Full Circle

Freyja and me at the airport

A few weeks ago, one of the Irish/Ilo puppies came back to us at 10 weeks old due to unforeseen circumstances. Originally, interest was expressed by someone in our Hedlund Husky Preservation Project, however it was poor timing and she decided it best to allow her to settle in with another family. Karen was contacted again when Freyja returned in hopes that her circumstances had changed and they had! Freyja flew out to Anchorage, Alaska last Friday evening. Karen is the same person that gave me Tuloon in 2004. Frejya is Tuloon's great granddaughter. Things have come full circle and I am so happy to be able to give her a similar and connected gift!

Puppy Harness Training!

To set the puppies up for success, we had Blueberry and Copper in front, leading the way.

Aha! Off trail. Maybe this means Kamotz will be a good open country leader like some of his relatives and he doesn't need a trail.

Wyakin and Kamotz

Hey! Who let that Mastiff/St. Bernard mix into the kennel? This is actually Wyakin, AKA Mr. Pudge.

The pulling instinct kicked in right from the start

It seems we have a squabble over who will be the leader

B'Zhoo and Akai

Akai pushes B'Zhoo to the right side of the trail. Maybe he's a natural "righty". That comes in handy when trying to teach them the "Gee Over" command. Gee Over means to move to the right side of the trail.

B'Zhoo tries to pull  Akai back after he got too far ahead. Training isn't without its little glitches.

Akai barks at the big dogs while B'Zhoo checks out the sled

Akai doing a good job of keeping his line tight!

Irish/Ilo Puppy Visit

Partial family reunion!

Tyro (Tiny Tim) came back for a visit. He has a striking resemblance to both Irish and Ilo!

Girl Scout Dog Mushing Badge

Arrow is a good and patient subject.

Our young guests put collars on the dogs before bringing them to the ready line.

We take time to allow each young participant to practice the take off technique before hooking up real dogs

Off they go! Two teams running at once with other participants around the course for support and Neil on the snowmobile to catch any team that decides to take their young musher on a bigger adventure

Arrow, Phoenix and their beginner musher get "in the zone" before their run.

Ilo and Topa are on Jessica's first team.

Puppy time!

BOW Winter Event

Rayna was so excited to go! Oken watches her enthusiasm in amazement.

Among many other educational moments, our participants learned how to harness the dogs

Akai took complete advantage of the overabundance of attention

Our guests learned what the take off would feel like with mock dogs

Wimzi and Zodiak were the perfect pair.

A mass harnessing session

It was pretty close to standing room only in the puppy pen much of the day

Rayna and Klaus

Rommel and White Feather are ready to lead their beginning musher around the loop

We weren't back from our northwoods adventures but for three days before loading everyone up and heading out again. This time, it was to one of our favorite events; the DNR BOW (Becoming and Outdoors Woman) Winter Workshop. This year, it took place at Audubon Center of the Northwoods, an environmental learning center in Sandstone, MN.

Points Unknown has been providing volunteer dog mushing instruction since 2005 and we can't say enough good things about the BOW program. If you've ever wanted to try something new in the outdoors, check it out!   

In the News Today!

Photo by Chaska Herald. That's me with Wyakin and Tuloon nosing Neil.

We found ourselves in the Chaska Herald today. Check it out!

Back in Watertown to Snow! YeeHaw!

Just one of the many fun moments that were captured on disk. Arrow is big but not THAT big! He just had to pop up to see who was taking his picture. Silly boy.

We returned at roughly 3AM on Monday morning after spending over 10 hours to get ourselves, our things and our dogs out of the remote cabin. We then drove in a blizzard much of the way home and returned to snow; glorious snow! It has taken until now just to get organized enough to consider an update blog post. There are so many things to say! The remote adventures were spectacular and we couldn't have asked for better conditions or better company.

Shortly after our arrival to our remote cabin which is 6 miles off a plowed road, we discovered that our cell phone booster system that we had used to attempt to get a signal at our Irish Creek Homestead did indeed work! We had cell phone service which made coordination and business go much more smoothly. I had also gotten a fancy new plan on my cell phone that had a wifi hot spot and wouldn't ya know, that worked too so we had internet! I was able to post daily photos and updates to our Facebook page. Please visit the Points Unknown Facebook page to see these photos and updates. You don't have to have a Facebook account to look at our page and I think there are so many fun things you could be missing! For instance, the puppies turned 9 and 10 weeks during our time away and we've got a new puppy album loaded on the page. How can you miss that?

As I mentioned, we returned to find snow! This means we're now booking our Oake Lake Experiences with the sled dogs, beginning on Monday, February 25th. The weekends are close to full, however we've got lots of week day availability.

I also returned to low beeswax candle inventory! Our Scent from Nature business really picked up over the last year so this is a good thing but I need to get moving on handcrafting more. I love my "job"!

We'll be in Watertown now for the next day and a half then pack up all of the dogs again and head up for the DNR's Becoming an Outdoors Woman winter event at the Audubon Center of the Northwoods Environmental Learning Center. Here, we'll be doing three half day courses on dog mushing. Can't wait!

I hope to post more puppy pictures soon and then, of course, there will be a photo album posted on Facebook of our BOW (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) winter weekend.

Wishing you all a good week!