A long, long time ago, Rick Collier and I, with my young dog Kumo, walked and skied 50 kilometres in two days from the winter gate on Highway 66 out to Highway 40 near Evan Thomas Creek. It was February, in Alberta, pre-2000, which meant that the snowpack, where there was snow, was a facetted mess and, it was, as we would say in Alberta in February, fucking cold. I think it was around minus 25 overnight and, as it was February, we got no sun until we finally skied out to the wider Evan Thomas Valley.
We walked at least 20 kilometres of the 50 kilometres carrying skis because there was no snow at all until we got way up the Little Elbow River where the snow was knee to hip deep but so facetted that you fell right through to the bottom. It was tough yacker for Rick and I, but tougher for my dog because even when Rick and I could ski, the snow was so facetted that we couldn’t pack it down for Kumo. All the way, Rick kept telling me that dogs could work so hard their hearts could explode. The first sign of this, according to Rick, was a blue tongue. I became convinced my dog had a blue tongue and spent the last 30 kilometres of the trip checking Kumo’s tongue. It was such a miserable trip that Rick and I were barely speaking when we finally slunk out onto Highway 40 but any hard feelings were soon forgotten and we did many more trips together over the years.
On downwind paddles, when I’m trying to get the kayak moving fast enough to catch runners, I feel like Kumo all those years ago. Working so hard that if I had oxygen to spare I would wonder if my heart is going to explode, all for a 12 or so seconds of weightlessness when the kayak spurts forward and runs ahead at close to double my normal paddling speed. Out of 20 kilometres today, I caught probably 10 to 15 really good runners (it wasn’t windy enough) but they were all worth it.
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