“Snowy cold wind, the howling of dogs, the smell
of pine trees everywhere. I take everything into my mind and drift off
to another place: Alaska. I was preparing for the Iditarod.
“Coral! Come on!”
I snap out of my dreaming and zip around almost knocking
into my older brother, Ossin.
“Come on,” he says again. “The dogs are here!” He walks
past me and down the stairs of the porch.
I follow him down the stairs, then
turn and look around at everything. It took eleven hours to reach Ely,
Minnesota from home. Then about thirty minutes to get to the Lodge of
Whispering Pines. Our cabin is one of the twelve cabins here. Big Lake
is just about a hundred feet in front of our cabin. It’s
completely frozen over. The ice is about a foot thick.
It was my friend’s,
Nell, idea to come up here. She’s been coming here with her family
for about eight years. She said there’s
dog sledding here. So I was all for the trip. And now I was actually
going to do it. I was going dog sledding. All the 15 years of my life
I wanted to go.
“Hwooooo! Yipe! Ooooo! Rruuf!” The dogs were calling.
I snapped back
to reality and turned to see my parents meeting the owner of the dogs, Bill
(as I later found out), in the parking lot. I ran over to them. The dogs,
still making noise, were in wooden boxes attached to a trailer. Bill started
taking the dogs out one by one. All of them were huskies. All of them. Bill
soon got them all attached to their harnesses. There were five dogs to one
sled. There were three sleds. Bill was in the lead sled. I was with Mom in
the middle, with Dad and Ossin bringing up the rear. Ossin and I were sitting
in the sleds with Mom, Dad, and Bill mushing. Then it got exciting.
Down the
road we went until we reached a roadside trail and turned on to it. It
was beautiful in the forest. I drifted off into my own world. The gun had
been shot and the dogs were running. We were racing through the woods on
the Iditarod Trail. Everything was great. The dogs were bounding with great
speed. But wait. I heard a yelp. Winston, my lead dog, was limping.
“Hold
up!” I shouted. The dogs stopped. I was getting out of he sled
and was about to run to Winston.
“Coral!”
Had someone called my name? Oh well, Winston was hurt!
“Coral!”
This time I snapped out of my daydream.
“Coral!” my mother said
a bit harshly. “Are you okay?”
I noticed we stopped. I was in
a weird position. I straightened up a bit.
“Would you like to mush?” Bill
said to me and Ossin.
Now that’s more like it, I thought. I was
out of the sled and ready to drive in less than a heart beat. “Yee-haw!” I
shouted, feeling like a little kid. Mom gave me a little
smile and said try not to run into trees. Then we were off again.
The
dogs were running fine by themselves, so I took a few moments to look
around. It was a beautiful forest. There were a lot of white pines
but there were some other trees including birch and spruce. I could
smell the sweet smell of sap and the musty smell of the dogs. I slipped
back into my own world.
There was a river up ahead. I prayed the ice was frozen.
It was, and not a bit slushy. I sighed a relief. Suddenly a huge
tree branch was up ahead and no way to avoid it. I closed my eyes
and held on tight. There was a huge bump and I lost my grip on the
sled. No, I thought. I had to hold on. The dogs kept running. I grabbed
the brake. Off I went flying over the snow. It was cold!
“Coral! Grab
my hand!” Someone was trying to help me. “Coral!”
I
zipped back to the real world. I saw that I was holding on to the sled
with one hand and being dragged. I grabbed my mom’s hand and pulled
myself up on the sled. I jumped on the brake digging
it into the snow. The dogs halted instantly.
“Coral!” my mom said
worriedly. “Are you okay?”
I took some deep breaths. I finally
breathed I was fine.
“Do you want to sit in the sled?” Mom
asked.
No way, I thought.
It’s just getting good. “No thanks Mom, “ I
said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep!” and we were off. Slowly I slipped
off again into a daydream. Snow was blowing in my face blinding me. I knew
the dogs knew the way by heart. I trusted them. We went a long way through
the forest. The dogs were slowing down.
I was getting tired. I was thinking
of stopping when - what’s that
smoke? Then I saw it. I sighed with
relief. The checkpoint was up ahead. I encouraged the dogs to move faster.
“Coral!
Slow down!”
Why? I thought. The checkpoint is up ahead.
“Coral! Stop!”
I snapped out of my thoughts and braked. We were
next to the lodge. I sighed. The trip was over.