The Dog Days (are just starting)

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Hello there! I am the newest addition to the “new additions” to Tulita. I’ve also been hired to work with the Park, and highlights of my job so far include procuring a meaty bear head from a freezer in Normal Wells, that I will eventually have to boil down to a skull and sanitize for use in educational programming. I arrived in town only 2 short weeks ago, and Faye and Maciek kindly set me up with a blog username and told me I could write whatever I wanted on here as long as I don’t include any town gossip –of which there is a remarkable amount having only been here two weeks. But don’t ask me about it. At least not on the blog 😉

My first night in town, I was invited over to Faye and Maciek’s house for dinner where they promptly had me gut a grouse in their driveway –I was under the impression this was standard Tulita initiation, but turns out I was just lucky.  Since then I’ve also had the pleasure of purchasing 50% off bananas at the Northern (I’m sure they were yellow at some point), staying up regularly until 1 am (when it actually gets dark), and throwing knives into a plywood wall (for fun). I’ve also been busy befriending the town’s eclectic array of dogs.

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Ali –The goodest of girls, the best fetcher of sticks, she just wants to be your pal. Sweet, playful, and bit of a pushover. A classic Southerner.

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Butterball –A big buttery ball of fluff. Can’t argue with that.

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Stella –The local celebrity athlete, a dark horse (dog) on the skijoring circuit. She barrels through the snow, a shadow in the night.

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Teacup –Born in the first light of spring, 2018. Teacup is a wizened soul with a heart of gold, trapped in the flimsy, flailing body of a mouse-like puppy. She also goes Trevor or Tyson, depending on who you ask. Her past is a mystery, but her size tells a big story. Adorbs.

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Sissy –She may be tied up, in the physical world, but her philosophies and dreams are untethered. She has a bad habit of following, but with some more experience and mentorship, she will become a leader of her people.

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Dirt-Patch Dog –This dog just lays in a patch of dirt all day. Might be a German shepherd?

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Dog-House Dog 1 & 2 –One is always napping. And they both sit on their dog houses. Never in them.

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Porch-Railing Dog –This dog is a step above, the cream of the crop, the wheat from the chaff, she sees life from the eyes of God (if God lived on a railing). Most other dogs in town are stuck in the mud, but her paws are clean –of sin. Note the railing on the left.

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Lil’ Pointy Ears –Lil’ Yaps-A-Whole-Lot-And-Needs-An-Attitude-Check. But he’s also the youth of today. And those voices need to be heard.

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Shepherd –Katelyn’s neighbour. She doesn’t typically go for the macho type – he’s barking up the wrong tree 😉

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Charlie –The epitome of strength, love, and fluff. The gracious mother of four beautiful children. She protects, teaches, and tenderly licks her legacies. An inspiration to us all.

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Walter –His jowls and saggy eyes practically drag on the ground. If you want a dog with a short leg and a looooong droop, he’s your guy.

So far so good! Tulita’s got some top notch dogs, and I can’t wait to meet even more. This Dog Blog was co-authored by Emma.

Quad hunting

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For a moment, I’m flying.

The world around me used to be still and frozen, but it has started to come alive. Most of the snow has melted away. What remains is wet, sloppy snowy remnants that will soon become the bog. The walls of dead-looking, human-high sticks that lined the side of the winter road are becoming trees again, with little green buds appearing all over them. The road itself is now a treeless stretch of mud and ditches and puddles, and for a moment I’m flying.

My feet have left the quad as I hit the peak of my parabola. Then my hands, gripping the handlebars—not so tight that they’ll get exhausted, not so loose that they’ll let go; elbows bent ready to absorb the impacts—jerk me forward. My moment’s flight is done and I’m violently hurtling through this world on top of a 300cc engine. The quad’s low pressure tyres fling a constant barrage of mud up behind me. The suspension might be absorbing some of the impacts, but mostly that’s a job for my knees. I’m in a permanent half-squat over the seat, pulling the vehicle in to me, pushing it back into the ground, thrusting my weight back for more traction, thumb locked to the accelerator, eyes constantly scanning the ground rushing towards me, ready to react.

A rare, clear dry patch—time to put on some speed.

A ditch!—take it head on, absorb the impact, accelerate hard out of it so there’s enough momentum to keep flying through that massive stretch of thick mud.

A puddle of deep, dirty, muddy water—my quad and I are splashing straight through, water flying everywhere, droplets flashing around me in the perpetual northern daylight, coating us both, my quad and I, in mud and glory.

I love it out here.

Tulita is a little 1km radius patch of town surrounded immediately by endless wilderness. It starts directly behind our house, and goes on for hundreds of wild, endless human-free kilometers in all directions. Last year, the summer made that wilderness into dangerous, threatening, stifling, intraversible bog. It was too hard going to move very far through, especially with my shitty heart, and it was full of bears and other very real dangers. It kept me a prisoner in town. A fragile, helpless being huddling in an island of civilised safety. This year, it has become an awesome, massive adventure playground. I hadn’t realised I needed a quad, but I so desperately, desperately had.

I take my gun out with me, bouncing along in a sling on my back, and I try to shoot any grouse I see. “You’re not really hunting though, are you?” My neighbour asks. “You’re out for a rip”. He couldn’t be more right.