Day 38- Palmer

 July 19

Woke up to a beautiful day!  Clear sky and warm.

Our first outing of the day was a dog sled tour at the Alaska Dogstead.  It was in Big Lake, about a 45 minute drive.

I think most dog sledding teams are out in the sticks but I thought I was going to hear dueling banjo's as we drove up.  It was certainly not as professional looking as other team tours I've looked at but I had read good things about it.  I have to be honest I was a bit nervous.  

We met Nik who is native French and despite living in the states most of his life still had a pretty good accent.  

First order of business was puppy's.  Nik had a littler of three this year.  He breeds from his own stock.  He also does not sell his dogs or stud them.  His dog's might be a touch inbred.  But it works for him.

The girls all loved puppy time.  It's actually an important part of training.  The dog need to be ok with all types of people handling them as during the races at every checkpoint they are inspected by vet's to make sure the dog's are healthy.

 He has a unique naming system.  Many are named after famous dog sledders.  Particularly the female dogs.  I thought it was pretty cool that he honored these women that kicked ass in a male dominated sport.  The males were the odd one's.  Names such as ketchup, mustard, special sauce, hot sauce.  He defiantly had a theme going.  But it's cool that he was having fun with it instead of some boring old name.

We learned that Alaskan huskies are kind of a mutt breed and are not recognized by AKC.   The originally started off as working sled dogs back when Alaska was first settled.  There were no roads and such so everything was brought in by dog sled in the winter.  As that died out the dogs were breed with greyhounds to gain speed.  Which is the dog we see today.  

After puppy time we met all the older dogs.  I will admit I'd prefer to see the dogs in kennels as opposed to chained.  But they all seemed happy and well cared for.  You can tell by how the dog carries themself.  They are not afraid or shy away from people.  Not aggressive in any way.  They each had their own little dog house they could go in as well.  

It was funny watching them just start to howl for no reason.  One would start and they would all join in.  And then they would all stop almost in unison.  

We personally met all 14 dogs that would pull us on the sled today.  Nik has about 30 dogs total.  

After we met the dogs Nik showed us all his awards and gave us some details on how you qualify for the Iditarod.  Nik has a ton of first place finishes for qualifying races.  His best Iditarod was second.  It sounded like he would have got first but the trail was poorly marked or weather hid the markers that year and he took a wrong turn for several hours.  The worst in the Iditarod was 20th and that was his first race in 2011.  There are roughly 100 entries each year in the Iditarod so even at 20th place that pretty good.  I forgot what race he it was, but he missed the start due to mechanical issues with his transport truck.  He volunteered his time and the race comity created a new award call the Most Entertaining Volunteer.  Nik is a character.

We also got to see the sled that he races with.  It really doesn't look like much, but it was really quite expensive.  The runners have swappable slides depending on the snow conditions.  I was surprised at all the gear they have to bring.  Food for the dogs plus an extra days worth.  Survival gear, food for themselves, etc.

I have to take him at his word of course but he claims he is really in tune with his dogs and he would rather loose or take a lower place in exchange for the health of his dogs.  He did say he hit his SOS button once because the trail was mis-marked so badly he got so of course he would have risked the health of his dogs to get back on track.  He says the ears ar the key to how a dog is feeling.  Ears back while racing means they are happy and healthy and listening for commands.  If they lift an ear it means they have a problem.  A right ear pointing forward is right leg, up and back is the right back left.  Same for the left side.

After the awards, he showed us how to harness the dogs.  He would let loose 4-5 dogs at a time and they would run free, a simple call of their name and they would come running.  After a brief demonstration he let us do the harnessing.  We harnessed all 14 dogs except 1 or 2 that were a little more rambunctious than the rest.  Nik got them hooked up to the tow rope and we got seated in the cart.  The dogs seemed to be all chaos but with a simple command they snapped to attention.  We had two false starts as both times a dog broke free.  I think the tour equipment is recycled from races.

Finally we were off.  We were seated in a homemade cart.  Two rows with Nik in the back steering.  He had a simple yoke to steer and a brake.  The ride was a blast!  We went all over the property.  We had a small break for the dogs to jump in the water and for Nik to change lead dogs.  The tours are part of the dogs training so he wants them to all get used to leading.  

There are no whips, no striking of any kind like in other animal races.  Just simple voice commands.  The dogs just love to run.  Commands are simple.  Nik does not have to shout.  

After the run Nik gave us all a souvenir.  Used booties from previous runs.  The girls asked for more puppy time so we did that for a while before we left.  Our tour was scheduled to be an hour and a half.  We were there 2 and a half hours.

Heidi gave a nice tip so Nik gave us a poster signed by him and other Iditarod racers.  

Since we were at the dog sled tour so long we had limited time left before we had to get Heidi to the airport to go home.  We made a quick stop at McDonald's for lunch for the girls.  After we decided to head to the Reindeer Farm.  It was nice, not great.  Certainly not as great as the Musk Ox farm.  Most of the animals were rescues so it's nice that a facility exists and the public are able to visit and learn about these animals.  The employees were very knowledgable.  The highlights were feeding the reindeer and moose.

We headed back to the camper where we had to make a quick dinner.  A little birdie told me about a local greenhouse with great tomatoes, so of course we stoped and got some.  I had a pound of good Iowa bacon straight from the locker so I made us BLT's.  

Before long we had to get Heidi to Anchorage so she could catch her flight home.  It was going to be a long one.  She had a ride planned to pick her up in Minneapolis but they bailed leaving her stranded so she had to figure out a flight to get home.  The only thing she could find was a flight out to Denver and then back to Des Moines.  Pretty shitty ending to a wonderful vacation.  

Once back to the camper I did laundry as we would will not have access to easy laundry service for the next 10 days or so.