Last weekend, the pack and I piled in the van and drove four hours north to the Northern New England Sled Dog Trade Fair and Seminars in New Hampshire. I've been mushing for about seven years now, but never had the chance to attend the trade fair. Realizing this might be my last opporunity if I move west, I decided to make the trip.
This was also the furthest I've ever driven without another human along for the ride. I expect to do a lot of solo traveling in California, so this was a good trial run—just me and the dogs. Four hours (well, more like five with traffic) wasn't a bad drive to do over a long weekend. Hell, I did four hour round trip commutes when I took trains into Manhattan, and that was all in one work day.
The trade fair was a really fun experience and definitely something any beginner should make a point to attend. It's a great place to learn about the sport, stock up on gear, meet experienced mushers, and run your dogs. For more seasoned mushers, it's nice to see familiar faces from throughout the northeastern mushing community. And of course, who doesn't want to talk about dogs for two days straight?
Jaye and Hanky go over harness fitting.
Besides seeing old friends (and meeting internet friends for the first time), my favorite part of the event was the seminars. Jaye of Sibersong (Denali and Willow's breeder) gave a great talk on the mechanics of dog mushing. Even though I'm not new to the sport, I still picked up some useful tips. Lisbet Norris (3-time Iditarod finisher) spoke about her mushing heritage and how her family has preserved the function and appearance of the Siberian Husky in Alaska for over sixty years. I might have teared up several times during her talk. My favorite seminar was by Charles J. Berger. He spoke about "the big bang through chihuahuas", and basically wrapped my two favorite subjects (evolutionary science and dogs) into a beautiful presentation. Unexpected and delightful.
There was plenty of dog talk, dog gear, and dog friends to occupy my time, but I can't forget the dogs themselves. Aside from being a little bit overexcited to see other dogs while on the dropline, they were easy to manage and faired well in the cold, rainy weather. I walked the purebreds around the trade show and had them visit with their breeders (Blitz's reunion was especially sweet). We even got to do a quick training run with some Sibersong relatives and their musher, Megan, on Saturday and competed in a dryland fun race on Sunday.
Photo snapped by Steve Renner of Team Snowspeeder
The most surprising part of our race was how well the dogs passed another team. They've always been good about getting to the race chute and returning to their dropline afterwards, but passing during a run has been hit or miss. I was especially curious to see how Blitz would do, since he's never ran a race before—or even trained alongside other teams. I think he must have been the missing piece of the puzzle, because he and Knox (who is prone to being a jerkoff) passed flawlessly. I hope I don't jinx it, but I couldn't be happier with how they did. We got third place behind two very speedy Alaskan Husky teams, completing a 0.8 mile trail in 2 minutes and 43 seconds.
We're back home now and picking back up with fall training. We have plans to head back up to New Hampshire later in the month (or beginning of next, not sure yet) to attend a camping weekend with some of the same mushers from the trade show. I've got a lot of big plans in store for the remainder of this year and beginning of next, so stay tuned for what will (hopefully) be our most interesting season yet.
