On Dec 10th out of the blue I got an email from a Melissa Nicefaro, she wrote:
Hello,
I write for the new New Haven Magazine - January will be our fourth issue - and I'm working on an article about winter activities. I thought you would be an interesting person to speak with. Do you have a few moments for a phone call tomorrow?
I thought "Sure what the heck" we conducted a few phone calls, wrote a few emails and before long, arrangements were made for a photographer to come out and take photos of the dogs in action. Two days later, again out of the blue, I get an email from a Stacy Sears, she wrote:
Hi
I am a producer for a TV show called Crossroads Magazine. I would like to do a story about dog sledding and was wondering if you would be interested in helping me out. We would love to come out with our TV camera and interview you and go for a ride and learn about this unique pass time. We are doing a series on different winter activities people can try.
Both of these requests came as quite a surprise as I am not the type to go looking to do demos or winter fests of any kind. As luck would have it, Connecticut was blessed with a couple of decent snowfalls in the first half of December so the timing of these requests was ideal. I made arrangements to meet the Photographer on Saturday Dec 22 at a local trail. The photographer, Steve Blazo (http://www.blazophoto.com [1]) was there with his 13 year old nephew, Tyler. I figured the best thing to do was go through my usual routine like any other day out on the trail and let Steve do his this thing. While I was hooking up the team, Steve set himself up for the first set of trail shots, I asked if Tyler to hold onto the neck line between King and Gymbo (my lead dogs), he was excited to help and be hands on. As I took off it was really cool to hear the rapid snap snap snap of the camera shutter as I flew past. I ran the team out across these two fields and into the forest, my plan was to run about 100 yards into the forest, turn the team around and run back out for more shots, but the team was running so nice I said to myself “the heck with the photo shoot” and ran a little further into the forest. As I came back out of the woods onto the fields Steve had moved to a different location for different angles. As I passed him, he asked me if I was going to do another run I said no problem. On the way back out after I passed Steve I stopped at the entrance to the forest and called the boy over and let him ride in the sled for the rest of the run. I told him it was his payment for helping line out the team. He had a blast!!
I'm sure Tyler wont soon forget his first ride on a dog sled!!
Taping the TV show wasn’t as easy. My work responsibilities were interfering with the schedule of the camera crews, but eventually we set a date. The show was scheduled to air Jan11th. Jan 4th was our last chance to shoot and to make matters worse it was getting warm in Connecticut and what little snow we had would soon be gone. Every night for a week I drove out to different forest trails trying to find a place that still had enough snow cover. Finally the day before we were set to film I found a snow covered trail. This was going to be difficult to pull off with the short daylight hours we have this time of year, I couldn't really afford to take time off of work so what little daylight left after work would have to suffice. Well at about 1 am McGrath (my son) started vomiting and within a minute Tucker (my other son) started vomiting as well. The boys vomited throughout the rest of the night, so at 6 am I called out from work. By late morning the boys seemed ok, no one had vomited since about 5 am so I called Crossroads and told them what had happened and said lets meet at 2 instead of the scheduled 3:30.
When they arrived, they first had me sit on the couch and be interviewed about mushing, and then we drove out to the trailhead. They filmed while I got the sled set up, the dogs unloaded, lined out and harnessed. They filmed me hooking up the team and I explained what I was doing the entire time. This little trail I took them to is a 0.6 mile loop. I put Mackenzie (my Daughter) in the sled for the first run so they could capture the family aspect of the sport. The second run I took the cameraman on the sled, he filmed while riding and we also staged a few on-bys. The last loop the cameraman walked down the trail and I ran solo. Right where the cameraman was, Tinker started to act up, jumping on Prince so I stopped, switched her out of wheel and put her up in swing, well she kept turning around to get to Prince, so I stopped again and thought to myself “you want Prince that bad? Then catch him!” I put her back in wheel and put Prince up in swing. The whole time we were out there I had King running solo lead so for the last lap I put Gymbo up from with him. I explained to the cameraman the rational for all the switches as I made them and in turn showed that sometimes out on the trail changes need to be made.
My main lead dog King has run lead ever since he was 8 months old. He is now 10.5 yrs old and I look at these two experiences as the coup-de-graw of what has been a fabulous career for this dog and I feel very blessed to have had these opportunities where I can look back and remember the moments and the beauty of this sport with the dogs that have played such an important roll in my life.
To see photos from that day or footage of the filming of TV show, please visit my site at www.siberianhusky.com [2]
About Ed
Ed is the founder of Auroralight Kennel. He originally got into dogs while he was doing his RN training in British Columbia Canada. As soon as Ed graduated he moved to Edmonton Alberta Canada "The Gateway to the Yukon". Ed's plan was to become a Regional Health Nurse up north traveling by 4X4, boat, bush plane and yes…Dog team to all the little Indian and Eskimo villages. Ed started by hanging out at working kennels and borrowing dogs to make a team. Then when he got established in Edmonton, Ed started buying dogs. "I already had Feral so I figured I only needed three more." Reported Ed. Shortly after buying Buddy, Feral passed away setting Ed back a bit. But in the grieving loss of Feral came the blessed gift of King, then Alley and lastly Molly. "The Fab Four" Ed called them. Ed worked with Buddy and King every day lead training them, he made his own 10km trail out at the hospital he worked at, ran them on the snow covered streets, and every weekend they raced! Ed also started his own mushing supply shop making and selling harnesses, ganglines, collars, leashes, sled bags, etc. Moving to the lower 48 in 1999 was not in Ed's original plans. But like that country song says, " If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans". But then again, Lisa, marriage and 4 kids weren't in Ed's plans either! Ed and Lisa quickly got up to 11 dogs and for a short time were at 13 dogs. From 2001 till the end of winter 2005 their mushing slowed to a crawl because of the rapid succession of babies coming into their lives. But now that the twins are a little older and a little less dependent they plan on picking up on their mushing fun.