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The 2008 Beargrease Marathon Race - Part 1
The weekend before Beargrease I headed up to camp in North Stratford to do what would
be our last long training runs before the race. Since my live-in handler had been
strangely reluctant lately to run a team of his own I gave him the option to stay at
home and mind the puppies and a few adult dogs while I went up by myself with
the race team. It was the first weekend I'd ever been up there completely alone, and
after a month or so of stress-filled weeks it was exactly what I needed just prior to
leaving for Minnesota: three days of relaxation, peace and quiet.
© 2008 Jaye Foucher I came home from camp completely rested and de-stressed to find a note on my kitchen table from my handler saying he'd quit and moved out over the weekend. Hello stress. The Beargrease is a handler-assisted race, which means your handlers can help you at all but two of the checkpoints. You cannot do this race without handlers. Thankfully I'd lined up a friend and fellow dog musher to go to the race with us and I immediately called her up to make sure she was ok with being the only one helping out. She expressed some concern about not being familiar enough with the dogs or driving the dogtruck but also pointed out we'd probably have way more fun just us girls on the long drive. 
As it turns out, when I contacted a new friend out in Minnesota whom we were planning to stay with the first night to let her know that we were one less person now, she volunteered to help handle for the duration of the race. Since she had handled for Beargrease teams in the past it eased both my and Anastasia's minds to know Fayth was going to be helping out.
Anastasia and I left on schedule around 2 pm on the Wednesday prior to the race. Our plan was to drive straight through the night if we could, which would put us in Minnesota sometime Thursday early evening. A few days before leaving, the window of my dogtruck had started to have problems with the motor that raises and lowers it, so as we got onto Route 93 North I warned Anastasia that during the trip we needed to try and use that window as little as possible. It still went up and down but the motor was definitely dying so the less we used it the better. Just before reaching the Vermont/Canadian border we stopped to feed dogs, as I wanted to use up the meat and open bag of kibble I'd brought with me before crossing. You are not allowed to bring beef or open bags of kibble into Canada. Although I was feeding the dogs prior to crossing, I did actually have some additional frozen packages of ground beef for the dogs hidden in the back of the storage compartment under some of the gear. The meat snacks I had prepared for the race I had sent to Minnesota with Mitch Ingerson and Matt Carstens of Nevahome Kennels, who were taking the longer US route to get there, but at the last minute I decided to "smuggle" in a few extras logs of beef with which to feed the dogs prior to the race. I figured if they confiscated it at the border it wouldn't be that great of a loss. As we approached the border I was quite nervous about how it would go. I'd heard everything from stories of horror to how easy it would be from other mushers and I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd never crossed with a truck full of dogs before, plus was carrying a bag of kibble (unopened) and those contraband packages of beef. I debated with Anastasia whether to risk using the dying window or to call more attention to ourselves by having to actually open the door and get out to talk to the customs officer and decided the safest route was to lower the window. I handed over our passports and the dogs' paperwork to the Canadian customs official. He barely glanced at the dog records, asked us a few questions about where we were going and how long we'd be in Canada, and then he asked if we had any weapons, mace or pepper spray in the vehicle. "No, we don't," I replied, all the while wondering if the axe in the back that I carry in my sled as part of the required gear qualified as a weapon. "Are you POSITIVE you don't have any mace or pepper spray?" The guard asked with a stern frown. "Because if you do, and we search your vehicle, it's a $500 fine." "I am ABSOLUTELY certain we have no mace or pepper spray," I assured him. Buddy, I have 12 dogs that resemble wolves in the truck and a deadly looking axe - really, what do I need mace or pepper spray for? He waved us through, and as soon as we were out of earshot I commented to Anastasia, "Geesh, I could be a terrorist carrying assault rifles in the back of my vehicle but all he cared about was whether I had mace or pepper spray..." While we were laughing over that I hit the button to raise the window. It went up about 2 inches and stopped. I kept laughing, but a tad more desperately now. "Oh shit, we have a problem." Anastasia stopped laughing. "What?" "The window won't go up." | |
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