Call of the Wild Dog Sled Tours

Good day!!!!! Our last sled dog tour was with a lovely couple from NJ on Tues., April 2nd. The following Friday ist rained and warmed up. The dog yard turned to ice. Our trails remained intack, in fact are still in fair condition. The dog yard is still ice: however bare ground is showing thru and then mud season. The woods snow is disappearing gradually which is good. The brook has stayed within its banks so far. The flood plain is still dry. There is stiil about 2' of snow ...in the woods. The snow should disapear and the trails dry out in the next couple of weeks and then we can start do9ing dryland tours where the dogs pull a "side by side" which holds 4 guest plus the guide. This is a great experience for children since we stop at watering holes on the trail and the children can play with and feed the dogs snack, plus it is warm. Now we start thinking about the Christmas Tree plantation in Lewis. Starting next week we will be cutting stumps from last year sales, tilling to plant seedlings and spring equipment maintenance. Here a Rocky Top we will start spring cleanup, raking, grading roads, etc. Today I will starting cutting large white pine trees to make Adirondack siding which we use on our own buildings plus sell to the public. So the winterdog season is over, but still plenty to do. Spence

Good evening All: Well the Iditarod finished on the 18th. There were lots of difficult trails. Many mushers were winners just to complete the race. There were also lots of disappointments - part of athletic competition. Things have been busy on the home front -still battling weather variations. Currently our trails are good, about 3' of snow in the woods. We traveled home from Lake Placid last Friday night after the Clarkson-Yale hockey game. Carolyn drove thru very heavy sn...ow from Tupper Lake home. She plowed thru deep snow in our long driveway. Not quite sure how she made it to the house. Next morning we woke up to 15" of snow and I managed to get stuck the next morning, trying to get to the mill where the front end loader and snow blower are parked. Spent all day Saturday moving snow and then departed for the hockey game in Lake Placid. Clarkson beat Cornell in overtime 3-2 to win the ECAC Championship. On Wed. we had to say good by to 13 year old Bear. Always a difficult time. Bear had been on many of my race teams. He was typically a team dog or ran in wheel. Bear was one of the great dogs that I will always remember. He always did his job without fanfare. I could always depend on him, with one exception. I was racing a 15 mile race at Tug Hill and was in 3rd place. I could see the first place team not far ahead and only had to catch them to win the race since they had started 2 minutes ahead of me. As I passed the 2nd place team there were cross country skiers on the side of the trail eating hot dogs and Bear thought we should stop to talk and just sat down and would not move. The second place team passed us and then we passed them and Bear sat down again. This happened 3 times. I stopped my team gave the dogs a meat snack and then we passed the 2nd place team for the fourth time. Bear stopped because he wanted a hot dog not conversation. By the time we got on the home stretch to the finish I could see the first place team. We ended up in second place by only a few seconds. Bear, thank you for all the great memories. We have lots of guests on the waiting list for tours. Unfortunately lightly raining now and then 100% chance on Sat. Hopefully we still have trails by Sunday. Will report in next week. God bless All!!! Spence

Good evening All: Its been a few days with lots of activity. First Mother Nature - has been challenging snow, rain, cold weather and every thing in between. Similar to what the Idiarod teams have been experiencing. If you have been following the race you know one day lots of snow and next day rain - crazy and to say the least very challenging for the true athletes (dogs) and musher. It was great to watch the teams loping into Nome and then more impressive they stop under the... arch and the dogs are barking and leaping to go. Unbelieveable after 10 days on the trails and averaging 4 plus miles per hour which includes rest and snack time. As in all sporting events there are winners and lossers.Every team that finishes the Iditarod is a winner. Lots of us feel so bad for Nic Petit, who's team was leading the race by over 4 hours then stoped in a blizzard on the Bering Sea, at the same place where they had difficulty last year after leading the race. He finally had to scratch from the race. Imagine the let down for him. In a matter of minutes he went from having a championship team to dropping out of the race. This is the exact area where in '93 my team was 37th; however, they had slowed to about 2 to 3 mph in a raging blizzard and my impatient took over from my common sense and I started changing leaders. I literal destroyed my dog team mentally not physically. It took me the next 48 hours to get my team to trust me again. I made four rookie errors during the race. Of the four that is the only one I would like back. It is constantly in my memory. Back to happenings at home in the past week. Couple of tours and two presentations. One on Wed. to the 9th graders at Potsdam High School. We talk a lot about goal setting and my goals in the Iditarod, which were to finish with a healthy team, finish and not be last. My team did it all. On Sat. we did a presentation a Picken's Hall in Heuvelton which apparently went over well with both the children and adults - at least according to the Watertown times. Today it was 50 degress and same predicted for tomorrow with maybe some rain then cooling back down Sat. and Sun. I think our trails will be fine - fingers crossed. God Bless You, Spence

Good evening All: Trails are great!!! Little more snow today. This past weekend we had four adults and a child from Manhattan that stayed in our cabin Friday and Sat. nights. We did the kennel tour, taught them to drive their own teams and spent all day Saturday mushing. Great time. I was talking about the history of the Siberian Husky. While on the trail Anna said I'm Siberian. I thought she meant she was another Siberian sled dog because she was working so hard helping t...he dogs on the hills. Finally it came togther- her father was an engineer in Siberia and she was born in Ukraine, so she is Siberian. The guests were great and spent Sunday hiking, snow shoeing and snow boarding before departing at noon for Manhattan. Al, C.J., Anna, Grace, Kie, Nick Jackman (a musher helping me with the tours this year) and I had a great time. Al did lots of videoing of the experience. On Sunday Carolyn and I took out an 8 dog team for a fun run. We took out some of the oldies that didn't run Sat. Not sure who had the most fun the oldies, Carolyn or myself. I think it was a mutually great experience. Since trails are great and should stay that way thru at least Sat. you should call to arrange a tour. We are giving preference to all Gift Certificate holders unless some one has pre-confirmed. Then going off the waiting list. The Iditarod officially started Sunday. Some teams already past Rohn checkpoint (188 miles plus). I remember arriving at Rohn after Dalzell Gorge wondering if I was still in one piece dropping about 4000 ft. in 3 miles commingout of the Alskan Range ( a little NW of Denali). What a ride - the dogs were great, Keeping me out of the open water in the gorge and running thur the overflow on the river. God bless All. Spence See more

Good evening: We got 2 training runs in before leaving for the Seguin Mail Run in Parry Sound, Georgian bay on Lake Huron. The dog truck ran well and the dogs loved the trip. Unfortunately we couldn't take all the dogs. The dogs love riding in the truck, knowing they are going to something exciting. A great time for them to connect with all their furry friends from past races. The mail run was 12 miles and we actually carried the Canadian Post mail in our sled bags just the ...way the mail was transported in days gone by. The weekend could not have been better. The Township of Seguin treated the mushers like royalty. Covered the expense of our rooms and meals. Most important the dogs (Leif, Katie,Baxter, Starr, Boone and Cole) ran like old pros and never once a slack tug line. We had so much fun running across the lakes and thru the woods on some beautiful trails. We got home late Sunday and unpacked. Now it is time to get our trails back in shape. We had about 6" of snow Monday; however, rain/sleet /snow was predicted for today, which happened. I left the trails alone, best thing to do when rain is predicted. Tomorrow I will work on trails and hopefully do a training run. We have a tour scheduled for this weekend. Rain is predicted for Sun., hopefully we can do a tour Sat. If the rain is minimum it should not hurt the trails, since we have over 3' of snow in the woods. Spence