We Have A Winner!

http://youtu.be/eepufgLwWWc




Joanna and I left camp on Valentine's Day in our Tahoe hooked up to the 18 foot trailer that was now home to nine sled dogs. We were heading over to Marquette, Michigan for the Midnight Run 90 mile Dog Sled Race. It was Joanna's first race of the season since the Beargrease Race in Duluth and the Wolf Track Classic in Ely were both cancelled due to lack of snow. The disappointment was even greater for Joanna because this year she knew she had a team that was young, energetic and well trained, ready to race. Eight dogs would run the race, five of which had never raced before and we took along one extra dog as a spare in case one of the others didn't pass the pre race vet check.

For some reason, this year, she decided to sign up for the Midnight Run which she had never run before. Thankfully, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was one of the few places in the mid west that had snow. It ended up being a 17 hour drive for us. Good thing the scenery was beautiful.

I accompany Joanna on her races to drive the vehicle to the race and to the different check points in the race and help with the handling of the dogs and doing any odd job that needs to be done to assist her.

Marquette did a superb job of organizing and putting on the race. Thousands of people attended the ceremonial start on Friday evening along with hundreds of volunteers who assisted the mushers. Dump truck loads of snow was hauled onto Main Street of Marquette for the dog teams to run around a block, giving spectators a look at each of the teams. Like the infamous Iditarod race, the Marquette staging had a wooden archway for teams to pass under at the start, bright street lamps lighting the way. Even a live band was on hand playing patriot songs, lending to the already exciting atmosphere.

Following the one mile ceremonial start, the mushers loaded up their sleds and dogs and led by a police escort, headed to the official start of the race about 40 miles away in Chatham. Joanna was number 12 out of 29 entrants in the race. The teams left the starting chute in two minute intervals. Quite a few of her fellow mushers were regular top ten finishers in past mid distance races, so the competition was tough.

The race entailed two legs, the first one 47 miles and the second 38 miles. There was a five hour mandatory rest in between the two legs. After about 4 hours, the first team came into the check point. Soon after that, a second team. To my astonishment, Joanna's team was the third team into the checkpoint. I thought, "Wow, she must have passed a lot of teams."

And indeed she had. After all the teams had reached the checkpoint sometime around 3:30 a.m., we got the news that she was now in the number one position with about four teams close behind her. We could hardly believe it!!

Being in first place, she led the pack out of the checkpoint heading to Munising, Michigan. I drove the truck to the school parking lot in Munising where the race was to finish. After completing my dog handling chores of setting up the picket line, (a metal cable fastened between two rods extending from both ends of the side of the trailer) to hook up the dogs upon their return and heating up water to thaw the frozen chicken meat chunks to feed the dogs, I walked over to the finish line ready to assist my girl when she arrived. I had no idea what was happening out on the trail. I had noticed that our dogs didn’t rest as well as some of the other dogs at the checkpoint. They seemed a bit tired and sluggish when they left and they had no one to chase since Joanna left first.

At the finish line I met and visited with another dog handler, Pat, who happened to be the wife of Jerry Trudell , the musher in third place leaving the checkpoint. Pat and their other handler sounded very confident that Jerry was going to win the race because of how well their dogs were doing. She too said her nerves were shot. We agreed it was more difficult for us who knew nothing about what was happening on the trail. In the course of our conversation she had mentioned that their lead dogs were white and I knew one of ours was black.

All of a sudden we got word from someone posted further up the trail that the winning musher was on their way to the finish line. We couldn’t see anything but a small hill that they would pop over at the end. My eyes were glued to the top of the hill. Then a black dog came into view, then the rest of the team and then JOANNA. I jumped up and down laughing and crying, “Joanna, you did it!!! I can’t believe it-you did it. Yahoooooo!!!”

I almost forgot it was my responsibility to grab the lead dogs and help direct them back to the truck. Joanna had so disciplined herself not to get excited or to think about winning, but just to go as fast as she could and stay in the lead that she could hardly relax and receive the news that she had won. Jerry Trudell had passed the second place musher and then passed Joanna on the trail when she had to stop and shift some dogs around because of leader problems. But she then worked hard to catch up to him and with a team to chase, her dogs put on the afterburners, zooming on by him and he was never able to catch Joanna’s team again.

Because Joanna had never run this race before and won it, she also received the Rookie of the Year Award. At the awards banquet later that evening, she had an additional surprise, winning the coveted Humanitarian Award. All the veterinarians involved with examining the dogs during the race got together and voted on the best cared for dog team and Joanna won that award as well.

While commenting about the race in front of everyone at the awards banquet, she made mention of the fact that her Dad shared equally in the win because he accompanied her on almost all of the 950 miles of training, following her with his snowmobile to help her if she had problems and protect her if they ran into moose or wolves on the trails. Joanna told me later that when she was nearing the end of the race and believed she was truly going to win, she teared up thinking, "We did it Dad! We finally did it."

The whole trip was very enjoyable from all the awards won, fun visiting friends and making new ones and viewing the beautiful scenery along the way. Needless to say Joanna is still on cloud nine.

Family Visit

This last weekend we were blessed with a visit from our nephew Eric Oberg and his wife Amber, sons Lawrence (4) and Celeb (14 months). Eric works for a mining company in northern Minnesota and had a long four day weekend to enjoy. It worked out for them to come up and spend some time with us, which made us happy.

We filled every moment possible with some exciting adventures. The first day they were here, Joanna and John were scheduled to take a couple of folks on a full day dog sled trip. So, I guided Eric and his family to our Indian Lake overlook. It is a new trail on the opposite side of the Agimac River through a beautiful spruce swamp and up a hill. We put the baby in his car seat and strapped him to our long sled. Then Lawrence hopped in behind him. We took turns pulling them along behind as we snow shoed the trail. They were amazed at the view from the overlook, about a hundred feet above Indian lake. We could see the snowmobile trail on the lake,lined with tree branches to mark the trail that John, Joanna and the other dog sled team would travel on their way back to camp.

On our way back down the hill, Eric climbed in the back of the sled with his two sons and commandeered it around the curves to the bottom, sometimes plowing his own trail to cut off some sharp corners.

Believe it or not, Caleb, the baby, slept through the whole experience, waking only once when they bumped some brush.

The next day, Joanna and John took them on our half day trip trail while I stayed home with the baby. Joanna took Lawrence in her sled while Amber and Eric each had their own sled. Apparently they had a great time, because when Amber came through the door, her face was flush with excitement. She kept exclaiming on what a fantastic time she had. She never dreamed it would be so fun. Joanna might have another willing helper for the Beargrease Race next year.

It's refreshing for us to have family and friends come to stay with us during the long winter months. We don't get out as much at that time and it gives us a chance to slow down, spend more time with them and have some relaxing fun ourselves.

We Are Now On Facebook

Greetings everyone! I know there are quite a few of our wonderful guests who take a look at Our Blog from time to time to see what is happening at camp. Could we ask you a favor? Could you let other folks in your group and other friends of yours know about our facebook page to help pass the word?

It is called Agimac River Outfitters. Facebook seems to be a great way to connect with people and let them know what we have to offer at our place. We've always known that word of mouth is by far the best advertising. So, thank you for getting the word out and letting folks know we are here.

We just got another foot or so of snow this last week. It's been pretty quiet on the western front, but we never seem to have a day without something to keep us busy. John has been plowing the 325 road with this new snow and shoveling walkways etc. Just today he cut and hauled three big tractor buckets full of firewood to our outdoor furnace. And today we are entertaining our pastor and his family from Ignace with an outdoor wiener roast and a half day dog sled trip. We also plan to have some fun and games after supper.

We have had a few more Dog Sled Trip guests this year than before which is nice and our first ice fishermen who came from Duluth, MN up to stay with us in a cabin. They so enjoyed snowmobiling to the different lakes in our area and fishing that they said they would be back.

I really like this time of year when the sun shines brighter and the days are longer. It feels like spring is right around the corner.
Joanna says, "No,not yet!" She has to run a few dog sled races first. Her first race this season will be in Upper Michigan beginning in Marquette on February 17th. That's coming up fast now, so she is getting excited. Stay posted and we'll let you know how she does.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you out there in Blogland. I wonder what 2012 has in store for us. It should be an interesting year. We trust that each and every one of you our guests and visitors to the site will have a prosperous year mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically and financially.

It has been a milder than usual winter thus far, but we still have good ice on the lakes and plenty of snow for outdoor activities like snowmobiling, ice fishing, dog sledding, cross country skiing and snow shoeing. John and Joanna took a couple of folks out yesterday for a full day dog sledding trip and they said it is a gorgeous winter wonderland in the woods.

This last fall, John opened up a hiking trail across the river from camp that runs alongside the river and uphill to a breathtaking over look of Indian Lake. We plan to build a bench this summer for hikers to sit on once they get up there.

We also completed a few projects on our list such as two new outhouses for the campground area; another larger campfire ring right on the lake beside the campground for our cabin guests to be able to sit around a fire and visit; and renovations on cabin 4 in the kitchen and bathroom.

There are a few new administrative changes as well at camp. We raised our prices for the weekly rate from $350/person to $365/person and our nightly rate from $60/person to $65/person- our first rate increase in four years. Right now the U.S. dollar is holding its own against the Canadian dollar which is great. We will be monitoring the two currencies weekly during the fishing season and if necessary adding a currency fee if the U.S. dollar declines below the Canadian dollar. Another decision we made for the health and safety of all our guests is to ban smoking in all of the cabins. Most of our guests who do smoke have been courteous to others and smoked outside the cabins, but we felt we should simply make it clear that there will be no smoking in the cabins from now on.

We had a bit of excitement last week when four Duluth, MN men came up to stay with us to go ice fishing. We've been trying to promote ice fishing at our camp, but haven't had any takers until now. They said they enjoyed the cabin accommodations, had a great time exploring quite a few lakes in the area, had plenty of fish to eat and would be back again. That was good to hear. Dog sled trip reservations are up this winter also which has been helpful to us. It is fun to meet new people and guide them into some of the most beautiful scenery there is.

We feel very blessed to be able to live here and to be able to serve such wonderful guests that come our way. Happy winter!

Home From My Trek to the Lower 48

A few days ago I returned from a three week trip south to visit family and friends. Originally, John and I had planned to fly down to Pensacola, Florida this fall together to stay with our son Jonathan, his wife, Reseth and our six month old grandson, Aaron. I rarely get to go anywhere with John except a short trip to town every great once in a while. So, this was going to be our big excursion. But, when we realized that Jonathan could only get time off during Thanksgiving from his intense Air Force training as a navigator, John figured he should not go, not wanting to leave Joanna here without someone to plow the roads in case of snow.

He encouraged me to go alone, knowing how much I wanted to see Jonathan and his family. What a fun and relaxing time we had together. Jonathan taught me how to fly a really fun kite with lots of action to it, he took me on a motorcycle ride, and he flew me in a small plane over the Pensacola coast, even turning the controls over to me momentarily. Whew!! What a thrill. It was an added plus that they live near the beach, which we visited three times and the temps were still in the 80's. I just love the ocean.

My last night there, Jonathan took me out to dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant. It was a real windy day and red flags were up all over signifying that people should not go in the ocean. The tides were strong and dangerous. We took a little walk on the beach before dinner and were drawn to a large pier where we saw an emergency vehicle parked, facing the ocean. As we got closer, we saw that there were about 60 surfers, all in black wetsuits out surfing the 6-8 foot waves. Having been a surfer myself in Florida, I was so excited to be able to watch them ride the waves. The sun broke through the clouds just as it was setting, making a spectacular picture.

After spending six days with them, I flew over to Atlanta, Georgia where I rented a car and drove up to Franklin, NC. I had planned to just drive up to my parents door and surprise them. When I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door, I laughed at the look of utter consternation and bewilderment and joy on her face. She kept backing up saying, "D-D-D-D-Daryl !!! Where did you come from? How did you get here? "

It was hard to keep the surprise from leaking out with all my family members that knew about it. But it worked and it was worth all the effort to keep it a secret. I had two wonderful weeks with them, also visiting my sister and her family and my brother and his family. My mother just told me today that it was one of the two greatest surprises in her life. I forgot to ask her what the other one was...

Race handler photos - Hero's behind the scenes:)

Had to post a few pics of my Beargrease handlers, my mom and cousins Sarah and Holly and friend Leah! They are all troopers and I am so blessed for their support!! Couldn't do it without ya'll!!!

Sled Dogs Fall Training/Conditioning - Getting Ready for a Winter of Dogsledding!!

Fall is the time of year that my thoughts turn to, well mush! As in Mushing dogs!!! My dad and I are a team in every way with caring for the dogs and running them. Dad goes with me on almost every training run and I couldn't do it without all his help!! He would go with me to handle at the races if he could but he has to stay home to man the generators, plow our 16 mile long "driveway" and feed the dogs left behind. His support means everything to me and he shares in our teams success at the races. We work together well in guiding participants on sled dog trips, teaching them how to drive the sled and commands for the dogs. It has sure been fun to share in all the adventures with my dad!!

With our kennel of racing and touring Alaskan Husky Sled Dogs, training and conditioning of our dogs begins around the 1st of September. When its cooling off in the early mornings and late evenings is an ideal time to hook up some dog power and get our canine athletes into shape after a summer off! We start short and slow, four mile runs with a water break at the halfway point. Keeping sled dogs from overheating is of utmost importance!!! We hook up between 10 and 16 dogs at a time to our big four-wheeler, which they then pull with the engine running, in gear to help hold them back! The goal is to build muscle to help protect the joints from injury which is why we do not allow them to go very fast at first. Hooking up 16 dogs to one gangline for the 1st run of the year can be pretty wild! The dogs are absolutely CRAZY to run and they know what pulling out the harnesses and firing up the ATV's mean!! Its a lot of fun and quite exhilarating to say the least! I just love seeing how much these dogs LOVE to run!!!

As the season progresses we keep gradually increasing the distances they are running, mixing things up with slow/fast - long/short runs. Not only are the dogs getting in shape physically with the conditioning but also there is lots of mental training taking place as well. Teaching new young leaders how to hold the line out, run on the right side of the road, obey commands for turning, and learning how to pass vehicles and other dog teams among other things!! Our location is ideal for training sled dogs with many different roads/trails leading in many different directions. It is a dog mushers paradise to have so many trails to choose from right in our own backyard! The dogs like variety as well as they can get somewhat bored running the same trails and certainly get excited to run new trails!! Seeing moose or lynx, rabbits or partridge also amps them up! Training with the ATV is nice for control with big teams but we are always excited to be on sleds once we get enough snow!!!

My first big race of the year is the John Beargrease Sled Dog Race starting in Duluth, MN at the end of January. I race the mid-distance with 8 dogs for about 112 miles along the north shore of Lake Superior, it is a pretty tough race with some serious hills of the Sawtooth Mountains, not to mention always has some serious competition of highly competitive teams. It has two checkpoints where you can stop and care for the dogs and yourself with the eight hours of mandatory rest time usually divided between both checkpoints. My mom and two cousins, Sarah and Holly have been superstar handlers for me the last several years as well as my good friend Leah who is very knowledgeable and a huge help! It takes dedicated handlers up for adventure to stay up all night in the cold to help me and my team!!! I couldn't do it with out all their help so a huge thank you to you gals!!

I am hoping to head over to Michigan for the Midnight Run starting in Marquette middle of February if it works out. I have long wanted to race it and have (in my opinion:) a great team this year so hope to bring home some prize money if all goes well! And as always I look forward to racing in my old hometown of Ely, MN for the WolfTrack Classic, a race that I helped out with its inaugural year. Always great to see my sister and all my friends!!! In the future I would like to race the 10 dog, 150 mile CopperDog in MI which follows more of a stage style format. Always new trails/races to run!!! We also host a short fun sprint race here at Agimac River in mid March. All the local sprint mushers come if they can and its a great time and usually last hurrah to our racing season:)

The eight pups that were born in April are very big at about 8 months old now! I am super excited to see how they do in harness and will hook them up for the first time this winter! Future Champions here they come!

Continue to watch the blog for race results later on this winter!!! Merry Christmas everyone!!! Joanna and team :)