SHAYTAAN SIBERIAN HUSKIES       

Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to 

pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes

     Click here for full Odyssee  results                                                                                   Click here to see the Teams

L'Odyssée Appalachienne 2008

Saint-Pamphile - The Home of the l'Odyssée Appalachienne

One of the 120 Mile Teams Ready for the Off

Rob's Team on the USA/Canada Border

Where Has the Trail Gone?

Rob Coming into Saint-Marcel to Scratch from the 60

A Team Prepares for the Start of the 30 Mile Race

Louise Coming to the Road Crossing at 10 Miles

Louise' Team In The Woods

Louise at 24 Miles

Louise' Team Approaching the Finish After 34 Miles

Coming only a week after the Eagle Lake 100 I should have guessed that this was going to be one race too many; instead I approached the race in a cocky, over confident manner. We had just completed a 100 mile race, a 60 miler was going to be a piece of cake.

Although St Pamphile is just across the border from Fort Kent and the Can AM trails the way the crow flies, the drive up takes an additional 3 hours. However it was still a local race, and a Canadian one at that, and we also figured it would be a good balance between the 100 miles of Eagle Lake and the 30 and 60 miles of the Can Am and also good final preparation and conditioning for the Can Am. As seems to be the norm for us the fun had actually begun before the race, many weeks before the race in this case. We decided to secure some accommodation for the weekend before setting out but Quebec being Quebec we were having difficulty finding l’hotel, gite or chambre primarily because regardless of who we phoned or emailed no one seemed to speak English; I mean how inconsiderate is that – my Dad would have had a field day: ‘bloody foreigners not speaking English’. To make matters worse my French consisted largely, and almost exclusively of “Je ne parle pas francais” whilst Louise could master “Eh?” – we are not a bilingual household. Eventually, and via the wonders of modern technology, we were pretty sure we had secured a room for the weekend in a home that we were pretty sure was close to St Pamphile – the owner spoke French so that was close enough for us.

The Friday afternoon run up through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was actually pretty uneventful, even the now defunct heater was not having such an impact as the temperatures were considerably warmer than they had been for Eagle Lake. As we pulled off the Trans Canada Highway in Quebec we stopped for gas and our first test of the language barrier. By some miracle of sign language, grunts, shrugs and gestures we managed to get the tank filled with diesel and all that was left was to pay and get some directions:

“Vous allez à la course de traîneau de chien?” asked the attendant.

‘Chien, chien – I think that is dog but…’

“Pardonez-moi?”

“Les chiens, St Pamphile?”

“Ah oui. Ou est St Pamphile?” Now I was starting to push it because even if my French was correct there was no way I would understand his response. More French, more shrugs, some pointing and then confirmation that we were heading in the right direction, or so I assumed (correctly as it turned out). I thrust my Bank of Montreal debit card under his nose to demonstrate that we were kindred spirits in so much as I use a Quebec based bank, tenuous in the extreme, and with a quick arrivederci we were back on the road.

At this point the weather started to change quite dramatically and the further we got from the Trans Canada, and the more remote the vista became, then the heavier the snow began to fall. The VW van is never at its best on snow covered roads (we have yet to discover when it is at its best – probably when it is in for extensive and expensive repairs) and so we slowed to a crawl. The musher’s meeting and vet checks were programmed in for about 1900 that evening and as we still had a bit of spare time we decided that we were probably best trying to locate our accommodation first, book in, then head back into St Pamphile. The only trouble was we really did not know where the house we were booked into was nor did we have a very clear address. We had a rough idea that the words St Marcel appeared somewhere in the address so when we saw a sign stating the same we made a quick right turn onto a heavily snow covered, and yet to be ploughed, side road. As the snow got heavier and civilisation more scarce and we seemed to be getting further and further from St Pamphile my mood grew darker and darker.

Eventually, and after what seemed like an age, we came into the small community of St Marcel but could see no sign of the road on which we believed our accommodation to be. A man appeared out of the snow in front of us, we drew up next to him and I wound the window down.

“Excusez-moi, ou est Rue des Cuisses de Grenouilles?” OK so it wasn’t called Rue des Cuisses de Grenouilles but come on it was a long time ago and it was something in French and even at the time we weren’t too sure how to pronounce it. Cuisses de Grenouilles seems as good as anything – what, do you plan on going there or something?

“Bonsoir. Rue des Cuisses de Grenouilles? Non?”

“Oui, j'ai juste expliqué aux anglophones au-dessus de cela que c'a été une année depuis que nous avons parlé en réalité. Comment vous attendez-vous à ce que je se rappelle un nom que je ne pourrais pas même prononcer alors?” I showed him a piece of paper with the name of the road written on it.

“Ah Rue des Cuisses de Grenouilles!!” You see maybe that is what it was called, certainly our Monsieur Le Samaritan seems to know it as such.

“Oui, le blahdeblah, le blahdeblah, le stéréotype social, les Cuisses de Grenouilles, déchets xénophobiques, le blaheblah, vous êtes un porc anglais stupide et ignorant, il est derrière vous, débile”

I looked at Louise, Louise looked at me, we shrugged in a very non-Gallic fashion.

“Ah you are English, I speak English. You are very fortunate I am the only person in St Marcel who speaks English. The place you are looking for is right there.” He pointed behind us “but la matron speaks no English at all. Are you here for the dog race?” Seriously did the whole of southern Quebec know about this race? I was guessing that the fact that we had two sleds on the trailer we were towing was giving our little secret away.

“Um yes we are”.

“Fantastique, I am the local organiser for the race here in St Marcel. I will go to the house and tell the lady that you are here; she has two houses so I will find out which house your room is in”

So eventually we checked in to the room – mostly through a series of gestures, gesticulations and shrugs (Scott and Corina Alexander were hoping to stay at the same place as us the following night and had asked us to book them a room – fat chance that the latitudes of our lacking linguistic lassitude’s were going to extend to that – as we were pushed for time we decided that we would tackle that one on the morrow – perhaps my French might have improved by then). We quickly unloaded our bags into our room and headed back towards St Pamphile with as much haste as the roads would allow in order to make the musher’s meeting.

After much more getting lost, a fair deal more asking for directions, a bit more parlez-vous anglais and a lot more je ne sais quoi we eventually pulled up at the St Pamphile school hall. I was all parlez’vous’d out and I guess my expression said as much as we walked into the canteen where the registrations were taking place.

“Bonjour, nous sommes ici pour L’Odyssee”

“M. Cooke?” How on earth did they know who I was? Was there a flaw in my French accent?

“Oui.”

“Ah it is OK we all speak English here”

“Oh thank the gods for that”

And so they did and so we did and so we were and yes it was. Before we knew it a team of vets were inspecting the dogs and covering dogs, mushers and van in enough spray paint to confirm that we were all cleared to race and would be for months to come, and were sat in a mushers meeting with our own personal translator as rules, trail etiquette et al were explained (how about that English, French and Latin – what an educational piece of prose this is). It did appear to me that the French must have at least 50 words for every one in English because each long 20 minute spiel (German as well eh? Ooo – ‘eh’ – Canadian too!) in French was followed by our quizzical looks at the translator and a response along the lines of ‘Oh he said that the trail is very nice.’ Another twenty minutes, lots of laughter, some pointing at the map, more laughter, sucking on teeth, some grave shaking of heads, the occasional shrug, our quizzical look – “Oh he says you turn right there”. Oh well, I had finished a 100 mile race last week, why should I worry about this little old 60 miler, I didn’t need all this information. Having said that I do now sympathise with those Francophiles who have had to sit through all the English musher’s meetings that I have attended in the past with little more than a nod of acknowledgement.

Meeting over we jumped back into the newly spray painted van and headed back towards St Marcel to get a good night’s sleep. Fortunately although heavy snow was still falling, the temperature was also fairly warm so we could probably get away with not having to plug in the block heater; I dreaded having to ask la matron for an extension lead and external power point – heaven knows what we would have got had I asked the owner of the B&B if she had somewhere that I could stick my thingie in for the night – a slap around the face probably. 

The following morning dawned bright and clear but still fairly warm (thankfully for the van – it started first time) but the fresh snow was fairly deep. We managed to make our way back into St Pamphile and found the start site easy enough. As we were pulling into the reserved parking area the first of the 120 mile teams were starting off but after this small amount of congestion we were able to find our parking slot and started getting the sled and dogs ready.

L’Odyssee is spread over the entire weekend with the 120 mile race starting early on Saturday morning and finishing either late Saturday evening or early on Sunday; the 60 mile race goes out next, finishing (supposedly) sometime on Saturday evening and the 30 mile race runs on Sunday morning. This scheduling was quite handy as it allowed Louise to get stressed out over her run in the 30 on Sunday whilst handling for me on the Saturday and allowed me to kick back, put my weary feet up and relax whilst watching Louise struggle through on the Sunday.

Without a great deal of incident we got the sled ready, equipment checked and dogs hooked up. ATVs were all over the place helping getting the teams up to the start line. Stands had been set up all along the start chute in front of the school and it seemed like the whole town had come out to both watch and cheer the teams on their way; the level of support was comparable with the Can Am. Before we knew it we were making our way through the crowds up to the start line, then off and ‘running’ so to speak.

Straight away it was obvious that the warm temperatures and fresh snow were making for exceptionally hard going and dare I say it I think the dogs were still slightly tired from their exertions at Eagle Lake. I also wonder if mentally I had also pushed them too hard the previous weekend, they were now psychologically drained and the buzz of running had temporarily subsided somewhat for the dogs (and maybe me as well). Whatever the reasons, we struggled through the fresh snow and more and more teams began to pass us. In addition to the warm temperatures and pretty fresh snow the first part of the course seemed to be fairly hilly and this added to the overall slowness of the team. As the speed dropped away, and there were no more teams left to overtake us, the dogs’ mental tiredness seemed to be having more and more of an effect and their attention seemed to wander. In the case of Paris at lead and Hektor in swing their attention didn’t seem to wander very far, only about as far as Medea, also in lead but also in full season. I swear the Brothers ‘Grimm Faced but Laughing Inside’ had hatched up some fiendish plan over the previous night when locked away in the van. Just after we passed a road crossing, and in full view of a despairing marshal, Paris enacted part A of the plan and decided that the time had come to exercise his candid canine carnal cravings. No candle lit dinners, no wooing (no wooing? Unusual for Mr Woo!), no nice secluded motel room for Paris, the place was here and the time was now. It mattered not that we were in a race nor that the object of his desire was pretty non-plussed, Paris had something to do and he was going to do it. I hooked down as quickly as I could and ran to the front of the team, separating them before it was too late; scolding Paris I told him to concentrate on the job in hand (now why doesn’t that sound right). With Paris suitably chastised, although not chaste, we were off again – for ten feet. Hook down, run to the front of the team, separate the dogs. I looked back along the team to make sure everyone else was OK and caught a glimpse of the marshal at the road crossing, stood with arms folded, watching with intent and no doubt a degree on mirth and disdain in equal measure as the English fool kept stopping every ten feet to separate his dogs that were trying to give each other piggy-back rides down the trail. I shrugged, in a very English fashion and proceeded to swap Hektor and Medea, moving Medea back into swing, hopeful that this would allow Paris to focus – on the trail ahead. A new found drive and much greater levels of concentration … did not exist. Within 15 feet (OK so better than 10 feet but hardly a race winning performance) now both Hektor and Paris were turning around trying to engage in a ménage a trois with Medea. We stopped, we separated, we scolded, we proceeded, we struggled along the trail. As the trail was crossing an open field at this point this attempt at a canine orgy continued to play itself out before the marshal, who remained rooted to the spot, the only perceived movement the mirthful rising and falling of his shoulders. Defeated by the Hektor/Paris lead combination, and with no other leaders to choose from, I put Medea back up in lead in place of Hektor. For some reason Paris seemed to have got over his urges and we started forward again. It was however all just a shameful ruse, whilst running side by side it appears that Hektor and Paris had had just enough time together too hatch another fiendish plot. I swear that running once more next to his belle, Paris leaned over and whispered sweet something’s in Medea’s ear. Whatever was said she didn’t appreciate it because immediately she began to back away from Paris as if expecting another sexual advance at any moment. As she backed up towards the swing dogs Hektor enacted part two of the plan and mounted her straight away. Hook, run, separate, scold, sigh, cry, dehook, proceed, defrock, hook…… This went on for about 10 minutes. Eventually Hektor and Paris seemed to get the message that no matter what, I was not going to let either of them have their way with Medea. Ever so slightly deflated they got back to ‘running’ again. The interest though really wasn’t there from the dogs and we were indescribably slow and still not yet passed 15 miles; at the rate we were going at I could see us taking at least 12 hours to complete the 60 miles; the Eagle Lake inspired over confidence was certainly ebbing away at a great rate of knots. We trudged on but the warm temperatures and soft snow really wasn’t helping either, and slowly the thought developed in my mind that enough was enough; after Eagle Lake this really was one race too many and I wasn’t going to completely break the dogs’ spirit just for my own selfish needs.

One of the unique and enjoyable aspects of L’Odyssee is that it embraces all the local communities, not just St Pamphile. At any moment you could find yourself emerging from the forest and into the centre of a village with all the locals lining the road crossing to clap and cheer – it really was heart warming, especially as my moral was as low as the team was slow. I had also picked up enough from the musher’s meeting to know that St-Marcel was the final village you pass through before reaching the ‘halfway’ checkpoint at 27 miles; I hoped that Louise would be there at the inevitable road crossing. St-Marcel, however, never seemed to get any closer. Just as I thought I could see the church in St Marcel before me, we turned right off the road and onto a trail that led across an open and exposed field. The trail was pretty much blown over and virtually covered over by deep, fresh snow; we couldn’t see the trail made by the teams in front and were just following from one marker post to the next; I don’t know what this was doing for the dogs but this finally broke my spirit. As we mounted a crest in the field I again saw the church of what I hoped was St Marcel before me. We struggled into the village and joy of joys I saw M. Le Samaritan and Louise at a very packed road crossing; to my surprise Lee Kerney driving the team that I had assumed was miles in front of me, was there too. Tears began to well up in my eyes because I knew what had to be done; as the road crossing opened up to let me cross I saw Lee’s team parked on the other side of the road – I wasn’t as far behind as I had thought but it really didn’t matter any more. Louise was trying to say something to me but over the cheers of the crowd it was lost.

“I want to scratch” I said in hushed tones to the marshal.

“Pardon?”

“I am scratching, I’m finished, fin,” I said more loudly but with head bowed. I was having trouble making the marshal understand but Louise had understood immediately – I discovered later that when she had been trying to talk to me she had actually been asking me to consider scratching. I felt like such a failure and fought back more tears borne out of fatigue and frustration but knew I was doing the right thing. Louise led the team through the crowds and up to the van (fortunately the road crossing was right next to our accommodation so the mush of shame wasn’t too far). As I pulled the team up to a stop next to the van crowds gathered round to get a closer look at the dogs. It really is amazing how much of an interest the people of the area around St Pamphile take in dogs and mushers alike – all have a pseudo-celebrity status, which is nice until you want to be alone with your dogs. I knelt down and buried my head in Medea’s fur, hiding my eyes, my shame and my disappointment. I knew I had done the right thing by myself, by the volunteers who were going to have to stay out there all night waiting for me if I had carried on but most importantly I felt I had done right by the dogs; it didn’t make the decision to scratch any easier to bear though.  

Despite only being minutes ahead of me, and surely now a long way behind the rest of the pack, Lee had decided that he was going to push on but dropped one dog that now found its way into our van for the night. Fortunately the 8 dogs who had just run were too tired to bother about this new found intruder.

Unfortunately the day was not over for us, nor could I hide my head in shame. Louise was after all running a team in the 30 mile race on Sunday so as soon as the dogs were bedded down in their cages we headed back into St Pamphile for the vet check and musher’s meeting for the 30 mile race; and of course to answer the inevitable questions about why I was back so soon.

As with the previous night all went off without a hitch at the vet check and musher’s meeting, although I detected an increased sense of nervousness in Louise now. Through choice she was only running a 6 dog team in the 8 dog 30 mile race so was already at a disadvantage. Add to this the fact that I had pretty much taken the pick of the dogs for my team then it was safe to say that if the trails didn’t firm up a lot by the morning those 6 dogs were really going to struggle.

Having answered many questions about the state of the trail and why I didn’t finish, we settled down in the school canteen for a bite to eat. Have dined on a fine meal I wandered outside to wait for the first finishers to cross the line, safe in the knowledge that the night would swallow me up and the darkness cover my shame. As I lurked beside the grandstand (probably not the wisest place to be in my current frame of mind) I was spotted and recognised by one of the announcers. Within seconds I was hauled up on stage in front of the crowds, a microphone thrust in my face and questions came raining in about the race, the trail, why I had been a big, girlie failure (Ok so the question may not have been couched that way but that was the implication). Unable to hide my shame I answered as best I could, in English of course, and the announcer translated as best she could into French for the benefit of the crowd. Eventually I was released from this purgatory and quickly scuttled back inside where at least I was free from the threat of the microphone.

As the evening wore on Claude Baril strolled into the canteen area, fresh from victory in the 60 mile race but clearly very tired. Having congratulated him, and then explained why I had scratched, he concurred that the trail had been particularly grueling. He claimed that it did get slightly better after the checkpoint but was still a hard trail for the dogs – I resolved again that I had made the right decision.

Earlier in the afternoon, just after scratching we had somehow, and I am not at all sure how, managed to communicate to Mme. La Patron that Scott and Corina wanted a room for the evening and so it was having met up with them at the musher’s meeting all four of us returned to the B&B to two warm and cosy rooms.

After a few quiet beers and a considered reflection on the day’s events, I laid my weary bonce down to rest. I think it is fair to say that I probably slept a lot better than Louise that night and we woke up on the Sunday to much colder temperatures, better formed snow and an extremely hearty and plentiful breakfast, courtesy of our gracious and generous hostess; my shame may not have departed but my hunger and tiredness had. We packed up, settled the bill (well at least we somehow promised to send a cheque as soon as we got home as they did not accept credit cards and I did not have enough cash on me) and we headed back into St Pamphile for Louise to suffer her own waking nightmare, the 30 mile race.

As with the previous day we found our parking place without any trouble and went through the routine of preparing the sled; lines checked and attached, mandatory gear loaded in the sled bag, equipment check carried out. As Louise’s nervousness increased as her start time got ever closer all that was left was to harness and boot the dogs. Time may have been running out before the start but there was still sufficient time left for one more ‘disaster’ to strike. As Louise was putting boots onto Mannie she noticed that he had broken a toenail and was in obvious discomfort. Now, we were carrying spare dogs in the van just in case we had any issues with either team at the vet checks but that really wasn’t the point. Louise was already running two dogs less than everyone else in the field, her team was young and inexperienced and the dog on her team that had been performing the best over the course of the winter had, of course, been Mannie. However there was now no way he was going to be able to run so the call up went out to Joe, brother of Mannie but developing much more slowly than Mannie was in harness – he really had not impressed me over the winter. I could see that Louise was fighting back the tears and really didn’t want to race but she said nothing and soldiered on regardless.

Eventually with six dogs hooked up Louise and the team were led into the start chute and the substantial crowds cheered her off down the trail. I watched her disappear over the hill and into the trees and figured that that would be the last I would see of her for a few hours at least. After watching a couple more teams start I turned away from the start area and walked back down towards the van in the car park. As I walked across the car park I couldn’t believe my eyes as Louise and team thundered by the car park going in totally the wrong direction. I ran across to where she had just passed in time to witness her being turned round and then thundering back by me in the opposite, yet correct, direction – this had the potential to be a very long day.

As Scott was also running in the 30 mile race, Corina and I decided that we would drive around to a few of the road crossings in order to watch and cheer the teams on. We reached the first road crossing just too late to see Scott pass through but did see Louise mush by – the team were looking good and making reasonable progress, perhaps this wouldn’t be too bad after all. We estimated that the teams would be crossing the main highway into St Pamphile, at about the 25-mile point, in a little over 1 ½ hours so we drove around to that crossing to wait, and to wait…and to wait. Team after team made the crossing, including Scott with his dogs driving hard and looking up for the challenge, however as the penultimate team made the crossing there was no sign of Louise and little news coming in of her progress from further down the trail. As the minutes stretched towards (what seemed like) hours, word reached me that Louise had moved through the previous marshal point quite sometime previously and really should have made this crossing by now … I grew impatient, then I grew concerned, then very concerned and finally I transited to frantic. The road crossing marshals sensing my anxiety (could have been prescience, could have been the pacing to and fro, could have been the constant whining – ‘please find out where she is’) summoned up a snow machine and driver, and off we set back up the trail in search of Louise and the team. Within 5 minutes however there she was, moving slowly but nonetheless moving down the trail; all thought of an accident, loose dogs, team and musher separated that had been plaguing my thoughts for the last hour or so vaporised. I would not say that Louise looked overly happy, although she looked even less happy when I asked her if she wanted to scratch (she was now quite a long time behind the preceding team). I didn’t catch her response but I did catch the scowl which was thrown in my direction and told me what I needed to know – she wasn‘t giving up now.

After she had completed the road crossing, much to the delight of the marshals who had been stood there most of the day, I jumped into the van and drove round to what was to be the final road crossing of the race. Not wanting to distract the guys on her team again, I kept my distance from the road crossing (who was I kidding, I was keeping my distance from my latterly scowling wife). Once she had completed the crossing and was disappearing up the trail below the telegraph lines and heading off towards the finish I drove back round to the finish area expecting her to cross the line within the hour. The hour came, the hour went, the crowds at the finish grew larger. To pass the time whilst waiting for Louise (all the other 30 mile teams had long since finished), and in order to keep the crowds entertained the organisers decided to run the junior’s race and boy were they juniors. Children as young as 4 or 5 were jumping onto a sled behind one or two dogs and careering off down the trail, getting about 600 yards before being turned round and heading back for a victorious, and not at all ceremonial, crossing of the line. There were however a finite numbers of juniors and soon that piece of entertainment too was done and still no sign of Louise – once again my frantic levels were rising. Then just as the crowd were getting restless (well one member of the crowd was getting restless), a shout went up and a dog team appeared over the horizon with, I have no doubt, a very relieved musher stood on the runners of the sled.

As Louise made her way through the finish chute (I won’t extend the boundaries of poetic licence by suggesting that the team sped through the finish chute) I stepped out of the cheering crowds to congratulate her and help lead the team back to the van. Before I could say anything however my microphone wielding assailant from the previous evening thrust said microphone under Louise’s nose and requested an interview. Knowing Louise as I do I have to confess that a slight smile crossed my lips; I grabbed the handlebar, jumped on the runners and drove the team back to the van leaving Louise to the interview, the microphone and the discomfort of standing there before the huge crowds, exhausted, frustrated but extolling the virtues of L’Odyssee.

Louise of course had the last laugh, as she so very often does; she had after all achieved something that I had failed to achieve and that was finish the race and did she ever remind me of that fact, several times, and not just on the long but uneventful journey home either. In fact it seems just like yesterday that she was making such a statement – probably because it was; a year on, and after I myself have completed L’Odyssee Appalachienne 30 mile race, she still takes great pleasure in reminding me that that weekend was just one of her many triumphs over me.

 Rob