Two in the Far North by Margaret E Murie

Author:Margaret E Murie [Murie E. Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780882408637
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books

From the diary:

“November 3: We rose at four o’clock, when it was still pitch-dark except for a moon gleaming wanly. The dogs gazed sleepily at such untimely preparations. By six-thirty our first wilderness home was completely demolished, the equipment all stowed in the sled. The dogs had fully awakened and were putting on the usual ear-splitting harnessing-up chorus.

“Generally we have the sled tied to a tree until the instant of departure, but down on the river this was impossible, and when the wheel dogs, the little fighters Fuzzy and Mally, were buckled in, Olaus crept back stealthily, never taking his hands off the sled and softly murmuring ‘Whoa, whoa’ to Pooto until he had reached the handlebars. I flung myself onto the load as the outfit sped past me. What a wild eagerness to go to work, to get into harness and pull! I wonder if any animal on earth is as crazy to work as the Alaskan dog. If this exuberance could be expressed exclusively in speed, it would be great, but before we had rounded the first bend in the river, the two little rascals in the wheel had pounced on each other and the whole team was in a pile.

“We are perfecting a technique in this dogfight business. At the first pounce, I leave the sled and run up to Pooto, who is always the last one to join in. If I can get there before he turns upon the dog behind him, I take him by the collar and drag him out as far as possible. This stretches the towline and gives Olaus a chance to get more effective work with the loaded butt of the whip. That whip is never used except to keep these fight-loving, tough-skinned savages from destroying one another. A good dog musher is never found whipping his dogs to make them pull, but fights have to be stopped no matter how much the dogs enjoy them!

“We had three dogfights this morning, the usual result of having dogs tied up for several days, and we had just got into a peaceful trot after the third one when we struck an overflow. We had rather expected this, for we knew it had been twenty to thirty degrees below zero while we were camping. This meant that the ice had been thickening, reaching down toward the stream bottom, pushing water up through some weak spot, to flow over the surface ice.

“Not far above the mouth of Gold Creek, Pooto stopped and looked around inquiringly. A line of gray stretched before us—water on the river ice and snow with a thin slushy coating of ice on top of it. This overflow extended clear across the river, so we had no choice but to proceed. Keeping close to shore, we went splashing through a few inches of water, but as we traveled downstream it became deeper, until water lapped the canvas-wrapped load, instantly changing to ice. Pooto went on steadily; Olaus had climbed onto the front of the sled, I onto the back.

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