Back in Baltimore

We have been back in Baltimore and finally have some winter weather..... 

Well, Baltimore's version of winter weather....

A little bit of snow with some ice on top of it!

We have really enjoyed sharing our dog mushing experience with our students and fellow faculty members this week, and have been overwhelmed with the reaction to the blog!

The plan is to update this blog once a week with what we have been doing related to our project in our classes.

Then we will kick it into high gear again as we head off to Alaska for the conference and the start of the Iditarod at the end of February!

What's for Dinner?

What’s for Dinner?

On Saturday night we got to go to the International Wolf Center to see a presentation entitled “What’s for Dinner?”

The center was founded to study the wolf and educate people about wolves.  You can visit their website at www.wolf.org.

Right now there are two wolves in the viewing area, Denali and Aidan. There are three wolves in the “retirement” pen.  They are in retirement because it is too dangerous for them to remain in the main pen with Denali and Aidan who may challenge them and hurt them.  They are going to introduce some new pups in the spring.

The program was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.  It started off with a powerpoint presentation about wolves, how they hunt, what their prey is, and so on.

But then the excitement started.  The keeper brought in a dead deer carcass and dumped in the enclosure and then let the wolves have at it.  It was pretty amazing, but not something I watched for a really long time!  The wolves were absolutely amazing.  They were so beautiful, so big, and so graceful and effortless in their movements. 

Day Three on the Trail

Mrs. Reiter’s fall count: 1

Mrs. Reiter and Mrs. Rizzuto’s broken sled count: 1

Another day full of adventure for R Squared on the trail!  The high today was sixteen with a low of 7 degrees. It pretty much snowed all day long again.

Minnesota’s nickname is “The Land of TenThousand Lakes.”  Our guides tell us there are closer to 15,000 lakes and today we got a good feel for that. 

We dog sledded across frozen lake after frozen lake.  At a couple of places we had to cross a portage.  Essentially, a portage is piece of land that separates two lakes or rivers.  So, if you were canoeing from lake to lake or water to water, when you arrived at portage you would need to carry your canoe across the land.

Back on the Lake

When you are dog sledding, it means that the dogs go through a patch of woods, bog, or other land before they get back to the frozen lake again.

When you are dog sledding, it means a patch of bumping over logs, crashing over rocks, ducking trees, pushing the sled up over obstacles, and avoiding trees.

When you are dog sledding with R Squared, it means ripping the side off of your sled.  And in case you were wondering, YES, it happened on the side I was standing on.  And yes, it was the opposite side then I was standing on yesterday.  I told you my side was the bad side.

The Broken Sled

Okay, so here’s the story.

We started the morning by sledding over several huge lakes.  Dog sledding on a lake is a pretty mellow trip.  The dogs can handle the lake really easily.  It’s flat, the snow on top of the ice is easy to run on, and the sled glides easily.  For a musher it’s pretty mellow too.  Mrs. Rizzuto and I were able to have long talks with our guides who travel on skis with us.  Sometimes they hold on to the side of the sled and let the dogs pull them too while they chat with us.  It’s a wonderful time to take in the scenery and enjoy the moment.  It can also be really cold.  The wind really whips up across the lakes sometimes.

We finally came to our first portage and it was a doozy.  We started bumping up the incline and bumping over a series of rocks which bumped me out of the sled.    I hopped back on and we kept going and pretty soon ran smack into a tree with my side of the sled.  This time though, not only did we get stuck, we actually ripped the side of the sled almost completely off.  We had our heads on much better, and we planned what action to take before we both hopped off the sled!  I hopped off and Mrs. Rizzuto took the sled down the rest of the portage alone. 

Dave and Ellen kind of rigged up the sled with some rope and duct tape and got us back on the trail.

The Repair

Mrs. Rizzuto and I finally realized that it really, really, works much better if only one person takes the sled through a portage.  It’s so much easier to control your balance if there is only one person.  You can spread your feet further apart, duck more freely, and shift your weight more easily when you don’t have to worry about bumping the other person off the sled.  (For the record, Mrs. Rizzuto freely admits to being part of the reason I keep falling/getting bumped off the sled!)

When we reached our second portage, we let Mrs. Rizzuto take the sled across by herself and it worked really well.

We then found a great spot to stop for our trail lunch.  We tied off the dogs and let them settle down into a little nap and we gathered wood for a fire.  Ellen cooked “pizzadillas” for us over the open fire.  Apparently, this is the traditional Wintergreen trail meal.  It’s a combination pizza and quesadilla.  You take a frying pan, rub it down with a stick of butter.  Lay the tortilla into the frying pan and then top it with shredded cheese (it’s so cold you can just carry the butter and cheese in the sled without it going bad!), pepperoni, and spaghetti sauce powder.  It’s pretty tasty! 

Trail Lunch

At lunch, we switched sled with another pair who was ready to go back for the day which meant we had to switch all of the dogs on the two sleds.   Remember how hard I told you that was yesterday!?!?!

Lunchtime Nap

After lunch we took off again where we portaged one more time with Mrs. Rizzuto taking the sled through and me walking. 

We reached the last lake in the chain and the furthest distance we could travel by dog sled.  We tied the dogs off again and walked over the last portage to see why we couldn’t go any further. On the other side of the portage was a river that was still not frozen solid.

To get back to day we reversed our whole trip. 

The first portage we go to this time, the sled got wedged into the sides of the trail and we had to wiggle it free.  And this time, I took the sled through all of the portages.  It is totally crazy riding a sled through the woods. You have absolutely no control over where you are going.  The dogs are going to pick the route.  You can’t steer the sled.  You can’t let go of the sled.  You can’t use the break.  You really just have to hold on, duck the branches, and hope for the best.  It’s a pretty wild ride!

Wildlife sightings today:

Lots and lots and lots of wolf tracks, two beaver dams, wild rice, martin tracks and a pitcher plant which is a carnivorous plant similar to a Venus Flytrap.

The return across the lakes was a very peaceful way to end the day and to watch the sun set.



Day Two on the Trail

Mrs. Reiter’s Fall Count: 2

Mrs. Reiter’s being run over by the sled count: 1

It was a pretty exciting second day on the trail.

The morning was really nice.  It was absolutely beautiful.  The sun was out, the sky was blue.  High temperature was 7 degrees, low was minus nine. 

In the morning we took fairly easy trails.  We went across the frozen lakes and into the Boundary Lakes Wildlife Region.  This region is a huge pristine wildlife area.  Nothing motorized is allowed in the area.  No planes can fly overhead.  In the summer there are no motor boats and in the winter no snowmobiles.  So really, dogsled is the way to go.

On the Lake

We tried putting Domino in the lead position with Darla and moved Fennel to the swing position.  What a difference to the team.  Domino is definitely a wild child!  He’s raring to go every second.  He and Darla are best buds and every time the sled stopped they nipped and rolled around and rough-housed with each other.  The change made the team a little harder to control.  One of us always needed to be out front when we stopped to keep Domino calm.  He’s a bit hyper, but so funny and so much fun.  Good old Fennel just let him goof around, and then would almost run over him when he wasn’t paying attention. 

It was almost like Fennel was saying “Look rookie. This is how you do it right.”

In the afternoon we split up into two groups and our team and one other team took off on some wild trails through the woods.  We were going over downed trees, careening around boulders, and going up and down hills.

Into the Woods

Let me tell you.  Whichever side of the sled I stand on, is the wrong side.  I was getting hammered by tree branches and two times I got bumped off as the sled bucked or tipped in my direction.  Mrs. Rizzuto just kept laughing and laughing and laughing!  I was covered in snow from the tree branches, and she was looking perfect!  For some reason, the dogs always veer to one side of the trail or the other. They never really seem to stay in the middle and there’s nothing you can do about it!

 We were working so hard we were getting hot and so I decided to take my outer most windproof coat off and take my fleece hood off.  It was great until the dogs brushed me right in to a pine tree and dumped snow down my neck!  BRRRR.

But the big excitement came pretty near to the end of our run.  We came around a corner and zipped past this little tree…. And then wham!  The sled got wedged in between the tree and rock or stump or something. The dogs all made it through the slot, but then stopped dead and the sled got stuck.  They yelped when they got jarred by the sled.  We couldn’t move. 

So, Mrs. Rizzuto got off and tried to wiggle the sled free.  It didn’t work.

I thought we needed to move the dogs back so that we could back the sled out of the wedge and then tip it a bit to wiggle it through.  I grabbed on to Calvin and Belle, our two wheel dogs and pulled back.

Calvin

Well, somehow, I pulled hard, they backed up and I fell to the ground. 

The sled came free and the dogs shot down the trail, running over my leg with the sled and leaving Mrs. Rizzuto standing at the tree.

She ran down the trail yelling “Loose sled, loose sled!” which is what we had been instructed to do.  Andrew, hearing her call, hops off his sled and stands in the trail to try to catch the dogs as they go by which is what we were NOT supposed to do!  Dave, our guide yells at him not to stop the dogs at the front, and he moves right before he gets run over.

Luckily he slowed them down enough that Mrs. Rizzuto was able to jump on the sled and use the break to stop them!

So, just remember.  If you ever see a runaway dog sled, don’t try to grab the leaders to stop them.  Wait for the sled to reach you, jump on the back and then use the brake to stop the dogs!

I’m totally fine, just a bit embarrassed about it all.  Tomorrow we’re going to switch sides, but I have a feeling it’s not going to make a difference.  My side is always the wrong side!

Wildlife sightings today:

Three ravens circling out front during breakfast, lots and lots of timber wolf tracks, red fox tracks, and a deer hip bone that had obviously recently been part of someone’s lunch!

Setting Sun



It's Hard Work!

So… just how hard is mushing? 

Way harder than I thought!  It’s not merely a spectator sport where you stand on the back of a sled and tell the dogs when to start and stop!

First of all, it’s really hard to get them all harnessed up.  They are just so excited to go and have so much energy and strength, it’s unbelievable.

Darla

So, here’s what happened this morning for example.  At 7:30 this morning we went down to do “dog chores.”  The dogs were tethered “on the line” a bit away from our cabin (but close enough that we could still hear them howling at night).  We had to scoop the poop and feed all the dogs.  Then we went back up to our cabin and had breakfast.  When we were ready to get on the trail, we went back down and it was harness time.  Mrs. Rizzuto and I harnessed our five dogs, which wasn’t so hard.  The harness goes over their head and then you have to lift each front paw up and slip it through the leg holes on the harness.  Usually if you say “paw” they help by lifting their feet for you.

Domino

Then comes the hard part….moving them from the line to the sled.  All they want to do at that point is run, run, run!  So you unclip them from the line and put them into “two-wheel drive” to get to the sled.  What you are doing essentially is lifting them up by the harness on their back so they are walking on their back to legs to the sled.  It is NOT an easy task! 

At the sled you need to hook them into two places.  Their harness is attached to the center line behind them.  The harness works so that they are actually pulling the sled by their strong chests and backs. The weight of the sled isn’t attached to their neck at all.  The second place they are attached is by their neck chain very loosely just to keep them facing forward so they don't get all tangled up.

Fennel

Then you are ready to go, but the musher’s work has just begun!  You have to help push the sleds up hills, paddle with your back foot when things get rough, and run beside the sled when you get cold.  You have to put all your weight on the brake to get them to stop.  Then there is the ducking of tree branches, getting the sled unstuck from obstacles, and did I mention the pushing of the sleds uphills?

Belle and Calvin

Our lead dog Darla really likes us to help push the sleds up hill.  In fact, when we get to a hill and it starts to get tough, she looks back at us like “okay two-legged ones, jump off and help push!”

When you stop for lunch, you have to tie the sled off to a tree or something.  When you are ready to go after lunch you have to untangle everyone and sort them out again.  Today when we came back from lunch Calvin and Darla had somehow managed to slip out of their harnesses.  So their harnesses were still attached to the line and the dogs were still attached to the line, but it took some untangling to get them back together again!

At night, you have to reverse the whole thing.  Take the dogs off the sled and put them on the line.  Take the harnesses off.  Feed them.

Bedding Down for the Night

It’s exhausting… but we’re loving every minute.

Our Team!

The morning started with a visit to the kennel to meet and pick up our teams!  You can’t even believe the noise level in the kennel!  Howling, howling, and howling.  They all seem to be saying... "let's go, let's go, let's go! "

So, I’m sure the first question you have is, “Who are your dogs?”  We have a team of five dogs.  Two lead dogs, Darla and Fennel, one swing dog named Domino, and then two wheel dogs Jupiter and Belle.  They like to harness boy dogs next to girl dogs so they don’t fight so much, so we have three boys and two girls.  After we got going for a while it seemed like Jupiter had a hurt leg.  The guides took him off the chain and let him run free for a while and he seemed okay.  It turns out he has an injury to his sciatica that flairs up now and again.  We replaced him with Calvin (who has brother named Hobbes by the way). 

It is amazing how different each dog’s personality is!  Fennel is the oldest dog at twelve years.  He is solid and dependable, does his job well, and loves to be petted. If you are petting him and stop, he paws at your boot until you start petting him again.  He also has some lab mix in him, so he’s not as wolf like as the other dogs.  Because of the lab blood in him, he barks instead of howls like the other dogs.  He’s a special dog – and even has his own blog on the Wilderness Classroom Webpage which we’ll talk about more when we get home.

Darla is a cute dog.  She keeps looking back to make sure we are still there!  She also looks back if we are going up a hill and we aren’t helping to push the sled.  She’s pretty quiet.

Darla and Fennel - Fennel is the big brown dog:

Domino is our crazy dog!  He’s so wild!  He is in the middle of the team by himself, so as we’re running down the trail he likes to duck under the rope and change sides.  When we get going really fast, he pulls out the side and almost runs up to the lead dogs!  He wants to go, go, go all the time.  He is also a chewer.  When we stopped for lunch at the lodge today, we left the dogs down on the trail all chained up to the line.  But, Domino decided that wasn’t okay with him, and the next thing we knew, he was outside the lodge!

Belle is a little bit of a stand-offish dog. She doesn’t get too excited about being petted or too excited about anything!  She seems kind of quiet and shy.  She pulls really well when there is a dog next to her, but when she is alone she kind of takes it easy for a while!

Calving is absolutely beautiful!  He looks like a wolf. He’s a bigger dog and is just so sweet.  He loves to stick his head between your legs if you are standing next to him! 

I’m guessing your next question is going to be, “Just how cold is it?”  I will tell you that the wind is nasty cold.   According to the weather, it was a high of 5 degrees and a low of minus 17 degrees today.  It also snowed all day.  But honestly, I never got freezing cold except on my cheeks when the wind blew.  We are running on two types of trails, lake trails and wood trails.  The lake trails are literally going across frozen lakes – which is cold because there are no wind breakers.  The wood trails are a bit warmer but are much harder to navigate.

The only thing that was really a problem with the cold is that I kept getting ice on my glasses. I eventually just took them off!  But, that means that my pictures didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped… so I will try again tomorrow!

Today we also saw a bald eagle and three deer!  The eagle was just amazing.  He  flew big circles across the lake while we were running across it.

I think that’s all for tonight.  I’m in my room in the cabin and I can occasionally hear the dogs howling away!  I’ll write more next time about just how much hard work is really involved in mushing! I don’t have internet access in the cabin, so I’m not sure just how often I’ll be able to update, but I’ll do my best! 

The whole team....

Mrs. Reiter

We Made It!

We arrived!

We finally arrived at our cabin, the Diamond Willow cabin, at Timber Trail Lodge, just in time for dinner!  We met our fellow mushers, Briana, Andrew, Molly, and Marian, and our two guides Ellen and Dave.  It turns out that Dave Freeman runs a blog for kids and teachers that Mrs. Rizzuto and have been planning on using with you guys!  He and his wife travel around the world doing all sorts of outdoor adventures and then teach kids via the internet!  We knew about the blog because they had done a trip via dog sled and we were going to follow them, but the timing didn’t work out too well!  It turns out that their next adventure is to canoe from Lake Superior to the east coast of Maine and then down the east coast to Florida.  They will probably make a stop in Baltimore and may be able to come and do a presentation at school!

After dinner we had to have our clothing gear checked out by our guides.  According to Dave, tomorrow is the start of “real” winter here in Minnesota and the temp is going to be about 8 degrees with a wind chill of minus twelve! 

We will be wearing, from the bottom up:

Feet – line socks, thick wool socks, boot liners, boots

Legs – long underwear, fleece pants, wind proof pants

Body – long underwear, sweater, fleece coat, wind proof coat

Hands – glove liners, mittens, hand warmers

Neck – gator

Head – ear band, wool hat, fleece hat, hood from fleece coat, hood from wind proof hat

We also had a Dog Sledding 101 talk.  To get the dogs to go, we say “Ready, Hike.”  It’s not the words that are important, but it’s the tone.  You need to make your voice go up at the end of the sentence.  To stop you say “Whoa” in a deep voice.  To turn right your see “Gee” (right  has a g in the word) and to turn left you say “Haw.”

They talked a lot about how dogs are pack animals and how much they love to work! 

Tomorrow we will meet our dog teams. Mrs. Rizzuto and I will be sharing a sled and a dog team of five dogs.  They have special sleds that have a platform that allow two people to stand on the sled at a time.  Racing sleds just have runners on the back that the mushers stand on.

Going to sleep now so I can be ready to face the morning! 

Mrs. Reiter

What You Don't Want to Hear....

"Did you get the message that your flight has been cancelled?'

This is not the sentence you want to hear when you arrive at the airport, but that is exactly what happened to R Squared at 7:00am this morning!

Get out your maps boys....

Instead of flying from BWI to Minneapolis and then Minneapolis to Hibbing and then taking a taxi to the Lodge... we are now going....

BWI to Detroit..... Detroit to Minneapolis... Minneapolis to Duluth .... then getting a taxi to the Lodge (we hope... we haven't called Kevin yet... remember, it's an hour earlier in Minnesota so he's probably still sleeping).

We need to call Kevin - our taxi guy - and have him pick us up in Duluth instead of Hibbing. 

If you have been keeping track, this is the second issue we've had with flights for this trip.  They previously cancelled our return flight and we already scrambled to fix that. 

We challenge you to figure out how far we are flying today!  Can you figure out the difference between how far we ARE flying with how far we were SUPPOSED to fly?  Leave a comment with your answer..

Love,

Mrs. Reiter & Mrs. Rizzuto

So Where Exactly Are You Going First?

Good question! 

We are going to the Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge in Ely, Minnesota. 

Ely is know as the Canoe Capitol of the World and the Dog Sled Capitol of the World!  It is located in the Ontario Snow Powder Belt which means that it is covered with snow from November to April.  Ely is surrounded by two million acres of national forest and protected wilderness!  (It sounds like it should be a National Park doesn't it?)

Recreational activities in Ely include over 100 miles of hiking and skiing trails, 200 miles of snowmobile trails, 1500 miles of canoe routes and 2 golf courses.  And don't forget the dog sledding!

The wildlife in the area includes bald eagles, moose, black bear, deer,  beaver, lynx, cougar, otter and timber wolves. We are planning a side trip to the International Wolf Center to see the timber and arctic wolves on Saturday night. 

Here is the link to the Lodge if you want to check it out for yourself.  There are a couple of good videos on the site that may give you an idea of what we are in for.....

http://www.dogsledding.com/

And here's a map to show you where Ely is located....

More to come!

Mrs. Reiter

Gearing Up!

We have forty-eight hours to go until we are howling with our dog teams in Minnesota!

Naturally, our thoughts are turning to packing!  What do you need to take to attend dog sledding school you ask?  Well here is the list we were supplied with:  warm jacket or parka, warm pants, boots with liners, long underwear (2 pairs), extra tops, headwear (thin hat,thick hat, neck gaitor, and ear band), handwear (2 liners and one mitten), socks (2 pairs plus 2 pairs of liners), sunglasses with neck strap, flashlight, swimsuit (really?  I think maybe not!), wind cream, plus all your personal items.

Now, you are laughing!  I know you are!  You are wondering how on earth we are going to carry all of that stuff and what we are going to do with it all when our dog mushing careers are over...

Luckily, we have a new BFF in Minnesota - her name is Tara and she owns the Warm & Cozy Company in Ely.  She's hooking us up with all of our gear!  We will stop by her shop on our way to the lodge to pick up all of our gear!

So the only thing we really need to worry about is us, our cameras, and our computers and we are good to go!  And yes.... we know you are anxious to see us all geared up!  We wonder if you will recognize who is who!?!?

Love,
Mrs. Reiter

The Third Grade Prepares

Mrs. Reiter's third grade class has already started becoming immersed in the Iditarod in class.  In November, they answered the call for school children to become involved in the race by entering a contest to create centerpieces for the annual banquet that is held a few days before the race. At the banquet, mushers draw numbers to determine their starting order for the race.

The boys' entry was truly a collaboration, and the final design utilizes elements from many boys' ideas. 

The judges were so impressed, they let the boys know before the official deadline that they would be included in the banquet!

On Friday, the boys spent the afternoon with Mrs. Knipp, the art teacher, creating 25 copies of the centerpiece that will be shipped off to Alaska to be placed on the tables for the banquet.

The centerpiece features colors that represent the aura borealis, sugar to represent the snow and ice, and of course the face of the sled dog. 

The coolest thing of all is that R Squared will be able to see the centerpieces in full display when they attend the banquet in March! 

Check out the video below to see the centerpiece in action with the changing colors! 

Love,

Mrs. Reiter

How the Idea Started...

"I heard the coolest thing on the radio this morning and only you are crazy enough to do it with me!"  Mrs. Rizzuto told Mrs. Reiter as she burst through the classroom door one morning.  And thus, the idea was born!

The coolest thing that Mrs. Rizzuto had heard about was a lodge in Minnesota where they taught the guests how to dog sled.  Mrs. Reiter suggested that they pair the trip to the dog sled lodge with a trip to Alaska to attend the Iditarod Teachers' Workshop and watch the beginning of the race. 

Add in a change to the third grade math curriculum to incorporate the race and a polar regions unit in fourth and fifth grade science....

and they were off and racing down the trail!

Love,
Mrs. Reiter