This week we had a surprise visit from John's brother Larry, his wife Kathi, their daughter Holly, and Grandma Nona, John's mother. They arrived in the rain on Monday, but Tuesday was a gorgeous, sunny, brisk day perfect for hiking up to the overlook on Indian Lake. I took a few pictures so you could see the progress of ice melting. But do you also notice the white streak in one of the pictures? That is our dog sled trail for trips in the winter. It is still white since it was packed all winter by snowmobile and dog sled teams and cross country skiers, like John, Joanna and me.
I predict the ice will be out by April 15th on Indian Lake. What is your guess? Sandbar Lake is all open next to the 325 Road and shallower lakes like Arethusa are close to being all opened up.
Joanna and I will be leaving Sunday to drive down to Ely and share an Easter service at Oasis Intl, our daughter Cherish's church before leaving Monday for the twin cities to fly down to North Carolina to visit Mom and Dad. Then after a ten day visit with them in Franklin, NC we drive with them over to Pensacola Beach, Florida for a grand Jackson family reunion. It will be Grandma and Grandpa Jackson, the Jackson five kids, their kids and their kid's kids. Did you follow that? Mom and Dad spent our inheritance to rent a gorgeous three story beach house so we could all be in the same building. Our son Jonathan, his wife Reseth and our 8 month old grandbaby Aaron now live in Pensacola, Florida where he is being trained as a navigator for the Air Force. They will be moving in June to another base, so we thought this was the best opportunity to get everyone together.
We should be back to Ignace, well oiled and well tanned by April 30 to start cleaning all the cabins and finish some last minute renovations here at camp. It won't be long and this place will be hustling and bustling again with our fine fishermen.
Last summer, John completed two new outhouses for the campground which were badly needed. The old two holer had become a recliner. The back end was sinking in the ground, making it quite difficult to get up after completing your business.
Using his indispensable backhoe/loader, John dug holes that were about 10 feet deep for the new toilets. No worry of them ever filling up. He also put clear plastic roofs on them, filling them with plenty of light to see, except at night of course.
Yesterday was the day set for the demise of the two holer since we still had enough snow on the ground to make it safe to burn it. He drove his backhoe/loader over to the toilet, then using his bucket, he began the demolition. It was fun to watch and probably fun to be the operator in the cab. After it was satisfactorily smashed flat, John lit a match to it and we had a bonfire. (Not one that we wanted to roast weiners over, however)
It's a lot nicer view now facing west from our dining room. And we hope our campers enjoy their new toilets.
You've probably heard that phrase from years ago that was used to advertise a TV show called The Wide World of Sports moderated by Howard Cosell. It talked about "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." I think our family just experienced that in a different sort of way. As you may have read in a previous blog, Joanna won her first dog sled race at the 83 mile Midnight Run in Marquette, Michigan. What a thrill it was to be waiting for her at the finish line and see her and the team pop over the hill in first place! It was quite a moment.
This week it feels like we are experiencing the agony of defeat. Joanna's beautiful and precious 23 month old Irish Setter began to limp after returning from a walk. It seemed she wasn't able to put any weight on her left back leg. In fact her whole back end was a bit wobbly. We just assumed she had somehow banged her leg and would heal by resting and staying off of it for awhile as she has in the past. We called our vet to make an appointment to get her checked out.
But after a few days of rest, she was worse and had also acquired a gurgly sound in her breathing. Alarmed, we rushed her to the vet in Dryden on Sunday where they examined her and came to the conclusion she had either a fungal or bacterial infection of some kind in her spinal area. It sounded serious. They wanted to keep her to put her on I.V.'s and antibiotics to start counteracting the infection and run some blood and urine tests to see if they could pinpoint the problem.
After conferring with other vets, including an online forum, our vet decided to put her on the antibiotic specifically for Blastomycosis hoping she would respond. On Wednesday we drove to Dryden to bring her home and continue the drug treatment for Blasto. But when we got there, the vet carried her out to us and sadly explained that she was not better, but her condition had worsened. Now Saga had lost the use of both her back legs and she had no bladder control. We followed him to an examination room in the back and laying her on the table, he went over all they had done to try to help her. Her symptoms were still a bit baffling to everyone, but the consensus was that she most likely had intradiscal spondylitis and she had already sustained permanent injury to her spine. The condition would only worsen. The clinic staff said Saga was a very sweet and cooperative patient and they were sorry that there really was nothing more they could do.
We soon realized, with crushing dismay, that our only choice was to put her to sleep. As we cried, Saga lay on the table, totally unaware of the present disastrous situation, looking at us with those big brown eyes, licking our hands and probably wondering when we were going to take her home. We spent a few more minutes petting her and kissing her goodbye. How do dogs work their way so deeply into our hearts?
Each day we relive happy memories of Saga and the joy she brought to our lives. She was not only stunningly beautiful, but she had such a free, fun-loving, excited- about- life, personality. In just a year and a half, she had become an obedient, mature dog who enjoyed being loved and cuddled. She displayed cute quirks like carrying around a pillow from her crate, making comfy beds for herself with blankets and some of Joanna's clothes on the floor, playing hide and seek with Sabre, and acting like a Mommy with sled dog puppies. John got a kick out of the way she would sit by the garage, waiting for someone to come out and play even when we were trying to beckon her into the house. He would often take her on walks in the woods with Sabre. Sabre has been unusually sober lately too. I think he misses his little playmate. The house seems emptier without our little ray of sunshine...our redhead.
Thank you Saga for bringing such joy to our home. We'll never forget you!!
We'd like to inform everyone that is trying to contact us that our radio telephone has recently developed a loud static sound, making it extremely difficult for us to hear the caller. Apparently, the caller can hear us pretty well though. The Bell repairman has been working on it, but is unable to bring any improvement at this time. So, if you are trying to connect with us by phone, please speak loudly and clearly or email us at agimacriveroutfitters@xplornet.com. Hopefully, this will be resolved soon.
Joanna and I left camp on Valentine's Day in our Tahoe hooked up to the 18 foot trailer that was now home to nine sled dogs. We were heading over to Marquette, Michigan for the Midnight Run 90 mile Dog Sled Race. It was Joanna's first race of the season since the Beargrease Race in Duluth and the Wolf Track Classic in Ely were both cancelled due to lack of snow. The disappointment was even greater for Joanna because this year she knew she had a team that was young, energetic and well trained, ready to race. Eight dogs would run the race, five of which had never raced before and we took along one extra dog as a spare in case one of the others didn't pass the pre race vet check.
For some reason, this year, she decided to sign up for the Midnight Run which she had never run before. Thankfully, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was one of the few places in the mid west that had snow. It ended up being a 17 hour drive for us. Good thing the scenery was beautiful.
I accompany Joanna on her races to drive the vehicle to the race and to the different check points in the race and help with the handling of the dogs and doing any odd job that needs to be done to assist her.
Marquette did a superb job of organizing and putting on the race. Thousands of people attended the ceremonial start on Friday evening along with hundreds of volunteers who assisted the mushers. Dump truck loads of snow was hauled onto Main Street of Marquette for the dog teams to run around a block, giving spectators a look at each of the teams. Like the infamous Iditarod race, the Marquette staging had a wooden archway for teams to pass under at the start, bright street lamps lighting the way. Even a live band was on hand playing patriot songs, lending to the already exciting atmosphere.
Following the one mile ceremonial start, the mushers loaded up their sleds and dogs and led by a police escort, headed to the official start of the race about 40 miles away in Chatham. Joanna was number 12 out of 29 entrants in the race. The teams left the starting chute in two minute intervals. Quite a few of her fellow mushers were regular top ten finishers in past mid distance races, so the competition was tough.
The race entailed two legs, the first one 47 miles and the second 38 miles. There was a five hour mandatory rest in between the two legs. After about 4 hours, the first team came into the check point. Soon after that, a second team. To my astonishment, Joanna's team was the third team into the checkpoint. I thought, "Wow, she must have passed a lot of teams."
And indeed she had. After all the teams had reached the checkpoint sometime around 3:30 a.m., we got the news that she was now in the number one position with about four teams close behind her. We could hardly believe it!!
Being in first place, she led the pack out of the checkpoint heading to Munising, Michigan. I drove the truck to the school parking lot in Munising where the race was to finish. After completing my dog handling chores of setting up the picket line, (a metal cable fastened between two rods extending from both ends of the side of the trailer) to hook up the dogs upon their return and heating up water to thaw the frozen chicken meat chunks to feed the dogs, I walked over to the finish line ready to assist my girl when she arrived. I had no idea what was happening out on the trail. I had noticed that our dogs didn’t rest as well as some of the other dogs at the checkpoint. They seemed a bit tired and sluggish when they left and they had no one to chase since Joanna left first.
At the finish line I met and visited with another dog handler, Pat, who happened to be the wife of Jerry Trudell , the musher in third place leaving the checkpoint. Pat and their other handler sounded very confident that Jerry was going to win the race because of how well their dogs were doing. She too said her nerves were shot. We agreed it was more difficult for us who knew nothing about what was happening on the trail. In the course of our conversation she had mentioned that their lead dogs were white and I knew one of ours was black.
All of a sudden we got word from someone posted further up the trail that the winning musher was on their way to the finish line. We couldn’t see anything but a small hill that they would pop over at the end. My eyes were glued to the top of the hill. Then a black dog came into view, then the rest of the team and then JOANNA. I jumped up and down laughing and crying, “Joanna, you did it!!! I can’t believe it-you did it. Yahoooooo!!!”
I almost forgot it was my responsibility to grab the lead dogs and help direct them back to the truck. Joanna had so disciplined herself not to get excited or to think about winning, but just to go as fast as she could and stay in the lead that she could hardly relax and receive the news that she had won. Jerry Trudell had passed the second place musher and then passed Joanna on the trail when she had to stop and shift some dogs around because of leader problems. But she then worked hard to catch up to him and with a team to chase, her dogs put on the afterburners, zooming on by him and he was never able to catch Joanna’s team again.
Because Joanna had never run this race before and won it, she also received the Rookie of the Year Award. At the awards banquet later that evening, she had an additional surprise, winning the coveted Humanitarian Award. All the veterinarians involved with examining the dogs during the race got together and voted on the best cared for dog team and Joanna won that award as well.
While commenting about the race in front of everyone at the awards banquet, she made mention of the fact that her Dad shared equally in the win because he accompanied her on almost all of the 950 miles of training, following her with his snowmobile to help her if she had problems and protect her if they ran into moose or wolves on the trails. Joanna told me later that when she was nearing the end of the race and believed she was truly going to win, she teared up thinking, "We did it Dad! We finally did it."
The whole trip was very enjoyable from all the awards won, fun visiting friends and making new ones and viewing the beautiful scenery along the way. Needless to say Joanna is still on cloud nine.
This last weekend we were blessed with a visit from our nephew Eric Oberg and his wife Amber, sons Lawrence (4) and Celeb (14 months). Eric works for a mining company in northern Minnesota and had a long four day weekend to enjoy. It worked out for them to come up and spend some time with us, which made us happy.
We filled every moment possible with some exciting adventures. The first day they were here, Joanna and John were scheduled to take a couple of folks on a full day dog sled trip. So, I guided Eric and his family to our Indian Lake overlook. It is a new trail on the opposite side of the Agimac River through a beautiful spruce swamp and up a hill. We put the baby in his car seat and strapped him to our long sled. Then Lawrence hopped in behind him. We took turns pulling them along behind as we snow shoed the trail. They were amazed at the view from the overlook, about a hundred feet above Indian lake. We could see the snowmobile trail on the lake,lined with tree branches to mark the trail that John, Joanna and the other dog sled team would travel on their way back to camp.
On our way back down the hill, Eric climbed in the back of the sled with his two sons and commandeered it around the curves to the bottom, sometimes plowing his own trail to cut off some sharp corners.
Believe it or not, Caleb, the baby, slept through the whole experience, waking only once when they bumped some brush.
The next day, Joanna and John took them on our half day trip trail while I stayed home with the baby. Joanna took Lawrence in her sled while Amber and Eric each had their own sled. Apparently they had a great time, because when Amber came through the door, her face was flush with excitement. She kept exclaiming on what a fantastic time she had. She never dreamed it would be so fun. Joanna might have another willing helper for the Beargrease Race next year.
It's refreshing for us to have family and friends come to stay with us during the long winter months. We don't get out as much at that time and it gives us a chance to slow down, spend more time with them and have some relaxing fun ourselves.
Greetings everyone! I know there are quite a few of our wonderful guests who take a look at Our Blog from time to time to see what is happening at camp. Could we ask you a favor? Could you let other folks in your group and other friends of yours know about our facebook page to help pass the word?
It is called Agimac River Outfitters. Facebook seems to be a great way to connect with people and let them know what we have to offer at our place. We've always known that word of mouth is by far the best advertising. So, thank you for getting the word out and letting folks know we are here.
We just got another foot or so of snow this last week. It's been pretty quiet on the western front, but we never seem to have a day without something to keep us busy. John has been plowing the 325 road with this new snow and shoveling walkways etc. Just today he cut and hauled three big tractor buckets full of firewood to our outdoor furnace. And today we are entertaining our pastor and his family from Ignace with an outdoor wiener roast and a half day dog sled trip. We also plan to have some fun and games after supper.
We have had a few more Dog Sled Trip guests this year than before which is nice and our first ice fishermen who came from Duluth, MN up to stay with us in a cabin. They so enjoyed snowmobiling to the different lakes in our area and fishing that they said they would be back.
I really like this time of year when the sun shines brighter and the days are longer. It feels like spring is right around the corner. Joanna says, "No,not yet!" She has to run a few dog sled races first. Her first race this season will be in Upper Michigan beginning in Marquette on February 17th. That's coming up fast now, so she is getting excited. Stay posted and we'll let you know how she does.
John and Daryl both enjoy the great outdoors,so moving to Ignace, Ontario Canada was not a surprise, just a huge adjustment. Their new home in Canada is more remote than any other place they have lived. Each day offers a new adventure of meeting new people, facing a new challenge, exploring a new trail, visiting a new lake, or seeing different wild animals. They are so thankful to be able to have their middle child, Joanna, age 30, living with them. She is very much connected to the wilderness and is fanatical about dogsledding. They have found the Canadians to be warm and helpful folks. One of their greatest joys is hosting guests at the camp. It's especially wonderful to have visits from friends and family during the quiet winter months.
