen

August 12, 2002

I've been pretty pleased that I've been keeping my diary pretty up to date lately - that was until I actually went to look at the diary page and realized that it has been almost 1 month since my last real entry. Where does time go? Unbelievable! Of course, lots has been happening in the kennel in the last while. We are full swing in training. The weather has been cool enough that I'm running almost every morning. We are up to 8 - 9 mile runs and I can honestly say that I have never seen the dogs look stronger! All the teams are even getting up the hill on our driveway - and those of you that have visited know that that is a nasty hill - without any breaks or help. That has always been something that didn't happen till much later, if ever in a season - I'm excited! I'm continuing to work some new dogs in lead. I've been surprised at how well these dogs, some youngsters, are doing. Olena has got to be the star - she is amazing! The rest of the dogs don't seem to share my enthusiasm for her, though - she is so focused and driven that she can really carry on at the start (and during, for that matter) a run. I swear the other dogs throw me dirty looks when I hook her up next to them. This morning I had Denali up front. He did really well - lots of promise there too! Last week or so I had Freya up front. Freya is probably the smallest dog on my team, but she has a BIG work ethic that more then makes up for her size. We were running the ditch of Highway 2 for the first time this season and the tall grass had absolutely no trail in it. Little Freya was totally lost in the grass, but never slacked up on her tug line, blindly taking commands without hesitation. I would have been impressed if that were one of my fully trained leaders, for it to be a young leader made it that much more wonderful!

Joey's pups continue to grow and do well. We have named them (with some help from friends) - the black/white, brown eyed girl is NorthWapiti's Born to Run 'Lou'; the black/white, blue eyed male is NorthWapiti's Long May You Run 'Junior'; and the piebald, brown eyed girl is NorthWapiti's See Spot Run 'Spot'.

We are disappointed to report that Jumper didn't have any puppies. She had been bred to Orion, but maybe she was planning to go to Iditarod this winter. She is happy to be back in training!

One very exciting bit of news that I was saving for last - Smiley has finished his Canadian Championship. This makes him the second Canadian Champion in the history of the breed (the first was our 'Mannie' - Ch. Kainai's Anchorman) to finish Iditarod. It was a real chore to keep that white coat clean for the show ring and I'm very happy, as I'm sure Smiley is too - he was getting dishpan paws and I was getting dishpan hands from all the bathing, not to have to be working on it anymore! Watch for show pictures of our handsome boy to be posted on the site soon. Gosh, I'm proud of him! Next in the ring will be Nik - but we are only planning on one or two more shows this season. Things are going to be getting really busy really fast around here.

All for today!
Karen

July 16, 2002

First off the most exciting news - Joey (Alaskan's Georgio of Anadyr) whelped out 3 pups yesterday. Well, the first two on the 14th and the 3rd yesterday, but it all kind of blurs into one day to me! She was several days overdue and I had been hovering nervously over her for a few nights. The first two pups look a lot like their Dad, Grover and the third one is a very cool looking piebald - white with black spots. Joey is one of the most relaxed Mom's I seen and the pups are a content and quiet bunch. 

Joey and her pups enjoy a meal! 

Other then that, things are plugging along here. I managed to sprain my ankle in one of the 'human traps' that the dogs dig out in the yard. They are so pleased when you take a nosedive into one of their holes and instantly pounce upon you to cover you with kisses. It's an even bigger bonus if they get you while you are carrying bowls of food!! This was almost a week ago and the pain has now just turned into a dull throb. It better just go away, I have a dog show this weekend and need to be able to run. Ah well, learning to work through pain is always good training for Iditarod!


I had a tiring and trying run this morning. Cassie has been showing signs that she was going to really start seeing things my way. I let that lull me into a false sense of trust in her and hooked her up as my main leader this morning (she had Kaylinn with her, but Kaylinn has absolutely no clue about anything other then just running when up front). Behind them I had all the 2 year olds and then other 'A' team dogs scattered throughout. Cassie was awesome for the first few miles. Then we came to our watering spot and I wanted to go by it, do a small loop and then come back and then stop to water. Cassie failed to see the wisdom in that plan and went on strike. Man that dog can strike - she gets this disgusted look on her face and plants her feet firmly on the ground. As she sees me coming up the team, see throws me this look that clearly says "Talk to the paw - I don't care what YOU want to do.". I struggled through with her for another mile or so and then decided this wasn't in the best interest of the rest of the team. I got her working again and then stopped on a positive note and took her out of lead. Because I was still suffering sleep depravation, or because I hadn't had enough coffee this morning, I decided to stick Olena up front for the very first time. Now I had 2 leaders and 2 swing dogs that didn't know 'Gee' and "Haw'. Olena was a little STAR (as I figured she would be) - she never looked over her shoulder, just leaned into that harness and pulled like crazy. I had to stop and run up front to show them what I wanted on just about every corner, but Kaylinn even showed signs that she understood more then I thought about commands. She really, really tries hard to please!!

Things continued along great until we came into the yard. Now this is usually a time when the dogs are starting to think about their snacks and I'm thinking about that cup of coffee that isn't too far away. Distracted by visions of caffeine, I failed to see the problem brewing until we were wrapped around a kennel and tree at the edge of the dog yard - and then Fly came flying into the picture. Olena saw no reason she should go running with him and every time I got them straightened out and pointing the right direction - off she went, tangling us again. It actually turned into a great training tool for both Kaylinn and Olena - both finally got the idea and held the line tight while I ran back to the 4 wheeler, then pulled solidly and straight into the yard - despite the big 'Fly' buzzing around them! What good dogs!

Leaving the yard for our 'finishing loop' (I usually ask the dogs to leave the yard and do a small ½ mile loop before putting them away) was just as exciting, Olena dug into her harness when asked but then had some trouble understanding that this was not the time to chat with Dasher, Dancer, and the 'Race to the Sky' pups!

They finished strong though and did a really admirable job of coming into the yard the second time! Yeah Olena - the more I work with her, the more I'm excited about her potential! And YEAH for Kaylinn, she is really developing into a keen to please and responsible leader. As for Cassie….I guess it is back to the drawing board….*sigh*

Have a great day!
Karen