Turbocharged, Beaver-fueled Snow Machines
By Sabrina Matteson
Almost any clinking noise will set Leif Erickson’s dogs into spinning and dancing in wild anticipation. A glimpse of their harnesses or the gang line that ties them to the sled will send them into joyful frenzy. It is sheer euphoria for them if Leif fires up the truck that holds their travel boxes to go someplace new and exciting. These dogs are born to run.
“The only means of controlling them is with my voice,” explained Leif of his nine-dog team. The lead dogs are fifty feet out in front of where Leif balances on the back of the sled. “If the voice command doesn’t work, you’re out of luck. Then things can get really exciting!” he admitted.
Leif has always been a distance man, racing up to 150 miles over the course of three days and nights, and has run every race in the eastern end of Canada and the United States at least once. He was mentored by Bill Bartlett and supported by his wife of 31 years, Mary Ellen, who struck his fancy because of her expertise in breeding Malamute pups.
Heading out into the wilderness for a 150-miler with a team of dogs and minimal survival gear is not for the weak of heart, nor for those who are just plain weak. Carrying as little weight as possible and finishing the race in the fastest time means strategic planning, careful packing, expert body temperature management, excellent training, wise decisions and almost no sleep at all.
The required gear for such a three day race is an ax, a cold weather sleeping bag, a pair of snowshoes, a tarp, a headlamp, fire starting equipment, and four days’ worth of food for each dog and himself. That one extra day’s worth of food for them all is… just in case.
“The recovery rate for the dogs is extremely fast,” said Leif. “Even a one minute stop will replenish their energy for a few more hours.” When it is time for a real rest, Leif stakes out his dogs by anchoring the sled with a hook stomped into the snow. He then secures the lead dogs out at the front of the string so that the dogs cannot tangle the lines by coming back toward the sled. Leif fires up the cooker, makes a warm slurry soup to re-hydrate the dogs and maintain their energy, and only then does he have time for a quick bite to eat and some rest for himself. All dog drivers have a sleeping bad in their sled and will climb into it for a rest. Usually he doesn’t steal more than 30 or 45 minutes worth of sleep before the first dog wakes up and is ready to go. Once one dog suggests the team should be on its way, all the dogs join in on alarm-clocking their master, and Leif’s nap is over. Total pit-stop time: two hours. The anticipatory yipping continues until the snow hook is pulled and the sled rips off to the finish line.
“It is absolutely silent out there once the dogs begin to run,” said Leif, “except for the whisper of the sled over the snow. Only in the movies is the sled accompanied by that constant barking.” Leif calls commands only as loudly as necessary for his own team to hear him.
Running a team of dogs is much misunderstood because of such movies as Disney’s Iron Will. “That boy ran the Iditarod with an empty sled, no food for his dogs and no meals for himself.” The 1,100 miles of that race usually take 11 days, with a required day or two of rest during the event. “The dogs are usually just fine coming across the finish line but many of the drivers are hallucinating,” said Leif shaking his head. “I have even seen it where a dog will have finished the race and be staked out in the yard a day later, and the bitch will whelp a litter of puppies. A driver would never knowingly take a pregnant dog, but sometimes it’s impossible to tell and these kinds of mistakes can happen.”
Much of the success of racing is in the feed. In training for the Pittsburg 150 (beginning in Colebrook, traveling east through Dixville Notch, heading south to Gorham, circling back through Perry Stream and Indian Stream and ending the three day race in Pittsburg) in 1978, Leif’s dogs just plain pooped out on him. Mary Ellen and Leif discovered a new kind of food for their dogs and began to include raw meat—beaver or chicken—to increase the protein during race season. “Up north they feed the working dogs raw fish and seal,” laughed Leif. “Beaver is the closest I can get. I trade the carcasses for horse-shoeing work with a trapper friend of mine.”
The next year Leif returned to the Berlin 150 with the same seven dogs and was proud of how smartly he ran the race. He placed third and all seven of his dogs finished the race. If a dog becomes tired or injured during a race, the driver must bring the dog to the next manned check-point to be left with a race official. He must leave the dog with ID tags and one day’s food ration before he drives down the trail with his remaining team.
At 64, Leif isn’t racing seriously any more. “I am following the wise words of my friend Bill Bartlett,” smiled Leif, “and am in it now for the treat and not the treatment.”
In his good racing years, Leif would train 700 to 800 miles and do four races of 75 to 100 miles each. His two old dogs, Sam and Artic, are retired because they just can’t keep up with the group of younger dogs he works now. They still thrill with anticipation of the run when Leif is hitching up the younger dogs, hoping this will be the day they get to go.
“They cry and whine for hours when they get left behind,” Leif sympathized. “This is what they live for.” One suspects the same heartbreak to be true of the day Leif decides he can no longer hitch up the sled –minus the crying and whining. Because this, too, is what Leif lives for.