BPDS Outers students once again let the dogs out in Algonquin Park this past March Break.

The participants included Joey Collins, Rikki McDonald, Chris Thompson, Taylor Hall, Chris Thompson, Chris Buckley, Scott Matheson, Spencer Tackaberry, Outers teachers Terri Munn and Birch Behmann, and our new favourite import, Wiarton student Natasha Munn. Some of us resisted the allure of European travel in order to spend two nights in a remote camp in Algonquin Park and three days sledding on the narrow, winding and sometimes treacherous trail system. We contracted the always professional, friendly and highly competent Chocpaw company based in South River. They maintain a yard of 320 Alaskan sled dogs and 5 remote bush camps to provide any size group with any thing from day trips up to week-long expeditions. Our trip took place from March 11th to 14th, 2004.

The first night is always entertaining in the Algonquin Motel in South River. Our guide Lisa gave us a detailed briefing on the equipment and the experience and then we turned in to our very colourfully painted rooms for the night. On cable TV, the Sports highlights, the Leafs hockey game and The 10 Best WWF Matches rounded out the educational experience on the first night.

The next morning is a highlight of the trip. The Algonquin Motel breakfast room has a retro theme and it gives everyone a chance to try on some new head gear and try out some puzzles and games of 70s and 80s vintage. We probably had far too much fun here.

Chocpaw guides Graham and Lisa, 7 sleds and about 44 dogs were waiting for us at the trailhead. We packed our sleds, harnessed our dogs, hitched them up and then, like a shotgun, we were off on our 30km trip into Charr Lake camp. There was a recent snowfall on top of what was a crusty and some times icy trail base. There is a common misconception that dog sledding is all about free-riding. Not so. The two people with each sled spend a great deal of time running up hills and there are plenty in the Park. The dogs, trails and running Outers were all very fast and we arrived into camp early. Not a problem.

The Outers helped out with all of the chores including sawing firewood, water fetching, dog watering, feeding and bedding and there was still time left over. In the extra time, we organised our regular timber sport challenges with competitions like log sawing. This year we added a backward log/caber toss which Taylor Hall dominated and a dryland version of log rolling. Our most "balanced" person in this event was Scott Matheson...mmmmm??
But did we stop our games there? No way! Out on frozen Charr Lake, a big game of winter football broke out. The football, itself was an impromptu and ingenious construction of a stick stuck inside a paper towel roll all inside a tied-off plastic bag. (Maybe most of us should have opted for the culture of the Europe trip.) The game was high-spirited, competitive and not very close. Graham's 5 person rugby handoff plays were far too dazzling for the other losing, although superior in character, team.

Needless to say we devoured a meal of steak, seasoned potato wedges and corn after all of that activity. The wall tents that we eat and sleep in are heated with wood stoves that the guides feed with wood through the night! The main tent slept all 13 of us on raised wood platforms. It is very warm and cosy. The trick is to fall asleep before too many people start snoring, sleep talking or sleep yelling, as we found out on our trip.

The next day is what they call an empty day run. We travel on the trails all day in a giant circuit so that we end up at our camp again at night. Because our group was so fast and proficient, we ended up on two separate loops that day, travelling over 40km. The day passed not without some injury and an act of heroism. In the morning, on a very tight corner our guide Lisa and her partner Joey had a spill which resulted in Lisa badly spraining her ankle. Right at the time of the accident, Lisa thought she might have broken her leg and once mentioning this to Joey, a hero sprung into action. Joey gained control of Lisa's team and alerted Chris Thompson in the sled ahead of them with language only appropriate in that emergency situation. The message was relayed to Graham at the front and he went back to help out. Then Graham, Lisa and Joey all appeared at the end of the line and, in the end, it was decided that Lisa should be transported out to have her leg checked out at a hospital. Our group handled themselves in this situation so well that we almost had Lisa convinced that she could stay with us and we would take care of her.

As it was we dropped Lisa off at Craig Camp and then went on to complete our second loop of the day before passing Lisa on her way out to the hospital. We were sorry to see her go but we still had Graham, our football runningback sensation. We came back to our home at Charr Lake in time for chores, a great chicken vegetable stir fry with butter tart squares for dessert, and some good old fashioned word games like the ABC game with dog breeds (Afghan! Boxer! Corgi! and so on), body parts, local tree and plant species, car names and much more. But for the second night in a row, we were very lucky to have Graham read us to sleep with Robert Service poems. The Cremation of Sam McGee was a mere warm-up for this guy as he delved into Service's unfamiliar works all on a dog sled theme, it seemed. A dog sled guide, football star and now elementary school librarian.

Our last morning is, of course, bittersweet. We were headed back to the trailhead but closer to hot water and the rest of March Break. We packed up our sleds, harnessed and hitched our dogs for the last time and said good bye to Charr Lake Camp. Perhaps the last run for home makes you most profoundly appreciate just how amazing a dog sled journey is. With 6 dogs that pull with all of the hearts, the breathtaking scenery of snowbound trees, ice-covered rivers, granite cliffs, perched lakes and looming ridges that has been all around you for 3 days finally sinks in. This is something that everyone in Canada should experience. It is right up there with pond hockey under the Northern Lights.

We returned to the trailhead with an all out race at the end which left the low-key dog team of the trip with their very determined drivers, James Gingerich and James Buckley, as the very competitive winners! A special mention to the team of Matheson and Tackaberry whose seemingly successful strategy of constant running backfired in the end. Also a mention to Hall and McDonald team who tried everything in their power to successfully stay ahead of Collins and Behmann. Munn and Thompson stayed very competitive with the solo team on Munn at the back of the pack. It was a very fun way to end the trip.

We returned our dogs to their homes at the yard, checked out a junior team of puppies and then headed over to Chocpaw offices for a traditional lunch of chilli and toast. After everyone packed away a few bowls and half a loaf of toast, our constitutions were perfectly set for a 6 hour drive to Lion's Head. We arrived at BPDS at 7:02pm, marking for yet another awesome dog sledding trip!

Special thanks to our guides Lisa and Graham, to all of the Chocpaw staff and especially to our dogs!!

See you next year!