A look back 32 years to my first mushing expedition

Posted On January 22, 2023

A Facebook Memory this morning sent me back into a folder of images I hadn’t looked at for a long time. It contains 222 scans of Kodachrome slides I shot in January 1991 during a dog-sled expedition into the remote Blaeberry Valley west of Golden, BC, at the western edge of the Rockies. It was a life-changing 3 days, though perhaps in subtle ways, and I don’t seem to have ever written more than a couple of sentences about it. It was a fun album to go through, and it’s now taken me 40 photos to show you how amazing it was.

Because of a brain injury and now dementia, I have no memory of this trip, only well-captioned photos that sometimes trigger emotions, but not memories. It’s enough to piece together what this adventure was like, though.

A search for a dog sled outfitter in the Rockies in the Fall of 1990 took a German friend and I to Kingmik Expeditions, which was operated by Doug Hannah.

First, here’s a map to orient you (and me 🙂 ). Golden is off the map to the lower right, the Trans-Canada Highway is at the lower left, and our overnight tent camp at Mummery Creek is at the top right. Click here for an interactive map.

I was well equipped for the adventure, but Hannelore had to do some major shopping. The parka she found was lovely, but she decided that it really had to have a fur collar for the right “woodsy” feeling 🙂

On January 30, 1991, we showed up at Doug’s dog yard, hopefully ready to head into the wilderness. Although I had had some experience with huskies during my first year of being driver/guide for Yukon/Alaska tours, this was my first time at a kennel with dogs ready to get to work in a serious way.

Doug’s property had a spectacular view of the Blaeberry Valley and the peaks to the east.

We would be going with 3 sled teams – one each for Doug, Hannelore, and me. This was no fluffy tourist ride – with assistance available when needed, we’d be handing our own teams for the 3 days. A snowmobile would break trail and haul the heavy gear to camp, and its driver, Bill, would deal with a lot of the “grunt” work like shovelling out the camp.

With everything loaded, we headed north a few miles, then got the dogs out of the truck and sorted everything out.

Smokey was my immediate favourite, handsome and somewhat aloof, but with a presence that showed he knew who was really in charge. I’ve been a sucker for blue-eyed Siberian huskies ever since 🙂

A photo op on the support sled. She was right, of course – the fur collar was wonderful! 🙂

I hardly took any photos on the way north. Shooting while driving a dog sled on an often-rough trail takes some practice!

Slide #17 – arriving at the Mummery Creek base camp.

Bill digging out the kitchen tent.

Wow, what a spot. This was the view to the south from camp. And nobody around for miles. Dead silence…

The outhouse was called The Porcupine House because they were determined to eat it. The chicken wire to the right of the door slowed them down a bit.

We awoke the next morning to about 10 inches of fresh snow.

Doug and Bill served up a hearty breakfast top get us ready for the main day, which would be filled with snowshoeing and mushing.

The dogs clearly knew that they had the morning off 🙂

Snowshoeing takes some practice, and with a few spills along the way, Hannelore and were pretty good by the time we got back to camp 🙂

After lunch, we got the dog teams hooked up for a long run further up the valley.

Days are short in January. Sunrise was at 08:26 and sunset was at 5:36 on the 31st, and we got back to camp well after dark.

This was Seymour the next morning (February 1st). On this morning we ran the dogs for a while, came back for lunch, then made the long run back to the truck in the afternoon.

Slide #110 – now the dogs know they get to run. Whoohoo!! 🙂

Now that Hannelore and I were feeling pretty confident with the sleds, Doug made it interesting, doing some high-speed corners just for fun!

All too soon, it was time to have lunch and then start heading south to the truck. Judging by the number of photos I shot, and the type of shot (more carefully composed) I was pretty relaxed with shooting while driving the team now.

Aren’t the smiles on the lead dogs wonderful? In the enlarged photo you can see that all 6 of them are very happy.

Wandering through the forest, with just the swoosh of the sled runners and the dogs’ breathing breaking the silence.

It was nice when the trail broke out of the forest, because the trail runs along some very impressive peaks. Imagine this scene on a sunny day!

Time for a short break for the dogs.

A frozen waterfall.

For a mile or so we went through a wildfire area from not many years before.

Getting pretty cocky now, shooting backwards while the team is running at a good clip 🙂

Hannelore’s team – Smokey and Jessie on lead, Monkey and Carson were the team dogs, and Windy and Addie the wheel dogs.

Here’s how I know that 🙂

I finally got someone to get a photo of me! I don’t know why I was missing a dog here.

Time for a longer break, with snacks and drinks for all. Hot chocolate, sandwiches, and cookies for the humans, water and salmon snacks for the dogs.

Slide #188 – on the trail again…

I never wonder how people like Doug can do this same route over and over and over again. How could you ever get bored by this?’

Civilization… 🙁

And there’s the truck.

Get the gear sorted out and stashed, load the dogs… and the adventure was over.

Doug Hannah sold Kingmik Expeditions many years ago, and he and his wife, Yasmine, now live a few hours north of me in Faro, Yukon, where they operate Lynx Track Farm cabin rentals and B&B. I haven’t seen him since this trip, though. Kingmik is still in business, now running short outings (30-90 minutes) at Banff and Lake Louise.

With flat and sometimes difficult light, I probably shot over 300 slides in total – 222 remain after editing a few times. That would have been about $150 for film, at a time when I was making $115 per day driving bus. But now, 32 years later, I can re-live the adventure, so it was a very good investment.

This trip caused me to fall in love with huskies, and that has never left. Although Golden isn’t in the North, mushing is (arguably?) our signature Yukon sport, and I’ve had teams out a few times over the years, so it helped to cement my connection to the North.

I hope you enjoyed this adventure with me. Sled dog tour operators can now been found pretty much anywhere in the world where substantial amounts of snow are the norm. If you ever get the opportunity, give it a try.