Sat, Jan 9 2010 - Dogsledding in the wilds of Haliburton North (View Original Event Details)
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Well it was a crisp day, at -15C ish and clear blue skies above. Perfect for a dog sledding outing. Twenty of use drove up to north of Haliburton. We stopped for lunch in Carnarvon at the Mill Pond. Really good food, cheap and nice place. They manage to get us all in and out in an hour. Right on schedule. The check-in was another 40 minutes down the road just north of Fort Erwin. At the Winterdance teepee we got checked in by Fraser. We got a good group photo. Jess gave us the training to drive our dog teams. So now I know what "Hike", "Whoa", "Gee" and "Haw" mean. Dog power has been utilized for hunting and travel for hundreds of years. As far back as the 10th century these dogs have contributed to human culture. Dog sled teams are put together with great care. Putting a dog sled team together involves picking leader dogs, point dogs, swing dogs, and wheel dogs. The lead dog is very important to follow the mushers commends. Important too is to have powerful wheel dogs to pull the sled out from the snow. Point dogs (optional) are located behind the leader dogs, swing dogs between the point and wheel dogs, and team dogs are all other dogs in between the wheel and swing dogs and are selected for their endurance, strength and speed as part of the team. We have 5 dogs per team. In dog sledding Siberian Huskies or Alaskan malamutes are the main types of dogs that are used because of their willpower to work. Our dogs were 1 year old Siberian Huskies. We had 2 persons per sleds. With the guides we had 11 sleds. That's 55 dogs. The teams were harnessed in and eventually we were off. Well sort of. There was a learning curve for some. A fairly steep learning curve in some cases. So the first few K's was kind of stop and go. The important thing the website site doesn't tell you, is about pooh. Dog's pooh! Not too bad when your the lead sled. But in Stacy and my case we were the last sled. That's 55 dogs worth of pooh we had to negotiate. On the plus side, the scenery was classic winter Canadian Shield. Check out the photos. At half way we had a snack and a some hot chocolate. Our dog team was good and calm. Probably because we had all females? The sun's going down and we have to head home. About 2 K's out we ran into Hank DeBruin and his team. Hank is owner of Winterdance and is training for the Iditarod. On March 6th, 2010 you will see Hank & the team in downtown Anchorage, about to begin the journey he has been planning on for many years. Need less to say once we got to a small lake Hank and his 14 dog team spead past us like we were standing still. But it did motive our team to pick up the pace. By the time we got back it was dark and we still had to disconnect the dogs and put them in the trucks and sort out all the harnesses, ropes, and sleds. We thanked our guides and headed back to "That Place In Carnarvan" for a nice hardy supper with some new stories to tell. It looks like everyone had a good time. If you are looking for an adventure check out my White Water Rafting trip on May 22-24, 2010. http://www.torontooutdoorclub.com/events/details.asp?eventid=2001 See you soon. Gary
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.