SHAYTAAN SIBERIAN
HUSKIES 
Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to
pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes
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Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes
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L'Odyssée Appalachienne 2009
Sign of the times
All is quiet on new race day
Don't you forget about me
Should I stay or should I go
The long and windy road
Driving in my car
Walk on by
One step beyond
Don't stop me now
Help!
Home again, naturally
The Trials of the Trails Sur
ceci le cinquième jour de mars par année de notre Seigneur deux mille et neuf
j'offre vers le haut le suivant dans ma défense: It is not the winning but the taking part that is important (good job really); well it is not so much the taking part as the trying to take part that is important. Getting to the venue and getting home in one piece always seems to be a challenge for us, perhaps it is my ability to do anything and everything in a half-arsed manner and let’s face it L’Odyssee Appalachienne 2009 was no exception. Before launching into another tale of woes (or should that be tale of lies – the truth may well be suppressed somewhat in this article in order to protect the (not quite so) innocent (i.e. me) and so as not to influence any pending juries unnecessarily – unless I can influence them in my favour that is). Anyway before all this I must say at the outset what a truly fantastic race L’Odyssee is and how wonderful the organisers and the people of St Pamphile and surrounding environs really are. I would express my heartfelt appreciation in French however I feel that I may insight a national incident (I struggle on occasion to even get my English write as this little incite will reveal) or even inspire an uprising of Le Bloc with some misplaced misinterpretation: "L’Odyssee
c’est tres fantastique.” “Tres
fantastique?” “Oui,
tres fantastique et les habitants de St. Pamphile sont grosse.” “Sont
grosse? Sont grosse? Vous etes un plaisantin.” “Je
suis plaisant? Ah merci, merci et votre femme est une cloche.” “Une
cloche? Non ma femme est belle. Une cloche dites-vous? Dans ce cas, s’il vous
plait accepter mon poing.” “Ah merc…ow” Or
something like that. This was
our second year of taking part in this race and both years we have been made
feel so welcome by St Pamphile; the organisers do everything they can to make it
an enjoyable and successful event and the trails are truly beautiful –
probably why both Louise and I have spent so much time out on these very same
trails over these last two years – and people think we are just slow!! In all
seriousness I cannot recommend this race highly enough.
“Vous voyez Votre Honneur
que je suis vraiment un bon homme et j'adore le Québec.” So back to the story. Having pulled out of the Eagle Lake 100 due to lack of training miles on the dogs we decided that it would probably be best to enter two teams in the 30 mile race at L’Odyssee as opposed to entering a team in the 30 and the 60 as we did last year. I still have the mental, and physical, scars from scratching in the 60 last year – I didn’t want to subject either the dogs or myself to that again this year. Louise, equally mentally scarred (although I think that has more to do with me than the race), decided that she had seen quite enough of the Quebec trails the previous year and so elicited the help of Mike Stratton to run her team for her. Mike has spent many years working with ChocPaw in Algonquin Park and so is very familiar with running dogs (although Alaskans as opposed to Siberians – we were still pretty confident that he would be able to cope with the change in pace) and he is also really good with all our guys so we had no hesitation in having him run the team. Due to my half-assed mechanical skills I still had not put the dog box onto the truck and so we would be heading north in the VW van again – hell it hasn’t broken down for ages. Due to my half-assed procurement skills I still hadn’t bought roof bars for the van and so as the van was going to be full of cages (we were taking 18 dogs with us – 2 teams of 8 and 2 spares) we were going to have to take the trailer in order to carry the sleds. Due to my half-assed electrical skills I hadn’t fixed the lights on the trailer yet (despite knowing for about three months that they weren’t working) and so had not had a safety check done on the trailer and hence (due to my full-assed confusion over Canadian vehicle excise law) I hadn’t had the annual registration renewed yet on said trailer. Due to my half-assed organisational skills I figured I could get the lights fixed, trailer safety checked and registered all in the week leading up to the race – Oh yes and go to work, train, pack … blahde blahde blah. And so it was on Friday morning instead of being on the Road to Quebec, like some Bob Hope type fool, I was stood over, on and at various times, under the trailer, wiring for the lights in very cold hands trying to fix the lights and safe in the knowledge that I would not be able to get the lights fixed, trailer safety checked, vehicle registered and on the road all in the next three hours – I would have to shave a couple of steps – probably with hindsight not the best decision I have ever made. “Vous voyez que Votre Honneur la seule chose que je ne fais pas d'une façon de moitié-assed est acte comme un idiot”. I did however manage to fix the lights – in a half-assed manner as it turned out. Better late than never (although again with the hindsight perhaps better never than late) I picked Mike up and off we set for a completely incident free, and trailer illuminated, drive up to Woodstock where we stopped for the night. Next morning it was bloody cold but the van started all right as I had remembered to plug in the block heater the night before (see many previous and future tales where this was painfully not the case) and off we drove into some beautiful weather. How this was not to last. By Grand Falls we were driving into a whiteout – my first ever – hurrah and hussah! Things were so bad in fact that all I could see were tracks in the snow immediately in front of the van. I followed the tracks along the road heading for Quebec … straight up the ramp, off the interstate and almost into the back of a gas tanker pulling into the Irving station. Undeterred by this undesired detour, and getting low on gas anyway, I decided to make good my error and stopped to fill up. Anyone who has stopped at the Irving station just north of Grand Falls, New Brunswick will know how open and exposed to the elements it truly is – the wind and snow was blowing like a bar steward’s illegitimate child on his 16th birthday when confronted by a cake full of candles. We filled up on diesel and coffee (I think Irving’s coffee and diesel are probably one and the same although it may be that one is slightly warmer and more palatable – the only trouble being that the hose doesn’t always fit in the mouth), got back into the van and prepared for the off. Now I could not see a single thing – not even the exit to the services, nor for that matter the road leading up to the exit to the services. In part this may be a consequence of the heater not working in the van (more half-assedliness on my behalf I must confess (Et que Votre Honneur est la seule confession vous recevrez de moi aujourd'hui.) – it has only been in a state of heaterlessness for about a year now) and that coupled with the aspirations of 18 dogs and two mushers ensured a nice crust of ice on the inside of the windshield. As Mike, fighting a losing battle, scraped away at the inside of the windscreen I edged the van slowly towards where I believed the exit to be and the other Irving customers stood inside the warm, cosy station, drinking diesel and pointing and laughing at the idiots from outside the Province – the resident undertaker rubbed his hands with glee; or perhaps that was just the mad Francophile truck driver rubbing his hands to keep warm. This will be the same mad truck driver who had cackled to me five minutes previously about how it was nice and sunny in Quebec City – like I cared; I do seem to attract these people though, I wonder why that is? Somehow, and I don’t know how because even with some of the ice removed from the windshield, visibility was still about 2 ft, we managed to slide (quite literally) back onto the highway. I am really not sure how we didn’t die because I couldn’t see the middle of the road, the side of the road, anything ahead or behind us on the road or even in fact the road – I knew we were doing OK because we hadn’t hit anything and so on we blindly ploughed. Eventually we emerged out of the whiteness and into the lightness and pushed on towards an undoubtedly sunny Quebec – well if that was the worst that this trip was going to throw at us this was going to be a fun weekend. “Vous voyez Votre Honneur, je suis vraiment un idiot et, par conséquent, je parle en faveur la folie” Slowly but surely we made our way through Quebec meeting up with the indomitable Gino Roussel en route – Gino may or may not figure in one or more of our mushing tales and may or may not at various times be called as a character witness for the defence. “Vous voyez Votre Honneur, il n'étiez pas mon défaut, Gino est le coupable, je suis la partie d'innocence ici!” We got to
the race site without further incident and in good time – things were going
well. We registered for the race without a problem – things were going well.
The organisers found us rooms in a hotel half a mile from the start line at a
cost of $16 per night – despite a bit of haggling over the exorbitant price of
the room I still have to say that things were going well. A team of vets were
around the dogs within 30 minutes of us registering, all the dogs passed the
check without (much) incident – things were going well. The musher’s
meeting was brief but informative and expertly translated into English for us -
things were … well you get my drift. We found the hotel, enjoyed a meal of
something French with thinly cut strips of potato fried in oil on the side – I
can’t remember what they were called, had a couple of Bleu and retired to bed
relatively early so as to be refreshed for the following morning. “Vous
voyez Votre Honneur que je suis un chrétien vivant très croyant et proper”
– if only I wasn’t an avid atheist I truly believe I would be struck down by
lightning for that one. At
0530 the alarm went off and I arose from a deep and dream filled sleep, no
nervous tossing and turning, no lying awake worrying about the race. We had been
training consistently with 23 to 30 mile runs so I was confident that both teams
would make the race distance in reasonable time. So why worry – what could go
wrong? Well to be exact – nothing. Dogs were fine, they too had slept well.
Van started first time, once again I had remembered to plug the block heater in.
Drove up to the race site and had a parking slot right near to the start line.
Passed the equipment check without concern. I am sorry to say (well actually
I’m not sorry at all) that it just goes on in this manner – nothing went
wrong; even the fact that Eeek once again chewed through his neckline seconds
before he was about to be led down to the start chute and the fact that Cassie
spent the whole race visiting her adoring public as she traveled the course
could not detract from the fact that we were having a good time. Both teams even
finished the race together (mainly because of team orders – ‘Mike, enjoy
yourself, run the dogs and the race as you see fit – Oh yea and you are not
allowed to finish before me’) largely without incident (although there was the
time when being overtaken when… no perhaps best to let that one go On By and
not spoil the ambience of the article – yet) and whilst we were at the back of
the pack nonetheless I was pleased with the overall time of the run. Interview
after the race – fine. Dogs checked back at the van – all fine. Awards
banquet – very fine (faire). Purse payout – very, very fine!! Journey home
– bloody horrendous fine. “Vous
voyez Votre Honneur que j'ai été apaisé dans une sensation de sécurité
fausse, emprisonnée par ma propre incontinence. Ce n'était pas mon défaut, il
était le destin. Le Destin devrait être avant vous aujourd'hui.” We
had decided that as opposed to heading straight back to Shubenacadie we would
actually follow Gino back to his place, stay over night and run the dogs on his
trails the next morning before ambling our way home safe in the knowledge that
we had had an incident free and fun filled weekend. I should point out that Gino
runs Baisley Lodges just outside Edmundston (and literally just across the
Provincial border from Quebec and only a couple of miles from freedom). This is
a beautiful facility that in the winter caters for the connoisseur (mon
francais toujours bon …er) who wants to ride out on unfamiliar trails with
his own dogs. So after the awards banquet, and with dusk turning to nightfall we
hit the road. For some reason I kept checking back looking for a red reflection
in the snow off the trailer lights – it didn’t appear as if they were
working. On we pressed regardless; I decided I would check the lights when we
stopped to drop and feed the dogs half way across Quebec. We stopped, we
dropped, we fed, we wee’d, we sipped some diesel, we got back into the van, we
drove, we forgot – merde. As we pulled out of the services I noticed that
Gino’s trailer lights weren’t working. I flashed my lights thinking he had
just forgotten to turn his lights on when I noticed that his truck lights were
on – he must have a bad connection on his trailer – I pulled closer so as to
mask the fact that his lights weren’t working. Angry with myself for not
confirming the serviceability of my own trailer lights, we pulled up at a red
set of lights and I made to get out and check the trailer but as I went to open
the door the lights changed to green – on we went. And then three minutes
later in the lovely wayside Quebec village of Cabano I noticed that there were
indeed red lights behind me, then blue lights, then red lights, then blue, then
red, blue, red, blue, a tap on the window. “Bonsoir
monsieur.” “Um,
hello.” “Ah,
Anglais…your trailer lights do not work although the direction and stop lights
do.” “Really are you sure? Can I look?…Damn…OK I think I can fix them.” I dive
under the van pulling at wires and trying to avoid eye contact. “Monsieur
may I see your vehicle registration please.” I crawl
from under the van and crawl inside the van, spirits lower than a snake’s
genitalia. I emerge minutes later with the registration for the van – Monsieur
LePlod departs only to return five minutes later. “
Monsieur may I ‘ave the trailer registration please?” ‘Lie,
lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.’ “Yes here it is.” ‘IDIOT STUPIDE, I
said lie!’ “Monsieur
do you realise that the registration has expired on your trailer?” “No?
Has it?” ‘Oh so now you can lie – débile!’ And
it just goes on like this right up until the point where I was handed a nice,
large, ‘Welcome to Quebec, the land we fought you bloody British over’ style
fine all written in French and impossible to understand except of course for the
figure of the fine – large numbers like that just have to be written in
English for full and maximum effect. To make matters worse he wouldn’t let us
proceed at night because we had no lights on the trailer. I suppose if it comes
to it he also wouldn’t let us proceed because we had no registration on the
trailer – I gathered as much when he said something along the lines of: ‘If
you go back on the road again without registering the trailer you will be
stopped and fined again.’ We were then escorted to a motel (which I swear was
owned by sa mère) and were ordered to report to the Quebec licensing
office in the morning in order to register the trailer. We sat in the motel room
and talked into the night whilst quaffing more Bleu and hatching Thelma and
Louise like plans. Finally it was decided, we would make a run for the
Provincial border at first light, les gendarmerie in hot pursuit, fugitives
forever more from the oppressive laws of Quebec, never able to traverse the
Province again for fear of imprisonment or worse still – impressment. Revenge
for Agincourt, our very own Waterloo. We
arrived at the licensing office at 9am the following morning and eventually
worked out that we needed to take une nombre and wait our turn. Our turn came: “Bonjour.” “Bonjour.” “Parlez-vous
Anglais Madame?” “Pas,
parlez-vous français?” “Non.
Le gendarmerie told us to report here because our trailer isn’t registered and
he won’t let us drive home and then he said that you could contact Access Nova
Scotia and have the trailer registered for us. So can you do that? Please? Can
you do that, can you? Si vous
plate.” “Pardonez
moi?” I waved
the defunct registration papers in her direction. “Ah. Avez-vous
une maison a Quebec?” “Non.” “Pas de
maison au Quebec?” “Non.” She shrugged at us gallically. We shrugged back gallingly. Une
impasse. I looked
at Mike, Mike looked at me, the spirit of Thelma and Louise was upon us –
“we’ll make a run for it!” Now obviously if you are a member of the legal
profession or one of our most highly respected law enforcement officers then
this is quite obviously a complete fabrication added to make me look better/more
foolish (delete as appropriate) and is completely inadmissible, complètement inadmissible je dis!! We did of course manage to
reregister the trailer and had a calm and worry free drive back to Nova Scotia,
not looking over our shoulders all the time, expecting to get pulled over and
fined once again. Getting to Amherst (oh the joys of being back in the home
province when you may or may not be on the run from a foreign law enforcement
agency), dusk was falling around us again and still we didn’t have any trailer
lights (my previous evening’s three-quarter-assed attempts at fixing them had
ended in luminescentless failure). Obviously not wishing to get stopped again
(despite the fact that we had patently reregistered the trailer that morning and
so had nothing to worry about) we pulled off the highway in order to fix the
lights. Mike jumped out of the van and exclaimed loudly that one of the wheel
bearings on the trailer had gone completely; not just gone as in it was broken
or worn out but gone as in no longer there and the wheel was being held
precariously on the centre axle by a solitary nut. I wondered if I could sue the
Quebec law enforcement people for missing that the previous evening – perhaps
a touch of plea bargaining whereby they reduced my fine from absolutely bloody
extortionate to just bloody extortionate – not that I would even remotely
suggest that any member of the law would practice extortion, just an unfortunate
play on words. This was a dilemma indeed – no way could I fix that here let
alone fix the lights as well. Once again I was gripped by Thelma Fever, we dived
back into the van and made a plainly fruitless run for home before it got too
dark (some things are just fruitless – as it was already nearly dark and we
had about 1 ½ hours still to drive, this was plainly fruitless). With darkness
drastically descending, lights largely lifeless, wheels wildly wobbling and
further fines forecast I lost both my bottle and my sense of alliteration as we
approached Oxford (the world renowned home of the infamous Blueberry Bear). We
pulled off the highway in order to invoke Plan B – any plan we could think of
that could avoid my wallet suffering further. In fact after much deliberation,
and a couple of cups of coffee, it turned out that Plan B was calling Mike’s
dad to come out and pick up Mike and the sleds; we then dropped the trailer off
at a closed garage with the intent of phoning back in the morning to have them
fix the lights, replace the wheel bearing and conduct a safety check and I
proceeded on to home. And that should have been the end of that – all’s well
that began well, went a bit pear shaped in the middle, cost me a damn fortune
and ended…well ended with me driving back from Oxford two days later trailer
sat on top of our snow mobile trailer (that may or may not have been safety
checked and registered), lights not working, wheel bearing not replaced, safety
check not carried out and just over a week to the Can Am. Still it would take a
half-assed fool not to have that trailer sorted out within the week. “Et là Votre Honneur,
je repose la caisse pour la défense - le chèque est dans le poteau”
The
cheque is in the potato? What a truly half-assed thing to say. Merci et bonne nuit.
Rob |
