I’m in a hotel in Whitehorse and my entire body is sore from a 4 day dogsledding expedition. It was an amazing time with breathtaking views and great company and so many good dogs. In that time I also generated a bunch of text posts.
all timestamps are approximate because my phone needed to be in an inner pocket so it doesnt die from extreme cold and that makes it hard to get to so most of the time i had no idea what time it was.
Feb 1
9 am
the van to base camp is toasty warm but the windows are frosted over w ice on the inside, thick enough that you need to keep ur fingers on for several seconds to melt them, and then frost immediately begins to creep over the melted part again. even with the heat at full blast, the windshield at the front has been progressively frosting over as we drive, the clear part is very noticeably shrinking over time.
11 am
all of the workers are French. not Quebecois but actually France French. what are the French doing up here
each of us get a baggie of trail mix. they tell us to keep it close to our bodies bc if the nuts freeze and we don’t notice it can break our teeth
12 pm
a guide tells us that we can have alcohol but not too much at night when we’re camping. J says “oh don’t worry we won’t, we’re all nerds here”. guide laughs and says “well, I wasn’t going to say it.”
1 pm
we meet the dogs. there are like forty of them and the guide knows them all by name and can rattle off personality facts. half of them have VERY french names (like Phibut or Lourelle). Other ones are named, like, José. One female dog is named Sexy. I chalk this up to French culture and attempt a posture of cultural tolerance
2-4pm
no posts too busy learning how to dogsled
5 pm
we return from the dogsledding and are told to “give the dogs praise.” Sexy the dog was in my team. I say the phrase “great job, Sexy” multiple times and feel vaguely hazed
6pm
one of the guys tell me to switch positions from the third sled out of five to the first. I am unsure what this means but it feels like a promotion. thanks boss
9pm
in the big tent having dinner and there are 2 dogs that just hang out. I ask what the deal is because there’s forty dogs here, why do these two get special treatment. like are they dealing w injuries or something. owner is like “oh nah these are just my guys.” they’re the og dogs!!! Their names are Yukon and Saskatchewan and they are a wizened 14 years of age. The ex took Quebec in the divorce
“I named that dog Sexy,” the owner says. “people told me I can’t name a dog Sexy, but I did anyways. and you know what? when she sits, she sits like this.” he folds one hand over the other so the wrists are crossed demurely. “and I think that is sexy.” this man is so brave and he doesn’t even know it
Feb 2
9am
I’ve grown more powerful. went from being so scared of the outhouse bathroom that I prefold my tp before any action happens to thinking like, you know what, it’s not even bad to expose certain areas of bare skin to very subzero temperatures for some amount of time. it’s relaxing actually.
10am
last minute swapped from first sled to second. demoted…
11am
we pack the sleds. everything is gonna freeze so everything that can’t withstand being frozen is supposed to go into a bag that they’ll keep at above zero for us at base camp. i hatch a nefarious plan to wear a tiny backpack between my two layers of parkas, so I can bring fifteen clementines with me without them freezing. (i brought 4 lbs of clementines with me up north because i heard there isn’t much in terms of fresh produce up here.)
12pm
one of my new leaders, Cleo, is the best girl in the entire world. she’s tiny and likes to raise herself up on her paws to look at the world contemplatively from a higher angle. she did this to my arm. she did this to my shoulder. on the road when we’re stopped, she does it frequently to Olli, the other lead dog
1-5pm
6pm
at the campsite and dawning on me that what was sold to me as “4 days of dogsledding” is actually winter camping in -20 weather for 3 days (meaning hours of daily mandatory chores that if you don’t do you die of cold and wet) plus hours of dog care/prep on top plus a little bit of sled time. i thought we’d get a cozy cabin out here like we did the first day, at base camp. instead i am handed a shovel and told to clear a patch of ground because if there’s snow there when we set up the camp it will turn into mud. we don’t get a ground tarp.
boiling hot water in my yeti thermos turns lukecold in an hour
7pm
out in the bush we don’t even get outhouses. we just have a bucket and we aren’t even allowed to use it unless we’re pooping. scared + prefolding some tp again
8pm
t: “there are some dogs that just have the dog in them. and other dogs that are just dogs.” her team is entirely dogs that have the dog in them, plus the new girl dog they are trying to impress, who also has the dog in her. they are behind a team of just dogs.
9pm
conversation about to what extent dogs are like house elves and what the ethical implications are
11pm
gritting my teeth and chanting “this is type 2 fun I’m having fun” thru tears. I paid a four figure sum to experience a lifestyle where being able to stick your hands into dirty dishwater is a treat bc you never get to experience that amount of hot water at once otherwise. a guide tells me that sometimes ppl fight over doing the washing up for this purpose
Feb 3
10am
clementine gambit paid off soooo good. shot of vitamin c right to the system for me and the homies and the guides.
while refilling my thermos i happen to peer inside and see a little pile of sediment at the bottom of it. i choose to pretend that i did not have this experience
11am
after a few times I’m no longer scared. but having prefolded tp on hand is actually just goated for its own sake
2pm
5th clementine of the day. give it up for clementine number 5
3pm
unbearable longing for the dune stillsuits where you stick little tubes in your nose and it captures all the moisture. the moisture from your breath catches on your scarf and coat and hair and makes patches of frost there there, such that if you move your face you are accosted with ice. people with beards accumulate icicles.
4pm
drop my phone dogsledding across a pristine frozen lake in the last hour before sunset. t picked it up for me like the bestest guardian angel in existence. 30 minutes later i realize it is gone and start panicking
6pm
the dogs really don’t respect me. this makes it hard for me to harness them up for the sledding and put their little jackets on them for the night time. Olli in particular doesnt respect me AT ALL when I get to him he gets up and does a half turn to literally turn his nose away from me and then curls up again before I can get the stuff on. I walk to face him again and he does this again. emotionally shattered
7pm
I think the problem is that I respect the dogs too much. I want them to be comfy and have autonomy and I don’t like being firm with them. In the pack hierarchy this makes me bottom bitch and they progressively lose respect for me. but this is a small price to pay for being a supreme dog respecter
8pm
One of the guides asks us about our jobs. upon learning that t works in AI, he asks what she thinks about “that new chinese model”.
unbelievable, t says afterwards. i fly thousands of miles north and dogsled away from civilization into the fucking pristine yukon wilderness where theres no signal and i still can’t escape.
9pm
i ate my dinner too slowly (ie taking longer than 5 minutes) so by the time i finished the food was actively cold and took heat away with each new bite. yum
10pm
I think we really confused the guides by saying that we don’t really drink but bringing along a bottle of whiskey that we share between the five of us. but look, those Europeans that kept dying on the arctic expeditions a few centuries ago? they weren’t drinking beer up here. it was whiskey that made them wander into the snow where they then die of frostbite and get eaten by polar bears. it’s ON THEME
11pm
maple whiskey. potion of warms your extremities that tastes just like maple syrup. our society is so powerful
Feb 4
11am
redacted calls me problematic for saying that it’s not surprising that some straight men would date transmascs and then immediately proceeds to defend conversion therapy camps. i retaliate by infodumping about my new weapons magnate blorbo, palmer luckey. j escapes out onto a frozen lake to get away from this rancid conversation. fair enough
2pm
dawns on me that dogs don’t understand language which means that they don’t understand accents! I was told to yell at a dog when it chewed on the line but he didn’t really respond to his name, Titan. Turns out I needed to say it with a French accent bc all the workers are French (tee-TAHN). Corollary: when I said “good job, Sexy” a lot the other day i did so for no fucking benefit since I didn’t say “Sexy” in a French accent
3pm
these little creatures in front of me are the product of thousands of years of human engineering. they’re engines that run on hunks of raw beef and chicken. they have personalities and inner lives and social ploys. they love rolling around in the snow whenever they have an opportunity to.
I wonder if these sled dogs are good sled dogs or kinda bad ones, like, across all sled dogs over time! on one hand, we’re wealthy enough to breed a lot of puppies and train them up and then the ones that dont make the cut get to be housepets. on the other the total demand for sled dogs is probably a lot less these days and it’s not like a life or death situation if you’re stuck with a slightly distractable dog that throws you off the sled so the pressure to get a real top notch team is probably lessened
4pm
the little bastions of thounsands of years of human engineering threw me off the sled and into a bush. again
6pm
on the ride back to town, the guide confirmed that we are by far the nerdiest group that they’ve seen. she didn’t even have to think about it. then again t spent like 30 minutes giving j a crash course on transformer architecture or something yesterday by the fire.
9pm
dinner in town. learn that the sled order is actually not a promotion, they line us up based on who is most likely to fall and hurt themselves the most. in light of this i choose to think that moving up only 1 slot is a w.
t has been last in line this entire time even though she literally has a fractured thumb. it’s not just her dogs that has the dog in them ig
11pm
arrive back at the hotel and pass out immediately. in the tent someone needed to get up every 2 hours to shove more fire in the wood stove, so we don’t all freeze to death. (i was in charge of the alarms, t did all of the shoving, q, r, and j are truly lucky fuckers who managed to sleep through this both nights.) i will never take indoor heating for granted ever ever again
