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This was to be the race that saw us move up into longer mid distance racing and hopefully put us well and truly on the road to having a team capable of running in the Yukon Quest in a few years time. As with most things in our mushing career to date, things didn’t quite work out as planned. I guess if I am looking for excuses and other things to blame (other than my own inadequacies of course) I would say that we really did not have the best preparation for this race season. We had aimed at running Eagle Lake 100, the Wilderness 100, L’Odyssee 60 and finishing the season with a nicely trained and conditioned team in the Can Am 60. Unfortunately Dad’s unforecast and untimely illness and subsequent death not only put the world into perspective a bit but also meant that we didn’t have the optimum amount of training. Particularly during the important early phases – September and October, I was back in the UK saying goodbye to Dad and then over the weekend of the Wilderness 100 and in the weeks leading up to the Can Am we were again back in the UK for his funeral.

Enough of this morbid stuff however all that needs to be said is that we were woefully short on miles coming into the Eagle Lake weekend – I had planned on 1200 miles on the dogs, I am ashamed to say that we were sat at 360 miles. I seriously considered withdrawing from the race, and with hindsight I probably should have done, however I knew that the dogs are always capable of surprising me with their mental endurance and physical stamina and so figured I could use this race as a training run whilst getting a first taste of a checkpoint and checkpoint routines. And so it was on a bitterly cold afternoon towards the end of January we packed dogs and equipment into van and trailer and set off towards Maine, Fort Kent and ultimately the small community of Eagle Lake.

This was also the weekend when the heater in the van finally decided that enough was enough; it had struggled through the previous winter battling against temperatures that it was never designed or manufactured to do battle with (it is after all a girlie British built van where history and culture may be in abundance but snow and freezing temperatures are not. Mandatory equipment to be carried and/or worn inside the van are now mittens, scarf, wooly hat (for some reason now referred to as a toque – Canadians eh) and an ice scraper – essential if the driver wishes to see the road ahead). Despite the bitter cold and the constant scraping we did cross the border at Madawasker in good time (this is easily our favourite border crossing – I guess because they are so used to seeing mushers go back and forth for the Can Am then they are really geared up for dealing with the idiosyncrasies of musher and dog teams alike), we found our motel without problem and then found the school where the musher’s meeting was due to be held – with only slightly more problem.

As we walked into the school hall I was getting more and more nervous; we really did not have enough miles on the dogs to be entering a race such as this and here we were in both a musher’s meeting and a race with mushing luminaries such as Martin Massicotte and Andre Longchamps – I had no right to be here. Not too late to withdraw though – so I walked up to the registration desk, introduced myself and signed in – it’ll be too late to withdraw now then!? The rest of the meeting seems a bit of a blur: lots of calm, empirical confidence from the American contingent, lots of questions and Gallic shrugs from the French contingent, lots of nervousness and understated worry from the English contingent. The one bit I do remember with absolute clarity was when race organizer, Tenley Bennett, got up and thanked all the mushers for training their dogs to such an extent that they were able to make the Eagle Lake race, a lot of other mushers had withdrawn from the race because they didn’t have the training miles on their team. A little understated but stiff upper-lipped English arm went up at the back of the room ‘Excuse me but I don’t have enough training miles on my dogs, I would now like to join that other group and withdraw’. Well at least a little arm should have gone up at the back of the room – instead a little under stated but quivering lipped English fellow sat there in, to quote that great leader, Stormin’ George W, a state of complete and utter shock and awe.

Due to our slower than normal drive up (no heater, lots of scraping, stopping every now and again to defrost human occupants), and our slight difficulty in finding the school, we had missed the Friday evening vet check – not to worry though there would be a follow up session at the race site on Saturday morning – just one more thing for me to worry about on race day – as if my woes weren’t enough already. After the meeting I stopped to talk to Lev Shvarts in the car park, another Siberian racer and an Eagle Lake veteran.

 “Heh Lev, how are things going? What would be the lowest amount of training miles you would have on the dogs to consider running this race? I’m thinking about pulling out.” Dispense with the niceties, cut straight to the quick.

”Oh Hi, you must be Rob Cooke. About 800 I guess. How many do you have?”

“About 400” I lied in a state of desperate exaggeration (although the only person I was kidding was myself). Lev looked at me long and hard although not, I don’t believe, in disbelief – incredulity would probably be a more apt adjective. Now I have this theory about Siberian mushers, largely borne out of my own character flaws and evil personae, and that is that we always like to look for someone else in the race who will take up the ignominy of being the red lantern winner; all the better if you can encourage someone else to race who you know you are more than capable of beating. It is unfortunate not only that my personality is lacking such that I would think this way but also that I am invariably the one who is both encouraged, and favourite, to be the red lantern winner at almost every race I enter.

“Oh if you take it easy you should be OK with that amount of miles” Lev finally retorted, now safe in the knowledge that even if he got lost again this year he would not be last; I swear he cackled as he walked away.

And so we retired to the motel, very quickly dropped and fed the dogs (by the gods it was cold) and went up to the room to both thaw out and get drunk – as is my wont I sought solace in the bottom of a Blue bottle – for any natives of the UK reading this that is not quite as bad or as outrageously beastial as it may sound.

The next morning we arose early, I took one final, longing look around the motel room that I was paying for but had a prescient feeling that I would not be occupying on the eve and we headed out as quickly as possible in order to get the vet check out of the way.

Despite the fact it was now daylight, finding the start site proved even more difficult than finding the school had on the previous evening. Well that is not strictly true – we actually found the start site straight away, it is just the fact that we didn’t know it was the start site and so proceeded to spend the next 30 odd minutes driving backwards and forwards passed it until finally, under Rhonda O’Hearn’s direction we saw the sign.

1
 The Elusive Race Site

We pulled in first (that would be a first for us – first at a race, shame it was at the start and not at the finish), found our parking slot and I started the task of assembling the equipment (mandatory or otherwise) that was to go in the sled bag and make the journey with us whilst at the same time packing up my drop bag to go out to the checkpoint. My first checkpoint drop bag – a soft, crystalline tear formed in the corner of my eye and then froze immediately leaving me blind and in agony – well it might of done – I was too nervous to be aware of such things even if they did happen. It was cold enough though, cold enough to freeze a brass monkey’s dinglie danglies (for want of a better phrase) let alone a tear drop; it was probably colder than I have ever experienced before. The start line is right next to Eagle Lake and so fairly open to the elements – it physically hurt to take off your gloves for more than a couple of seconds – it really was that cold. As I was stood in the middle of a disorganized ruck of equipment, steeling myself to remove my mittens once again, Jeremy the Vet appeared from nowhere (very much Mr Benn's Shopkeeper) and introduced himself as the vet doing the inspections. And so it was that with the minimum amount of mitten removing and a great deal of haste, at least on my part (did I mention that it was cold) dogs flew into and out of the van at pace: out, thoroughly checked, marked, back in again, next one out. Fortunately there were no real problems although Nero was slightly dehydrated and Jeremy said he would want to check him at the checkpoint. I think that one of the problems of living so far from the race sites, and traveling up the afternoon/evening before the start, is that the dogs don’t get enough water on the drive up and also cannot rest as well if we are driving as they would if we got to the race location maybe 24 hours in advance of the race. This is why I think we perform particularly poorly at those races where we drive through the night, unload the dogs onto the lines and race straight away à la Bartlett for the last two years – that is my current excuse anyway. For 2009, and in an effort to compensate somewhat, we have been trying to get away from home earlier and also been much more careful in ensuring good hydration of the dogs whilst on the road; I wouldn’t say that our results have been improving but the dogs certainly seem better hydrated come race day.

Anyway back to the cold of Eagle Lake; sled loaded to the max with absolutely everything I could find in the van (needed or not – Rookie Bulge I think it is called), checkpoint bag loaded onto the checkpoint wagon (another ice ball removed from the corner of the eye), vet check successfully completed, all that was left was to sit and wait for the start. Still with an hour to go to my start time we decided on a Last Supper-like dining experience so as to build up my depleted layers of body fat – ahem and give me strength for the marathon ahead. We headed off to the local restaurant for a last breakfast, a last bit of warmth and many, many last cups of coffee.

2
Rookie Bulge?

And so eventually time to prepare for the start. As more and more dogs flew out of the van and onto the ganglines, so the opportunities to withdraw from the race became less and less until it really was too late. The team ahead of me was being led into the start chute, the team behind me was ready for the off, my team was all hooked up and screaming – this was it, the time that Eeek at wheel decided to announce to us that he has a liking for chewing necklines at the most inopportune moments. Well why not have one more panic with only 2 ½ minutes to my departure? Neckline replaced with seconds to spare, we careened out of the start chute and on my way in our first 100 mile race – oh what jolly times.

Being in a 100 mile race may have been a unique experience, what was to follow however was not. Very soon teams starting passing us with monotonous regularity as I made my way quickly, and inevitably, towards my rightful place at the back of the pack. The mushers compliments were flying:

“Ah Monsieur Cooke you have a very well behaved team and so easy to overtake, they are a credit to you.” This I think is probably Ultimate Inverse Complement Number 2 and roughly translated means ‘Man your team are slow but we got by them OK so I figured I needed to say something nice.’

“Heh Rob, nice looking team man.” Ultimate Inverse Complement Number One. ‘See you have Siberians, aren’t they slow.’ To make matters even worse, if that was possible, the words vapourised out of Lev’s mouth as his own ‘nice looking team’ of Siberians left me for standing on a hill. I never really had any doubts that he and the other two Siberian teams in the race, Kathy Lesinsky and Bob O’Hearn, would beat me easily but was it really necessary for all three teams to overtake me so soon after the start? This was going to be a long, hard and ultimately very slow race.

If there can be any consolation to the status quo (and let’s face it, anyone who has ever heard them should always be granted compensation because of Status Quo) it is that the trails were beautiful and perfectly groomed (helped of course by the fact that 15 other teams were out there ahead of me) and the weather was perfect – cold yes but clear and sunny too. As we are want to do, we ambled on towards the checkpoint. As dusk began to fall I became patently aware that a snowmobile was approaching from behind. We had been told that we shouldn’t see too many machines on the trails and that they had been warned to watch out for us, and to be fair apart from a couple that I ran into within the first ¼ mile of the start, I really hadn’t seen any at all. However the trail was at this point fairly narrow so I selected a suitably wider place, stopped and turned to hail the driver by. The snowmobile stopped and a pair of eyes peered at me from behind a darkened visor. I waved again, the driver waved back but just sat there. I muttered something to myself (unprintable I might add), pulled the hook and set off chuntering away to myself as I do. The snowmobile dropped back but didn’t go away – it wasn’t bothering the dogs but it was bothering me – the last thing I wanted as darkness fell was this idiot trying to pass me on a narrow trail – I stopped, he stopped, I started, he started: I was getting annoyed. And then it dawned on my why this guy was doing this; I was at the very back of the pack and he was the trail sweep, a volunteer giving up his time to ensure I could be nursemaided around the course – I was now annoyed with myself for being annoyed with him. On we pushed.

3
Beautiful trails and sunny days

One of the joys of carrying a GPS is that you know exactly how far into a race you are and how far you have to go. One of the annoyances of carrying a GPS is that you know exactly how far into a race you are and how far you have to go. As the GPS was telling me that we were coming up on 48 miles I figured that we must be just about on the checkpoint. We took a right turn off the main trail and onto a smaller side road and so I figured this was it, the checkpoint at last. On we went, mile after mile up the side trail and still no checkpoint. As we went by 50 miles I figured I had missed it, I stopped the team in order to turn them round; the dance of the snow mobile continued – I stopped, he stopped, we looked at each other (figuratively) through the darkness, we both held our ground; surely if I had missed the checkpoint he would have notified me. I pulled the hook and carried on up the road. Another mile done and still no sanctuary, I stopped again – perhaps this was all a test – I remember half-hearing how Lev had missed the turn to the checkpoint the previous year and gone on for a couple of additional miles, perhaps the trail sweep wasn’t allowed to help. Perhaps a bit further; on we trundled and then rounding a left hand bend there it was, Moose Point Camp, the checkpoint all nicely illuminated and cosy looking. The plan was to get the team in, debooted, fed and bedded down without looking like the complete incompetent rookie that I so blatantly was. Volunteers led us into the last available spot next to the penultimate team, provided hay and warm water and then unaware of my own obvious frailties left me to my own devices and musing. Jeremy the Vet vaporized out of the darkness (seriously this guy just needed the fez).

“Hi Rob, how was the run in?” I cast him an exhausted look.

“Do you want to check over the dogs?”

“No rush, you just tell me when you are done and I’ll have a look at them.” He stood back and watched me dither up and down the lines. Great, so now I had an audience to my checkpoint chicanery and complete incompetence.

Eventually I managed to get food into most of the dogs (Nero the Dehydrated being one who wouldn’t eat or drink) and wrist wraps again on most dogs, although both Paris and Poppy appeared to be in obvious discomfort and resisted my efforts. I asked Jeremy to look over all three.

“I can’t see anything really wrong although Nero is still slightly dehydrated. When you come into the lodge I’ll introduce you to Turner, the head vet – I have got to head out in a bit but have him check them out again before you leave”.

My final task was to move Poppy up into the lead position next to Medea; both girls were coming into season and the last thing I wanted was Cal the Randy (or any of the other dogs for that matter) getting to them. Just to be sure I attached the girl’s tug lines to their collars so as to maximize the distance between swing and lead.

I looked across at the warming glow and the ambience radiating from the lodge; the lodge full of mushers, the lodge full of faster and much more experienced mushers, the lodge full of mushers that would fall silent as I walked in through the door, the lodge full of mushers all staring at the slowest musher ever before pointing and breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. I worried around the dogs a bit more, readjusting a wrist wrap here, redistributing some straw there. Eventually I plucked up courage and, I am sure much to the relief of my hitherto ‘worried’ dogs, walked over to the lodge full of mushers.

As I swung open the door it happened…I was hit… by the heat from the fire and the warmth of the atmosphere. Someone sat by the fire looked up and cast me just a fleeting glance, probably encouraged by the inrush of the frigid night air, but there was no break in the comfortable conversation.

“Heh man how’s it going?” One of the lead mushers squeezed out of the door behind me, his mandatory lay over done just as mine was beginning. I was grabbed by the arm “Hi Rob how are you doing?” It was one of the medical team, there to ensure mushers were also fit to continue. After a few well thought out questions designed, I believe, to test mental acumen (although mental acumen must always be a doubt in most mushers – would an intelligent and well balanced individual really take part in this sport/hobby/calling?) I was led into the dining area and presented with pancakes, cookies and lots and lots of coffee – even the odd shot of whiskey was offered – and declined I must say – Oh for a very stiff upper-lipped G&T. One of the other mushers was sat at the table:

“You been out there quite a while in the checkpoint! What you been doing?”

‘Oh just worrying over the dogs, being a complete novice, not having a clue what I was doing, worrying over the dogs some more,’ I thought.

I just shrugged and continued to stuff food into my mouth so that he was under no illusions that further questions would be greeted by spraying pastry. After I had eaten, Jeremy the Vet introduced me to Turner the Vet (strange how they all seem to have the same surname – must be something to do with the original calling, or maybe just a coincidence) who told me to grab him just as I was going to boot the dogs for the run home and he would check them out then.

After about an hour I had defrosted sufficiently that I felt able to go out to worry the dogs some more. They all looked truly exhausted – hardly a head was raised to greet me as I went along the line, replacing straw and wraps, patting as required and cooing at them in an effort to let them know how proud I was of them all. Satisfied that they just wanted to ignore me, I went back into the slowly emptying lodge to fill up on more coffee. My departure time was not until well after 10pm so I had a pretty good idea that I would be running all night – I was going to need the caffeine reserves (yea, like the absolute freezing cold and the fear of a moose encounter wasn’t going to keep me awake!!). I settled back into a recently vacated armchair (vacated as in a musher had just got up and headed out, not as in the armchair had just got up and headed out taking me with it, although that may have been a quicker way to get back to Eagle Lake) by the fire and struck up a comfortable conversation with Troy who, it turned, was the trail sweep. I apologised profusely for keeping him out on the trails for so long. Kind of thought and obviously tolerant of spirit he told me not to give it another thought – he had been worried that his snow machine was bothering the dogs.

As more teams left the checkpoint I again checked the dogs, again they looked exhausted, again they hadn’t moved – now I began to worry that maybe they wouldn’t be motivated to leave the checkpoint when the time came. Slightly concerned, but obviously not overly, I returned to find the armchair was still there so I sank down and returned to the comfortable conversation. About 30 minutes before my departure time I wrapped up one final time, took one final draught of coffee and headed back out to the lot to get the dogs ready so that Turner the Vet could come out and check the dogs over. As I walked across to where the dogs were bedded down I could hear a dreadful noise emanating from my left hand side, out towards the exit point. I dismissed it as the team in front of me leaving the checkpoint – I hoped my guys would be that animated when we came to leave (idiot). I walked across the lot to my team and then stopped still and just stared in disbelief. The cacophony continued behind me, mere background to the devastating scene before me. Where once there had been a team of ten tired dogs there were now ten neat but very empty piles of straw. For poetic and/or comic effect I rubbed my eyes, thrust my chin forward and stared good and hard but still no dogs appeared. The crescendo behind me was growing; no longer satisfied by being just background noise it was forcing itself into my waking consciousness and then above the howling and shrieking of hounds I heard my name being hollered. “Get Rob Cooke out here now – get him out here NOW.” I turned, I looked, I couldn’t believe. There in front of me was a cartoon ball of string of Tom and Jerry proportions, but there were neither meeces nor catsies protruding from this ball but huskies, and not just any old huskies either – my huskies. I ran across – I had never seen such a tangle before, a scene of great catastrophe was before me. To make matters worse whilst some dogs were seizing on this opportunity of unsupervised closeness to exact revenge for a long held grudge on a kennel neighbour, several dogs were doing their best to have their evil ways with Poppy and Medea, ah the joys of running girls coming into season. This in turn inspired more fights amongst the dogs and even more tangles as the wheel dogs, kennel grudges giving way to animal instincts, decided that they too should join the humpfest developing at the head of the team. These dogs, who not 30 minutes previously, had been cute little balls of tired husky fur, were now a frenzied sex-driven rabble. I don’t know how we did it but three of us finally managed to separate and untangle the ball, got the team lined back out and confirmed that there were no serious injuries (other than to my already tattered reputation) just as Turner strolled up to check the dogs over. Lined out and sorted they may have been, calm and collected they were not. My guess is that as the team ahead of us had been heading out of the rest area, the excitement of that team had raised my guys from their slumber and apparent exhaustion and they had decided that they too were off, to badly quote Bono – with or without me. As it was we still had about 20 minutes until my earliest departure time but there was now no way the guys were going to sit and wait calmly. For the full 20 minutes every one of the ten dogs constantly screamed like mad and slammed and slammed into their harnesses wanting to be released back onto the trails. Any last reserves of energy they may have had for the run home were being used up in those long, long 20 minutes. Even as the volunteers fought to lead us back up to the departure line with minutes to go the dogs continued to scream and slam. In the end, and realizing that we were no threat to anyone, I think we may have been released from the checkpoint a couple of minutes early just to get us the hell out of there; the noise of the team was such that even the whiskey totters from the Lodge may have been aroused from their drunken slumber.

I was pretty amazed at the dogs that had an hour previously been in a state of apparent exhaustion, now actually appeared really strong and animated as we headed back down the road. Perhaps I should have been holding them back a bit but we were making good progress so I let them run. Slowly but surely though we settled back into the rhythm of the previous evening – a legionnaire’s like slow advance.

Passing the first safety station out of the checkpoint a marshal hollered out asking if I was bib number 2, I replied in the negative but did get a sadistic buzz that there was still another musher who was to pass this point – he must have taken a wrong turn when we swung back onto the main logging road. The sensation of red lanternless euphoria lasted for about an hour, an hour during which I kept checking over my shoulder for a light from behind. But then my schizophrenic self came to two conclusions – either the guy was very lost and in trouble in which case I could draw no pleasure from the situation or far more likely the marshal had missed the musher going by him. The trail sweep was still nowhere to be seem and this kind of fueled conclusion number 1 but it was a very tentative fuelling and deep down I knew the red lantern was mine – but even that now seemed like a worthy objective, if only I could keep the team moving.

We continued to push into the night advancing slowly along the trail and encountering an awful lot of fresh moose tracks in the process but thankfully never any moose. In our whole mid distance mushing experience we have yet to meet any mooses (or should it be meese – although isn’t that the plural of mice) on the trail – ever. They are not resident in the parts of Nova Scotia where we live and train and fortunately I have yet to meet any at races. I have a theory that they are out there with the full intent of terrorizing myself and the team but get so fed up waiting for us that they all go home to their meese heese long before I pass through. The same happened at the Can Am this year (2009); Kasey McCarty, running just in front of me, had quite a problem with a moose but although I saw all the tracks (which the dogs expertly and gingerly picked their way through) thankfully I saw no moose. On the other hand perhaps my theory is bunkum and I have just been very lucky – a luck that I know will not continue forever; it does worry me how the dogs will react when first confronted by a trail hugging moose – a story all in itself I have no doubt.

As we ran (for want of a better term) through 85 miles the dogs started to hit their individual walls and the lack of training, and hence stamina, really started to show. Medea and Paris, who had been at lead more or less from the start (another rookie mistake made) had to be moved back as they were developing slight limps and looked mentally exhausted. The trouble was I didn’t really have any other leaders to replace them with. Poppy had led for the first couple of miles but experience had shown that she really didn’t want to be up there anymore. Hektor had had some time at lead in training but probably has the least stamina of all the dogs on the team (possibly because he is the one who goes the most berserk at the start and who was certainly screaming the loudest in the checkpoint). Cal and Keelut can lead but Cal and Keelut can also misbehave when given the additional freedoms that come with lead; Nero, Lewis and Eeek have no desire to be at the front, Fya has no desire to listen to me when at the front. And so with no one really to lead, and despite trying a few combinations, we slowed to a complete crawl – I am proud to say that the guys never quit once but boy were we slow. As the light of morning dawned and we edged slowly closer to Eagle Lake I heard the rumble of an early morning snow mobile coming from the town. As he came around the corner I had stopped and was trying to rotate another dog into lead to inspire us for the run in.

“You OK Rob? It’s been so long since you went though the last safety station that everyone was worried that you had got lost?”

4
 Hektor and Fya bring us home

I said that we were fine but very tired – I wanted to keep the conversation short – I was tired and I just wanted to get the dogs back to the van as soon as possible so they could rest – I had never seen them this tired before and I hated myself massively for putting them through this. With Fya and Hektor now up in lead we finally crawled across the finish line much to everyone’s relief. The finish timer was on hand to officially greet me in; Jeremy the Vet was again on hand to check the dogs (all were fine but tired), Louise was on hand to take responsibility for the dogs. After a few discussions she persuaded me that the dogs were fine in her care and I was to get inside and warm up immediately and so I hugged each dog in turn and headed into the diner. And hell, we still had about 1 ½ hours before the Awards Breakfast talk about good timing – done and done.

30 minutes later I quite literally limped back into the motel room in order to shower and change ready for the Breakfast – who needs sleep, it is very overrated. As I peeled off layer after layer I decided a bath might be in order – I felt like I needed to bring up my core body temperature by a few degrees. As I removed the second layer of socks I was greeted by a most pleasant sight - three blackened toes. That will be another first then – frostbite.

And apart from new friends made and many more happy memories, the frostbite and the red lantern are my lasting legacies of the 2008 Eagle Lake 100. The Lantern sits on the bureau next to the two lanterns won at Tahquamenon, whilst on particularly long and cold training runs I can guarantee that both my big toes will start to tingle – a stark reminder never to put under prepared dogs (and musher) through that again. 

The Quest seems a very, very long way away.

Rob