It is cold; just last night it got down to -15^o F. We have had some truly amazing aurora borealis displays the last couple of nights. It is rare to get more color than just a pale green or yellow here in southcentral Alaska, but last night the sky was afire with brilliant reds and purples, and it was a breathtaking experience.

The dogs have put on their winter coats so they are starting to look more like sled dogs should--beautifully tough. The winter coats have a down-like undercoat that will insulate them and keep them warm throughout the winter months.

It is rare to get much colder than -50^o F here, but during the Iditarod they could easily encounter temperatures as low as -65^o F, and that isn’t counting wind chill! During the Iditarod, if it gets that cold, the teams usually camp in a sheltered spot and bed the dogs on a bed of straw. Once they get snuggled in with their coats and blankets they will be fine. The dogs are made for arctic travel. It is the musher who needs to be careful. After taking care of there dogs the musher will get into his sleeping bag and climb into the dog pile to keep warm. Keep in mind that at minus 65^oF exposed flesh will freeze almost instantly.

In those kind of temperatures the food for the dogs is almost pure fat. Beef fat, rendered chicken fat, turkey skins, and seal oil are some of the favorites. Also beaver and red salmon help add calories. For the mushers their race diet seems to be whatever they crave. Some mushers will eat plain butter; ice cream is a favorite among others. (Don’t ask me why!) But like the dogs, calories are the important part.

We got a call from our nearest neighbor (who lives approx. 1/2 mile east of here) a couple of nights ago saying that a brown bear had ravaged their hen house. Brown bears are pretty timid around this many sled dogs so we were not real concerned about the dogs, but they are getting ready to hibernate so they will eat anything, and we do have a lot of fish and meat around here so we are being extra cautious.

Bill Gallea sleeps comfortably in his sleeping bag at -40o F.  Notice his boots are next to him.  He is wearing the liners to keep his feet warmer, and will simply slip his feet and liners inside the boots when he wakes up.

When we are out on a dog run we carry a rifle as well as a large caliber hand gun, but these are more for the moose. They spend all winter eating nothing but frozen willow branches so you can’t really blame them for being ornery, but our first responsibility is to the dogs; so if a moose is in the trail, we stop and yell at them in an attempt scare them off. If this doesn’t work you end up in a waiting game: How long can the musher restrain the team versus how brave the moose is? What’s scary though is when the moose starts advancing. That is when you realize he is mad. In my family’s forty years of mushing, we have only had three incidences where we had to shoot the moose. It is a lot of work dressing them out and if it was killed in "defense of life or property" you have to give all the meat to the authorities who in turn give it to people in need. Jim was involved in one of those incidences so maybe he can elaborate on it in his next article.

Mushers use modern materials like fleece and neoprene face masks coupled with traditional furs to keep their faces warm when the winds are strong and the temperatures cold.