Many of our alumni and staff will remember dog sledding, and will be able to identify with this portion of a Robert Service poem:
“On a Christmas day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson Trail.
Talk of your cold–through the parka’s fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze
‘Till sometimes we couldn’t see.
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.”
The Christmas dog run was a tradition for many years at both the Manitoba and Alberta schools. The grade twelve class would give up part of their holiday to head out with staff into the cold, and wintery conditions. Share your dog sledding memories with us. To help bring back those memories – here is a sound bite you will definitely remember. (To move from the home page, click on the title above; then scroll down to leave a memory.)
Audio: Sled dogs
Download Sled Dogs MP3 (0.5 MB)
December 20, 2010 at 8:25 am
The best lessons are the ones that bring painful memories when you chose wrong. I unfortunately didn’t choose to go on the Christmas Dog Run with my classmates, but stayed at the school instead and rebuilt the grade 12 common room with Rob Savin. At the time, we thought we made the right decision, how wrong we were. I’m sure he’d agree that if we could only have that chance again……
December 20, 2010 at 9:54 am
Our Christmas outing in ’72 took us over three days and two nights. Our second campsite (our furthest point several miles southwest of the school) was pitched under clear skies at about -30 F. The snow was so deep as we came to that last section that we had to go ahead to break trail and pull the dogs forward. At bedtime the dogs had already curled up in the snow not even huddling together to keep warm while we too dove into our sleeping bags wearing all the clothing we had on hand since we had no tent and overhead the stars gleamed down.
December 20, 2010 at 10:50 am
In 1969 -70 I was a grade 7 student and my school job was the dog crew. Being that I was on crew we all got paired with our own dogs. Mine was Kego. In grade 8 we went to Nordegg,Ab and ran through the foothills with them for a few days. We slept in an old cabin 1 night and the next we slept in our mummy bags huddled up to our dogs in deep snow. I will never forget how cold it was in the morning when we had to put frozen jeans on to start the day. Also losing our biggest lead dog to an apparent heart attack was another not so fond memory. But that was the way it was in the early years.
December 20, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Art, I had the opportunity to re-visit the Christmas dog-run. I went back on one on December 27, 1983. (I graduated in ’78) What we went through was incredible. We started by climbing up to the top of a pass that looked back over Abraham Lake. The climb was so steep that all the dogs could seem to do was hold the sled from sliding back. Your only progress was what you could purchase by pushing and then let the dogs hold while you caught your breath. We were to end at Small Boys Indian Encampment. It took us until our last day out that we discovered we had made a wrong turn. We were on the river, but that was the problem – we had to get UP to the encampment. We followed a creek bed up the river bank. It was a long way and the water was flowing. With the steep banks and heavy tree coverage, we had to go upstream. More often than not the mushers were pulling the dogs to keep them going. It was incredibly cold and unbelievable that we were doing it. The memory is easy to recall, but it seems to me that memories are recalled by the significance of the beholder.
On my actual Grade 12 trip I saw a sight that I share with people to this day. We made camp, and it was darn cold as usual, but we had a full moon. We we high in the treeline. Across valley,the wall of the other side of the pass was soilid mountain – lit by the full moon, from behind us. It was truly magnificent. I believe this was also the night that left me scarred. You remember the army surplus outers we had on the sleeping bags? I was zipped up tight with only my face exposed. As I enjoyed some of the starlight above, I watched the sparks dancing from the fire. They would rise and the just disappear – except for one. It came down and, no matter how hard I squirmed it landed on my cheek. Of course you can’t get your hands out and you have bodies on either side so you can’t roll. I still laugh at myself about how it must have looked while I tried to get untied – then unzipped – so I could extinguish that damned spark. Boy we had fun!
December 22, 2010 at 11:11 am
The first dogrun with classmates Mckinley and Jephson 1, plus staff Mr.Jackson, Mr. Jeynes, Mr. Cain, was difficult but rewarding. I remember everyday, and most events along the trail and in camp. I often think about those days and how cold the weather was , the deep snow, the heavy sleds, the willingness of the dogs, the hours of cutting wood,the clearing of snow with a bucket,the late night dogsledding, the switchbacks down Onion Lake trail to the North Ram,the moose along the trail which helped the teams go faster, arriving at headwaters cabin before the ski-doos, eating big juicy steaks, the stories around the fire, being with a group where everyone worked hard and never complained about anything, had all the right gear (including cigars and alcohol ) the staff/student barrier was gone, the humour was hilarious , especially with two Brits from a different class system, cutting the only big spruce down to cross the river, that was still flowing even though our alcohol froze, etc,etc, I am very grateful about those days . I also remember the many other dogruns that were all just as rewarding. As times changed and gear improved, and dogs had different names , the difficulties were different, the barrier was lost between young and old, and we were just a group of men out in God’s country trying to understand life’s many mysteries while pushing a heavy sled up a mountain. Of course all this led to was perseverance and hope and character.
December 22, 2010 at 6:44 pm
My first memory of dog sledding – way, way back in the early 1970’s at the Manitoba school.
It was my first year on staff and really at the beginning of the dog sled program of any of the schools. I was excited to go out on my first overnight dog sled camping trip with the experts. The expert in this case was Fred Parr who had all sorts of experience under his belt – he had camped out once before with the dogs.
Our route took us across the picturesque Netley Marsh and the south end of Lake Winnipeg – in other words it was windswept and treeless and flat. The actual sledding was moving along alright with dogs and people bonding as only they can. The sleds were heavy with all the gear which as a novice dog sledder I assumed was absolutely necessary.
As the sun went down, Fred Parr announced we would be camping soon. I looked high and low for at least a token tree but Fred informed me that we didn’t need trees or wood or real shelter because we had a tent!
There were twelve of us – staff and students so I expected a large tent. But no – Fred let me know that on purpose we had a small tent that would keep us warmer as we packed into it. The tent had one entrance so in went the first layer of people, then the second, third and fourth. Someone in the first layer had forgotten his mitt outside and then it struck me – the only way for that person to get out was for everyone to get out because we were so packed into this tent. This made the call of nature at 2 a.m. an interesting feat and no more will I say!
I may have complained to Fred throughout the night about the tent and being packed into a tiny space. He wondered why I was complaining – the first camping trip, the dogs were also brought into this same tent along with the people. Progress was being made!
In the morning as the various layers exited the tent, I witnessed the dogs shaking off the snow and looking far more relaxed and ready to go then their handlers. I decided then and there that the dogs were obviously smarter and I would never, never sleep in a tent again on a dog sled run and that I would pick out a spot with real trees and wood for a fire.
I believe I kept that promise and went on to do many, many dog sled trips over the years – the highlight of each winter and the most challenging part of the outdoor program at St. John’s.
December 25, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Richard Jones #1737
My first experience dog sledding came when I was attending Grade 8 at the Alberta school. It was not in the winter in fact it was on a dog cart. A contraption that fascinated me from the first time I laid my eyes on it. Once learning of this go cart with no motor that was propelled by dogs, I made it my mission everyday to try and get sometime on it. I am sure that I bothered Mr.Thauberger by asking him so many times. I would offer to work dog crew, or do tasks around the school. Eventually I was given time on it, and what fun it was! I was in love with the sport from that very time. I adopted one of the SJSA dogs , named BUD. (Big Ugly Dog) as was his nickname. Throughout my 3 years are SJSA I took every opportunity to use the dogs whenever I could. On my weekends back in Edmonton, I would help at Kin Park and give rides to the public. Loading all the dogs in and out of the dog truck was quite a task let me tell you that! I even built my own sled with the assistance and skill of Mr.Thauberger. I thank the school and especially Mr.Thauberger for giving me many opportunities that would not have been possible elsewhere. Thanks & Happy Holidays.
August 3, 2011 at 1:33 pm
I have to agree with Mr. J that wood is desireable, and tents less so.
One night on that run to Family Lake in Selkirk, again with Mr. Parr we made camp by a lake. There was a ton of standing dead birch, and a bit of other stuff. Not that we had much choice. We’d been going though this for hours.
The dead birch was very easy to collect. Much of it could be pushed over. Now I would avoid that wood. But then I didn’t have the experience.
(How does that go, experience is what keeps you from making mistakes. Mistakes are how you get experience…)
Never trust standing dead birch. Birchbark is so waterproof that it keeps the wood inside wet for years. Indeed the wood inside will rot away to nothing leaving a hollow tube.
Put a birch log on the fire. 30 seconds of heat as the bark flares. Three hours of barely warm smolder as the damp punk inside smokes. And it’s intensely irritating smoke at that.
And then was a weekend run where we camped by Coyote Lake. Now at that time we still used spruce boughs to sleep on. Coyote Lake could be named Willow Lake. Lots of willow. Fair amount of tamarack. No spruce. So we slept, or perhaps I should say, lay, on willow branches to keep our sleeping bags off the snow.
We cut a bunch of those ‘dead pine trees’ for firewood. Very heavy firewood.
Tamarack is our only native deciduous conifer. It drops all its needles in the fall, and spends the winter looking like a dead christmas tree. It’s very much alive, it’s very wet, very heavy. But if you can get it hot enough long enough it burns even soaking wet. Mind you, being tamarack, it pops and crackles, as pitch pockets inside the tree explode, throwing burning cinders outside the entire fire circle.
And one trip with Simon Jeynes up to the base of Persimmon Pass on the Berland River in Willmore Wilderness. We camped at treeline. It took 3 hours to find enough wood, and that was only enough for an evening fire. Then we had to let it go out for the night. Next morning we made bacon buddies on stoves, while stomping back and forth to keep our toes alive.
Bacon Buddies are wonderful in the cold. Split bannock or a bagle, and thaw it out by laying it face down in the grease from cooking the bacon. Pick up, lay about 8 strips of bacon on it, and chomp, bacon grease dripping down your chin (where it solidified immediately.) Makes me nauseous just writing about it now, but I know that after 24 hours at 30 below they would become yumicious once again.
After breakfast we harnessed the dogs and went wood collecting until lunch. It was New Year’s Eve, and we wanted enough wood to make midnight.
That night the bottom fell out of the thermometer. We were at 6000 feet, on the north side of a bare col. So the rock and snow radiated to the black sky, and cold air slid off the slope, filling our valley. We had a thermometer that was marked to -50, and the red liquid had given up by morning, and was all in the ball below the last mark. We found out later that it was -58 at the Hinton ranger station, a hundred kilometers away and 2000 feet lower.
As was customary on Grade 12 runs, we brought along some booze to celebrate the new year. But by 9 p.m. the rum was frozen solid.
Originally we were going to try to climb the bowl up to the pass. We made a probe at doing that in the afternoon. But as were were clambering about, I noticed cracks in the snow surface. Calling attention to Mr. Jeynes we crept off the slope and made our way back to our camp a mile from the base.
Snow slab with cracks. Waiting for the right trigger to avalanche.
We were originally going to spend a third night, exploring the timberline area, but Mr. Jeynes pointed out that the kids were looking grey. The extreme cold was sucking the energy out of them as fast as they could eat, and they were losing ground. So New Year’s day, after breakfast, we retreated down the Berland and camped where wood was plentiful.