Issues → January/February 2009 → Interact → 10 Things to Do → Winter Adventures: Skiing, Dogsledding, Tracking →

Classic: Worst 30 Minutes of My Entire Life

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(page 3 of 5)

There were four minutes left. "What happens if their dogs attack mine?" I asked.

"They shouldn't," Kathy said.

"If," I hissed, with a disquieting sense of rising panic, ''I've got to know the ifs."

"Then you've got to plant the snow hook and separate them -- but you shouldn't have that problem. Jo Ann is a pro and so are the others in front. Just talk Sobi on by. You say, 'Straight ahead' and you say it rough, like you mean it."

Ivan yanked us to the starting line. I watched the team before me speed ahead, the snow beginning to blow harder across the lake, and soon her dogs all but dissolved in the mist.

"Kathy," I blurted, "if they went with you first, wouldn't they know the trail better?"

She peered into my face, seeing perhaps for the first time its rigid, vacant look, surprised at how quickly it had been drained of confidence.

"You're not seizing up on us, are you?" Ivan yelled from the point.

"You'll be all right," Kathy said. "You can't let them know you're nervous.

The dogs strained forward, like arrows drawn taut on a bow, and the starter counted down "four, three, two, one ..." and we sprang forward. I was conscious of two shouts before all noise faded before the wind. One was the send-off from the starter, a burly man hooded in his snowmobile suit who yelled, "Don't let go of the sled!" And the other was Ivan's hopeful cry to Kathy, "Did you tell Jo Ann to watch out for them?" And his quick burst of distress, "You didn't? You didn't?"

Two hundred yards along the trail I saw to my horror that the driver of the team that was supposed to take care of me was herself in trouble, her team turned crossways to the trail, as we headed straight for its unprotected flank. The only call I remembered was "Straight on," and I shut my eyes. When I opened them Sobi had veered away at the last instant. But relief was short-lived on that wild lake. We quickly gained on the team in front, one that had also become confused and that also lay crossways to the trail. This time we hit, becoming entangled in the lines. The other driver, a seasoned veteran, leaped into the fray, untangling my dogs, heaving Sobi towards the trail. "Straight on," I hollered, as I murmured embarrassed apologies to the other driver.

We turned around an island that formed a hub for the course, Sobi hard on the spruce track until suddenly she followed the scent of an errant team, and ran towards an open expanse that for all I knew stopped in Quebec. A young man stood his ground, doing his job -- which was to frantically wave dog teams back on to the trail. I pressed the brake hard and Sobi stopped.

"I don't know what to do," I shouted. His eyes grew wide beneath his enormous parka. "I don't know either," he said. "Can't you get the dog to follow you?"

I asked him to hold the sled. He approached slowly, as though half expecting me to run off, leaving him to drive the dogs home. Ivan had told me to throw Sobi back on the trail when she got off, but I wanted to keep my distance.

"C'mon girl, here girl," I implored, my arms motioning to the trail. I clucked as though I were calling my own dog. I whistled. Sobi stared at me briefly then looked off into the distance. Dog teams passed by 30 yards away, heading home. In desperation I grabbed Sobi's neckline and yanked her towards the trail, pulling the team 30 yards until I was so winded I feared I would be ill. I rode the sled runners then, not even pretending to pump, When we turned the far point towards home, the teeth of the wind, now gale force, struck full-bore. It seemed to drain the will from me. Jo Ann's team, which had had difficulty staying to the trail, came so close that I kept kicking her leader. Again Sobi veered off the trail, though there was nothing left of a trail except runner marks.