Running Dogs At -40F

Inevitably, if you live in Fairbanks, Alaska and like to run sled dogs you will have the opportunity to do so when the mercury plummets. Those of us who are crazy enough, will don every bit of outdoor gear we own and faithfully hook up our howling sled dogs for a run.

The cold only makes the sled dogs more happy to run because they don't overheat. Actually they are crazy to run at ANY temperature, they can just run farther and faster when it's really cold.

It is entertaining to me when, completly unprovocated on my behalf, many of my relatives in the mid-west states take great pains in telling me how their state gets just as cold as Alaska. "You really don't have it that tough", they like to say. It's national news if the temperatures fall below zero for muliple days in their area of the country. The temperatures return to normal quickly and their cold spell is over with out too much inconvience - normal being "right at freezing". Tropical by Alaska winter standards. January in interior Alaska can be brutal and deadly. This type of cold sits, not for just a day or two but for weeks at a time. Rendering everything brittle and breakable. Flesh freezes in a matter of moments when exposed to the air. Ice fog (pollution) hangs over populated areas making it hard to breath.

When the sky is clear and sunny it means cold, cold, cold. When the clouds come it means relief and a little warmth. The days are short and the darkness almost absolute making the illusion of warmth that much more difficult to grasp.

Running the dogs at -40F can be a real challenge from the human perpective. You must cover every exposed part of your skin. My eyes are the only thing that can be "touched" by the outside air. I can't seem to use ski goggles with out them fogging badly. My eye lids freeze together as we rush down the trail. Mushing with eyes frozen shut is not a good thing. I remove my naked fingers from a warm glove to press them to my eye to thaw the eye lash temporarily releasing one eyelid from the other. I must blink my eyes quickly to let the eyelashes freeze apart. I can hear them making a "tink, tink, tink" noise as I blink the newly frozen eyelashed together - but at least I can see.

Alaskans talk of the snow being "slow". This refers to the cold making the snow more abrasive thus creating drag on the runners of the dog sled. The dogs have to work a little harder to pull the sled but the cold makes them happy to do so.