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My wife is a half-breed. This fact is at the heart of my problem. She is not a real Texan, though her father's family has been here for generations. Like myself, the poor man was smitten by a northern girl. He married and began raising his family in far off Pennsylvania. There my beloved was raised until she was fourteen years old. Only then did her father realize his mistake and move his family to Texas like any normal person. Sadly, it was too late. Something unnatural had happened to his daughter's blood and now, all these years later, I am left holding the bag. For years, while we were enduring the scorching summers here in God's country, she had complained that she missed the frozen climes of her childhood, the changing of the seasons, the winter snowfall with it's attendant mittens, snowmen, sleds, ice skates and other such articles of frigid entertainment. For all those years, I successfully avoided these insinuations. I knew from a single childhood experience that such environments were not safe for human habitation. When I was five years old, my parents were farming cotton in the small panhandle town of Farwell, Texas. Farwell is a border town. Only railroad tracks separate it from Texaco, New Mexico. If you are leaving Texas via Farwell, say “farewell.” You are headed for frosty realms. That winter, a blizzard struck and left snow drifting up to three feet in the irrigation ditches. All our pipes froze and we could not bathe. With sadistic smiles, my parents suggested that I take a "snow bath." They claimed that all the little northern boys did it. All I would have to do was run out the door in a hurry, jump in the snow, and rub myself all over with the pretty stuff. Innocent child that I was, still infatuated with the wonder of a world turned white, I fell into their cruel trap. I shed my clothing, ran out the front door and dove into a snowdrift. This harsh experience taught me an important lesson. Human beings are not meant to live in places where water changes its physical state. This seems simple and logical to me. After all, a very large portion of my body is made up of water. Just as I would not visit a location where the temperature goes over 212 degrees because I would not want my body to enter a gaseous state, I do not think it wise to risk becoming a solid. This reasonable argument was lost on my wife. She continued to lobby for trips to polar destinations. Still, other than a few trips to Colorado, during which I was very careful with my bodily fluids, for many years I was able to avoid any unnecessary risks. Then something changed. Two years ago my wife began to act strangely. She started running hot. Had she been a vehicle, I would have had a mechanic check her thermostat. Even worse, all our female friends, most of the same vintage, also started showing signs of overheating. My wife would leave the windows open even if the temperature was in the thirties. I would cower under our comforter, my exposed limbs slowly deadening, while she would complain and throw off her covers. It was bizarre behavior but her hormones had created a temperament that made it dangerous to comment. I should have seen it coming. She had been talking up a winter trip to the wilderness for over a year. The winter before she had tried to con some of her friends into going dogsledding in Northern Minnesota. To their credit, they found pressing engagements elsewhere. But, near Thanksgiving, in a moment of weakness, I asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She let me have it with both barrels. "I want to take a winter dogsledding trip...just the two of us." A fool will do anything for love. I smiled thinly and said "Merry Christmas." What else could I say? Less than two months later, a condemned man, I shuffled down an exit ramp in the Minneapolis airport. It was a long, narrow, institutional corridor that suggested death row. During the flight, my prospects steadily declining, I had watched the grid of roads and small farms laid out like patchwork upon the countryside below sprout a white blight. As I became increasingly depressed, my wife blossomed. She began to assume an ethereal glow. As we left the plane she pranced to the gate in slow motion like those willowy girls in the feminine hygiene commercials. As is policy in huge airports, we had been scheduled to a connecting flight at the farthest possible gate. The tiny commuter plane that was to take us to Duluth looked entirely inadequate to brave the nightmare of frozen slush on the runway. I began to cheer up. Perhaps we would die suddenly in a plane crash, thereby saving ourselves from a protracted demise from hypothermia. Sadly, this was not the case. The airborne rickshaw defied all odds and landed safely in Duluth. I rushed to the baggage area. An experienced adventure traveler, I had packed light, making sure to bring no more than twice the amount of clothing I could possibly wear during our stay. After donning close to half the content of my bags, I rolled out of the terminal looking like the Michelin man and claimed our ice-laden rent car. We drove off across the frozen tundra. Ely, Minnesota looks different in the winter. It was as though someone had spilled a very large coffee-flavored snow cone on the entire town. Muddy snow may not sound attractive but it does provide the opportunity to build affirmative action snow men. As a confirmed knee-jerk liberal, I was pleased to see that snow of color was being given equal billing. Of course, Minnesota is a liberal state. I wondered to myself if Afro-American snowmen were allowed the same opportunities in say...Idaho? Before checking into our lodge, we stopped by the snowmobile shop. My wife had arranged to have the proprietor rent us some special clothing designed for outdoor activity in a Minnesota winter. The suit was remarkably complex and bulky. It sported snaps, zippers and velcro at every imaginable orifice. After donning our helmets, we looked amazingly like large black astronauts. This made sense to me as I saw little difference between the environment outside and that of outer space. Once again I had cause to appreciate my wife's penchant for planning. The shop's proprietor remarked on how lucky we were to have come during a heat wave. He said the temperature had been rising into the twenties every day and that the next day it was expected to rise to a balmy thirty degrees. He told us that the week before it had hit 35 below without accounting for wind chill. My luck was holding. Perhaps I would survive after all! The next morning, bedecked in our arctic garb, we found two shiny new snowmobiles parked at the lodge. Now, in my role as an hypocritical environmentalist old geezer, I am not really in favor of snowmobiles. They make an incredible amount of noise and allow boneheads like me access to places that careless tourists should not be allow to visit. There must be nothing more irritating to Mrs. Moose or Mr. Bald Eagle than having the pristine quiet of their wilderness home broken by the Harley Davidson roar of a maniac snowmobiler. In Minnesota, this controversy is a big deal, with battle lines drawn on both sides, much like the issue of jet skis here in Texas where water remains liquid. However, in human culture, the environment has two major enemies. The first is money and the other is fun. Otherwise environmentally responsible people commonly sell out their principles for either. The guy renting to us used the first rationalization and we, Gaia forgive us, used the second. We flew out of there like bats fleeing a frigid hell, crazed laughter on our lips. We followed a trail that wound through the woods and across the frozen lakes. I drove as fast as I could on the lakes as I was convinced the ice below my mechanical charger was wafer thin and would collapse at any moment. The intense fear added spice to my experience. Over hill and dale, we despoiled the wilderness with a vigor usually reserved for oil pipeline construction crews. We rumbled across the countryside all day long and into the evening, rutting virgin snow with rapacious glee. Finally, running with headlights down dim forest trails, our gas gauges crying for mercy, we called it a day. It is always best to get your money's worth out of rental equipment. The next day, we packed up and headed north on the Echo Trail toward the lodge where we were to do our dogsledding. Our destination was called the Lodge of Whispering Pines. My wife informed me that it was the most remote lodge in the area. This says a lot, as Ely itself is not exactly Grand Central Station. The little town is the last outpost of civilization before the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area begins and all signs of humanity end. In fact the local radio station calls itself "End of the Trail Radio" because from Ely and the Echo Trail, you can go no further North in anything but a canoe or, in winter, dragged behind a team of yapping sled dogs. The road grew smaller as we wound through the snow-dappled pine. The mounds of white deposited on the apron by snow plows grew higher and higher. We occasionally passed signs that let us know the road was becoming a one lane affair. I felt somewhat uncomfortable with this fact as we had already dodged a few out-of-control logging trucks. Miraculously, we arrived safely and quickly stowed our gear in a large, cozy cabin complete with gas heat and a fireplace. I became almost cocky, viewing these apparently reliable sources of heat, but my cheery attitude was soon tempered by the inch of ice that covered the firewood. We visited the lodge and met one of the owners, Sue Churchill, and the lodge's manager and naturalist, Chris Carlson. Chris was scheduled to lead us on our dogsledding adventure the next day but at that moment he was watching the last quarter of the playoff game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons. Minnesota folks are very serious about their football team. We joined him respectfully. The Vikings lost and Chris was devastated. I was as sympathetic as possible, hoping to create a bond that would make it difficult for him to envision cannibalism if our trek went awry. We returned to our cabin and built a fire. The view out the window was spectacular. To the sound of crackling flames, we gazed through snow-covered pines across the vast, ivory surface of a frozen body of water. Cleverly named Big Lake, it was... a big lake. All in all, the scene was like a picture post card. In fact, I suggested that next time, we could more safely and economically experience the north country if we utilized such a post card. In her reverie, my wife took no notice of my practical suggestion. There was a knock on the door and in walked our host. He introduced himself as Dan Churchill and told us to be ready to begin our dogsledding trip at nine the next morning. He was a very nice man. Despite my fears to the contrary, he did not seem the sort to want me dead. I resigned myself to the fates. Shortly thereafter, it began to snow. For the next twelve hours, white flakes fell as though the Gods suffered from dry scalp. By the time the sky cleared the next morning, close to a foot of snow had fallen. My mate's frigid frenzy knew no bounds. She "ooooooohed" and "aaaaaahed" and made sounds I would have given anything to hear on our honeymoon. She was so peaceful and content, so lost in childhood memories that I dared not express my concerns about our plans to brave the icy wilderness. At nine o'clock, we arrived outside the compound where the sled dogs were quartered. We were appropriately attired as Pillsbury dough-people. I had gained some control over my pounding heart. "After all," I thought to myself, "these men are professionals. We shall be safe in their hands." I had read descriptions written by other inexperienced tourists who had gone dogsledding in the area. Little was expected of these first time mushers. Their guides folded them into the safety of the sled and drove them around like Hansom cab drivers. At some point, after the dogs were tired and when the grade was flat, they were often given a token opportunity to drive. That sounded doable to me. That is why my frosty hackles jumped to attention when Chris showed me the sled my wife and I would be using and said "Come on. Let me show you how to harness your dogs." My stomach turned over as I realized the man meant for me to drive my own sled! I pointed out that my wife and I were people of considerable mass and asked if it might not be better if we distributed the weight into two sleds. He said everything would be fine, that we would have a seven dog team and that the animals could pull up to fifty pounds each. I did some quick math in my head. "You better add a couple of more dogs, son." Sled dogs are, to put it mildly, manic. There was not an animal in that compound that could not have benefitted from medication. They bark incessantly and whirl around on their tethers like dervishes. Chris and Dan assured me that they had no interest in human flesh but I was dubious. They have wolf-like eyes and features and looked at me like I was a tenderloin. Chris led me into the compound and began introducing me to the dogs. They all had names that sounded like they were reindeer on Santa's sleigh. "The first thing you have to do is take them out of four-wheel drive and put them in two-wheel drive," explained Dan. He grabbed the nearest canine by the collar and lifted it up so that only it's back feet were on the ground. "Then you put his harness on like this." He slipped the animal's legs through a frail mesh apparatus. "Then you unhook them from the chain...but be careful, they really want to go!" That was an understatement. As we hopped the dogs one by one down the hill to the sleds, it became obvious that the animals' dysfunction was more akin to obsessive-compulsive disorder than to manic-depression. They strained first against my grip and then against the harness that held them to the sleigh, their powerful legs jerking spasmodically in a repetitive pattern. My wife's responsibility was to hold the lead dog so that the entire bunch would not go hurtling down the trail without us. I could see her arm slowly being removed from its socket by the animal's headlong thrusts. After all of the dogs were attached, Chris came up to give us a few last minute instructions. It was seven below zero and small icy stalactites were forming on his mustache. "Your team are all experienced dogs" he claimed. "...but mine are new and still being trained. Yours should be impeccable but if you see me raise my hand like this... make sure to brake your team because I will probably have to stop and untangle my dogs." He showed me a foot pedal at the back of the sled that you could stand on to create friction in the snow to help stop the dogs. I thought "brake" was an exaggerated description. He also showed me what appeared to be a meat hook on a rope that was meant to serve as an anchor to hold the animals in place when they were stopped. "They are really ready to go," was Chris' last council "...so be ready. They start off pretty fast." He hopped aboard his sled, jerked his anchor out of the snow and sped away. My wife let go of the lead dog. Our panicked eyes met for a second as she dove into her seat on the sled. I had a short wrestling match with the entire team as I could not remove the anchor from the snow due to the animals incessant pulling. Suddenly, the world was a white blur. I hung on with one arm, standing on the icy runner with one leg, the other two limbs flailing in the air. My wife began a high-pitched keening. Just as I gained control of my flopping limbs and found a more secure hold on the speeding sled, the trail took a hard left through two big snow banks. The dogs took the turn without slowing and suddenly, I was airborne. I hit the ground and rolled over and over, snow spewing from my lips as I yelled for my wife to hold onto the sled and not let go. By the time my world stopped spinning, it was apparent she had not honored my request, She was buried up to her chest in snow. The dogs were a tiny, yapping run-a-way train in the distance. Dan leapt onto his snowmobile and tore out after the wayward sled. It was not an auspicious start. While my wife dug through the snow searching for her hat and gloves, I tried to stuff the life that had passed before my eyes back into my subconscious. A while later, Dan came speeding back to tell us that they had been able to stop the dogs but that the animals were all tangled up and Chris needed our help. We trekked out across the lake to our sled. While we had been separated, our chain of dogs had been engaged in trying to simulate DNA. They had become so entangled it took us forty minutes to put them in order. We suffered further delays as our lead dogs had now decided to return to the lodge. They refused to change their minds. We learned why another word for stubborn is dogmatic. Finally, Dan and Chris, with a flurry of histrionics, convinced the animals to cooperate and we were off again. As the sled whooshed down the trail, I slowly became more comfortable with my role. I watched Chris up ahead and tried to emulate his movements and style. I leaned into curves. I would have kicked at the snow between the runners to help my dogs (the cool mushing thing to do) but it was not necessary. In fact I had to keep a constant foot on the brake to keep from running up the rear of my guide's sled. If you have ever been in an automobile skidding down an icy slope, trying to stop your forward progress with brakes that repeatedly lock up, you know the feeling. A short while later, Chris raised his hand. I slammed on the brake with the aid of all my considerably gravity. This had the effect of reducing our speed about 15%. "Ooooh!" I cried in despair. "Oh! Oh! Oh!." My dog immediately came to a halt. It was at this point that I discovered the magic of mushing commands. If you want to go, you call out "Hut!" If you want to stop, you yell "Ho!" My dogs had apparently taken my panicked cries for the latter. This made me consider an interesting possibility. Another denizen of the north country, Mr. Santa Claus, is frequently quoted using the phrase "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Everyone assumes that these calls are signs of jolliness but I have often wondered how anyone could remain jolly when required to deliver millions of tons of toys down filthy, cramped chimneys all over the globe in a single night. It seems like a task that would press the patience of the most good-natured soul. Perhaps I had now discovered the real meaning of Santa's cry. The "right jolly old elf" might merely be trying to get recalcitrant reindeer to stop. No doubt he was also cursing under his breath. Our guide rearranged his animals and we were soon on our way. For the next two hours, we sped down a trail cut in the snow-covered lake. The scenery was spectacular, the sky clear and our spirits bright. I began to see a little of my wife's point of view about that pristine wilderness. For miles out across that lake, there were no footprints, no signs of humanity, not even the most basic evidence of civilization... unbelievably, not even a McDonalds. I began to realize the dire nature of our predicament. How would we eat? Where would I get a Big Mac? I could expect my fries to be cold but I could deal with that. After all, we were in the wilderness. I would even settle for one without a Ronald McDonald play land. Surely they had dog sled drive throughs? About that time, Chris stopped again and explained that we were coming to the end of the trail. He said he would have to get out, grab the lead dog and force it to make a new trail. He also informed me that I would have to get out of my sled and push. He told us that we would soon stop, eat and discuss our options. I fervently hoped none of them included cannibalism. Breaking trail is a walk in the park...if you don't mind walking through the park up to your thighs in powdered ice while pushing a heavy barge attached to a team of ravenous carnivores. I gallantly suggested to my wife that she get out and walk. We struggled along for a few hundred yards, our pounding hearts on the verge of a major cardiac episode. The sweat pooled in my boots. My lungs felt like I had been inhaling dry ice. Finally, Chris called us to a halt. We stood on the frozen lake fifteen feet out from the bank. He offered us several places to sit, either on the ice covered in snow like the dogs, on a frozen log covered with snow or on a large rock covered with snow. We chose to sit in the snow. We discussed our choices as the pool of sweat in my boots began to solidify. A throbbing band of pain crept from the tips of my fingers to my wrists as my paws became insensate blobs. While we sipped our luke cold hot chocolate, my body became increasingly rigid and I developed a new sympathy for Lot's wife. Despite the exciting opportunity for an early demise that lay before us, my wife and I decided not to continue "breaking trail." We were miles from the lodge. My bones were cracking like arctic glaciers in the Spring. My wife had all the sensation in her limbs of a multiple amputee. I took one look at Chris, the icy stalactites on his mustache beginning to rival Carlsbad Caverns, his eyes alight with a hungry fire I recognized from national geographic specials on New Guinea, and decided we should retrace our steps and return home. We pulled our dogs, like reluctant ice cubes, out of the cubicles they had bored in the snow, dragged them squirming into reverse and with a resounding "Hut," began the journey back to the lodge. Soon the activity melted my blood and feeling returned to my hands and feet. I began to find a new confidence as we "shushed" across the virginal scene. I leaned into the curves. Each time Chris had to stop and untangle his dogs, I cried out "Ho! Ho! Ho!" imagining myself delivering toys to millions of girls and boys and making a tidy return. I practiced saying "Hut!" with a drill sergeant's authority and asked my wife's opinion on technique. "That was a good one, huh?" "Yes, dear" she replied. As we sped across that beautiful landscape, I slipped into a vision. I was Sergeant Preston of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, hunting down a renegade trapper. I was Dudley Do-right, my beloved Nell safely ensconced in my sled, saved from the clutches of the evil Snidely Whiplash. I was the leader in the Iditirod, my loyal huskies near exhaustion as we crossed the finish line. Suddenly, the sled came to a halt. I noticed that my loyal huskies were lying around in the snow as our guide disappeared into the distance. "Hut!" I cried in a voice of imperious command. The lead dog looked back at me as though I was insane. The other animals yawned condescendingly. I let loose a barrage of irate huts that would have woken the dead. The animals dragged themselves to their feet, rolling their eyes, and began to plod onward. I am not sure if I understand what happened but I believe it was a labor relations problem. Dan had told us that the dogs would haul fifty pounds per animal. The weight allowance must have been part of their contract. They had fulfilled their bargain and pulled seven dogs times fifty pounds all around the lake. Sadly, there were quite a few pounds left to haul. They forced to renegotiate. I began to push. It was a slow ride back to the lodge. The next day we lay around our cabin, licking our wounds to the steady drip, drip, drip of the ice melting off the logs in our fireplace. My wife was full of plans for finding a remote cabin in the wilderness where I could imitate Thoreau and she could fantasize herself a character in Dr. Zhivago. Most of my body fluids had returned to a liquid state and I was so happy to have survived our adventure that I took no notice of this new threat to my survival. I girded my loins for the final stretch. The next day, we dug our rented 4-wheel drive out of a snowbank and headed back to Ely. My snow queen looked wistfully out the window as the D J on "End of the Trail" radio comforted his listeners by reciting... You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative... He kept up this cabin fever therapy the whole way back to town. "Just two more months of winter, folks. You can make it" he encouraged. I pointed this out to my wife but she refused to let reality intrude upon her fantasy despite the hundreds of snow bound Minnesotans that must have been sitting in their remote cabins with guns to their heads at that very moment. We dropped off the car at the airport, squeezed into the crop duster that would take us to Minneapolis, and for the first time, I realized that I would most likely survive to tell our tale. We boarded the plane to Austin and as soon as we were airborne, the pilot came on the PA system. "Well, folks," he said "...I've got some good news for you. The temperature in Austin is 80 degrees and the visibility is 100 miles." The plane erupted in cheers. I threw off my seat belt and joined a few other displaced Texans in a quick two-step down the aisle. We laughed. We cried. We did the Cotton-eyed Joe. Immediately before the place where you yell out "BULLS___", I noticed my wife, like the poor little match girl, looking out the window of the jet as the landscape turned from white to brown. She seemed to have shrunk in size, her skin taking on a deathly pallor. A single tear ran down her face. It was at that moment that I realized I was destined to spend a portion of my waning years in long underwear. This epiphany dampened my celebration and I returned to my seat. The plane landed. The door opened and a healing blast of warm Texas air rushed through the jet like a dose of antibiotic invoking each and every individual cell in my body to explode into riotous applause. As we waited for the bus that would take us to long-term parking, my wife began to grouse. "God, it's hot!" she complained. "Yes!" I exclaimed with messianic fervor. "Yes!" |
