More Photos from the Sheep Mountain Race

Sheep Mountain Race

We went to our first race last weekend. The race was the Sheep Mountain 150. There were three legs of 50 miles. After the first 50 miles there was a 5-hour mandatory rest where the mushers could sleep and the dogs got feed and rested. Then there was another 50-mile section, followed by another 5-hour rest. The last 50 miles finished off the race. It was really fun to see how the races are run, and meet lots of different mushers. There were a lot of really cute dogs!

One evening Megan and I were playing cribbage and Jeff King came and sat down to talk with us. Jeff King is a pretty famous musher (he has won first place in 4 Iditarod races), and he was racing in Sheep Mountain. Basically the conversation consisted of him making fun of me because I was having some trouble with the simple addition required in cribbage. Pretty funny. Other than that, the race was quite uneventful…..a good thing. At one point I had to back up his huge trailer (see pictures) and I was very happy to back it up without much trouble. Driving his diesel manual truck with that trailer is a little nerve-racking.

More photos of the Kennel

On the left is a photo of the puppies out on their run. There is beautiful wilderness all around the kennel. The photo on the right is the long distance team (16 dogs) all harnessed up and ready to go out for a run. The dogs are still running in front of 4 wheelers until we have enough snow to run the sleds. This photo was taken before a 13 hour run we did a few days ago. It was 30 below, and I don't think I've ever been that cold in my life. We got back at around 2:30 am, after quite a wild ride. We pulled a sled behind the 4 wheeler so Megan and I could practice controlling the sled. While you can stop the dogs easily with a 4 wheeler, once we start using sleds there is much less control. We went about 5 hours out on the run before letting the dogs eat and rest for 2 hours. Then we came back. The last Photo is another attempt at a family portrait with the dogs that live with us in our little cabin.

Windy Creek Kennel: Fox, Alaska

I’ve been in Alaska one week today, and I’ve already been lucky enough to experience 30 below weather. Megan picked me up from the airport last week, and we’ve been working away ever since. Megan has already been here for 6 weeks, so she has been showing me the day-to-day routine and life here at Windy Creek Kennel. We’re about 30 min outside of Fairbanks.

Above is a picture of the dog yard, the main house, and our cabin (on the right). The cabin has a main floor with a small kitchen, wood stove (we have all wood heat), a table, and a couch (usually taken by 2 to 3 dogs). We have 5 dogs that live with us. most of them retired race dogs. There is a loft where we sleep. There is no running water, so we use an outhouse and the snow as a bathroom. There is a refrigerator, and a stove for cooking!

This picture shows the rest of the dog yard. The female dogs are kept in a separate yard with a fence around them. There are two litters of puppies who have their own fenced in areas. There is a litter of 7 that is 6 months old, and a litter of 5 that are 4 months old. These puppies don’t pull yet, so we just take them on walks around the area.

This is what happened when we tried to take a family portrait……we are missing two dogs in and all the dogs were very confused.

Aren't you Afraid?

Aren’t you afraid? It’s a question most all of my friends, family and new acquaintances ask when they find out I’m living in Arivaca. They ask if I’m afraid to be alone, or of migrants or drug traffickers. They ask if I’m afraid of snakes, or of being far from a city and the luxuries of city life, or of not having a TV.

No I’m not afraid of being alone in rural Arizona in the desert. Nor of migrants or drug traffickers. I don’t mind snakes or being far from the city or not having a TV.

But yes, I’m afraid.

For our country, my people, and all those who try to come here. I’m afraid for them to feel the fear I experience driving with more border patrol cars than any other vehicles on the road some evenings. Afraid for a country whose government workers (border patrol) won’t let me give food and water to migrants they are apprehending or holding on buses, but instead put their hands on their guns when I approach. So yes, to answer the question, I am afraid. Not of being alone, but rather of being all to well “protected”.

Rocky and The Grasshoppers

I had only ever seen Arivaca from a car or on foot, until Rocky came along. My neighbors Danny and Sunny let me ride their horse Rocky. Sunny taught me how to ride in their pastures, and by the end of my time in Arivaca Sunny and I went on a couple longer rides through the desert. For all the Minnesotans, I think running through sandy washes in the desert on horseback is a bit like skinny dipping in july in the boundary waters. Calming and relaxing, but also refreshing and exhilarating.

This is a picture of a sunflower with the Baboquivari peak in the background. Baboquivari is the sacred mountain of the Tohono O’odham. This is before the time of the grasshoppers. They swept in and destroyed just like was described in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. There was no saving anything that had leaves. They even made an effort at the Jade and Aloe Vera plants with their thick leaves. -- Berit

Encounters with G4S Drivers

My encounters with two bus drivers of G4S, the private company that Border Patrol contracts to transport migrants from the desert to Tucson, to prison, and from prison to Mexico. Most every time I pass the buses I stop to offer food and water to the migrants on the bus.

Bus Driver 1:

I wonder if he believed what he said referring to the Mexican and Central American migrants that he drives as “Indians” or if he was just trying to upset me. I wonder where he got his sense of power, waving me away without looking me in the eye. I wonder where he lost his sense of compassion, saying the migrants would be so hungry that they would eat any food I gave them even if they were allergic to it. I wonder if he spoke Spanish, or even knew the reasons that people filled his bus.

Bus Driver 2:

I wonder how it felt for him to actively assist his own people being transported to prison. I wonder what it is like for him, being from Nogales Mexico, where many of those migrants who sat on his bus had crossed into the United States. There is little doubt he had experienced police stopping him on the street in Tucson when he was out of uniform to ask him for his ID. I wonder what he was thinking when he told me I could not enter the bus to give food and water to the 18 people on board. I wonder whether he regretted not allowing me to say a few simple words of encouragement, of testimony that not everyone in this country thinks it is right to detain them in prisons, and to deport them to some of the most dangerous cities in the world. I wonder what he was thinking about when he told us we would go to heaven for what we were doing -- or when we replied that we hoped we would all go to heaven. I wonder what those 18 migrants on the bus thought as they waved and smiled at us through the tinted windows. I hope they knew we considered them strong, and brave, and beautiful -- as equals, as brothers and sisters. It was hard to see them so -- through the tinted window waving and smiling. It was hard, but I also felt hope in their strength to smile and wave despite their situation, their courage, despite their coming future in prison for who knows how long. I could learn something from that.

Here is a New York Times article with more information about G4S and private prison companies in general worldwide:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/world/asia/getting-tough-on-immigrants-to-turn-a-profit.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Here is a quote from the article about G4S: "In 2007, Western Australia’s Human Rights Commission found that G4S drivers had ignored the cries of detainees locked in a scorching van, leaving them so dehydrated that one drank his own urine. The company was ordered to pay $500,000 for inhumane treatment, but three of the five victims already had been deported. Immigration officials, relying on company misinformation, had dismissed their complaints without investigation, the commission found."

-Berit