It’s raining on a Thursday afternoon in summer time Denali National Park. Holed up in our cabin I am forced to turn to other things to occupy my time. Now is a good time for a more than just a travel blog post. Which is in this post as well don’t worry but I’ve been thinking a lot lately on the state of America and Americans.

We’ve been here over a month now and whilst I have not spoken to countless numbers of Americans I have spoken to more than a few. More than I can count on all my fingers and toes. Americans that I have spoken to have all come across as individuals and unique however there has been a sense of something similar between all of them and after some thought I have come to identify this common feeling – it’s an air of apologetic disappointment in their country. Preconceived notions are often inaccurate but mine were not completely off, more just a little skewed when I assumed this air would only come from those who have managed to travel and get outside their country every now and again. But this tone of apologetic disappointment reflected in their voices has come from all walks of life. To the guy in his 30s from Arkansas who has supported himself from the age of 16 and lives his life in an RV, splitting his working year between Alaska and British Columbia, the young college graduate who grew up just outside of San Diego who is barely in her 20s, the semi retired Texan ladies, the middle aged successful magic entertainers who live in Las Vegas, the born and bred Portland girl in her 20s who just graduated dental hygienist college who wants to see the world.

They are all such vastly different people too – with different backgrounds, upbringings, socio-economic status and yet there is the common element amongst them (and many others that I have conversed with) and that is one of apologetic disappointment in their country, or more specifically the people in their country. I understand why of course. I can see how frustrating it must be to see their countrymen and women refuse to inform themselves, to educate themselves, to better equip themselves with the tools they need to make important decisions about who to put their faith in to run the country. I can empathise with the levels of apathy when it comes to politics and politicians once they have informed themselves and I can certainly appreciate the levels of cynicism being so high that even a generation as young as the pre teens would be passing acerbic comments about their political representatives, dripping with the weight of bitterness as they watch the divide between the haves (now just simply referred to as the rich) and the have nots (now called the poverty line) get ever wider and deeper and insurmountable for anyone with less than a 6 figure annual salary. I get all these things and at the same time feel incredibly fortunate for my position in life and also for where I live. Yet at the same time I feel an urge to reignite the passion and love they have for their country. To remind them of all the things they should feel proud of, to let them know that this United States of America is a special place and a country that people aspire to come to for a whole plethora of reasons (not all of them entirely wholesome of course) and that there are good things here and huge numbers of good people.

We have good people in Australia don’t get me wrong. But I’m still marveling at the level of decent respect, courtesy and kindness that is as natural to people here as breathing. We do polite and friendly in Australia. But not like the Americans do and that is a feature of the people of this country that America deserves to be proud of. Back home there is a sort of natural wariness of the new, the unknown and yes we’ll treat you with civility but you need to work a little harder if you want to be welcomed like an old friend. So often here over the past month I have felt like an old friend in terms of the greetings, I have felt like nothing is too much trouble, I have felt that if I had a problem it would be solved with the help of some new found friends. There’s comfort in that thought.

So I’m making a list of some of the things Americans should be proud of about their nation. (Not all of them obviously – but the ones that stand out to me)

1. On the whole, as a collective group of people, Americans are amongst the nicest, friendliest, courteous people in the world and they extend that respect to their dogs.

2. Your country is so massively vast that it’s an amazing experience just travelling from state to state – because you have such different cultures, environments, sights and people from state to state.

3. Nature and wilderness. Nobody does National Parks like America. It’s one of the best things about this nation. Even when not in a National Park there are areas in most states that are just visually stunning and will serve to remind this country of what’s important.

4. Food. (And okay this goes into the bad column too in terms of realistic portions, harmful cheap diets etc) BUT in terms of choice and quality and service – amongst the best in the world.

5. Also part of the collective mind – your demonstrative love for your country (in the face of the apologetic disappointment still) – you maintain a pride that is visible to anyone with eyes, in your flag and especially in your military.

6. As a group you managed to vote in Obama. That was an unbelievably progressive step. A light that many people needed and still do.

7. The Arts – music, television, film, writing, festivals, fairs, performance arts of all kinds. These are things that are clearly cherished and nurtured in this country. The rest of the world reaps the benefits of this respect.

8. Your love of Sports (albeit this is an Australian thing I would mention too) – the variety of sports played, the passionate enthusiasm for it. (Yes I acknowledge this is not on the good side always)

9. The response of the general populace in times of crisis and trauma. The reactions of the communities surrounding such events is not just reported on TV – it is done, in actions, by everyday people responding out of a basic human trait of caring for another person when they go through misfortune. It’s another example of the respect thing you have going on.

10. Your success borne out of poverty stories. People who have not had much to start with, who start often behind the eight ball, no leg ups from family or other avenues and yet through their own tenacity and wits manage to succeed in life and contribute above and beyond to society. There’s a large number of these stories.

I know there’s an opposite list out – likely pages long but as is my nature I like to focus on the positives. Doesn’t mean I don’t embrace hearty long in depth discussions about what’s wrong with a country but I am more fond of spending my life focusing on the good in the world. There’s so much out there but sometimes it feels like you have to look really hard for it. It’s at those times, when the sometimes bleak, harsh realities of situations unfolding around that leave you feeling as about as significant as a leaf floating in a fall forest of redwoods, that you struggle to find your love in your country. I’m going to keep this list here and update it as I see fit on our travels because there is bound to be more.

In the meantime, Alaska. Denali National Park, Photo tour and a Husky Homestead visit.

Wednesday we met with a Photographer named Terry Boyd who luckily turned out to be a Nikon man. We were concerned about potential conflict if it turned out he was a total Canon guru instead 😉 But all was good. Well not all. The weather pretty much sucked. It’s the middle of summer here – and it’s cloudy and raining but apparently (and rather unhelpfully) they’d had four days of beautiful sunshine right before we got here. So it was difficult for us to do decent photo ops but we persevered.

The skies decided if there was going to be no blue then the clouds would do their best dramatic impressions.

We had our eyes peeled for any sightings of bear or wolf but this was about as wild as it got. Which is still pretty cool – Mama Moose are pretty protective of their calves, but she was across the water at least 60 meters from us so she felt safe enough that we could snap away for a little while.

We went hiking in Savage River later that afternoon – hoping the wind would settle down and the sun would come out. Sadly she only made a very brief appearance when I was here.

The theme of the above hike was gale force winds so I must say I found it very bracing out there. We decided it wasn’t so much the river that was savage after all – just that the valley it lay in was conducive to Savage like winds.

More clouds doing their best foreboding impressions – with a touch of sun beam thrown in.

We did like the creek shots though. They were fun to work on.

So photography tour done, an a bracing three hour hike up Savage River and we were ready the next day for something different. So we hopped a bus and travelled down the road a little to Jeff King’s Husky Homestead tour. Jeff King was won the Iditarod four times. So he knows a little about dog sledding 😉

I’m cheating here. I took my camera but Tim ended up taking all the pics, hopefully I can steal a few and put them here. I think this is a great tour for those who are brand new to the idea of dog sledding which was the people who came in on the three other buses that arrived. However our voucher specifically described – “Step back from the crowd and enjoy and intimate experience with …. etc etc” We didn’t think the group would be so huge and I will admit I was expecting a little more in terms of personal interaction with the dogs. That said it is definitely a tour worth doing if you have any interest in dogs whatsoever and the Alaskan dog mushing – their state sport. We’ve done dog sledding before and spent several days with a couple in Swedish Lappland being very hands on with the care of the dogs and in learning the ropes of mushing. We had prior knowledge – we know the idea of the Husky is mostly Disneyfied in the general public’s mind with movies like Snow Dogs and Eight Below contributing to the misconceptions.

The dogs we saw were exactly what I expected – Alaskan Huskies (not Siberians and not Mals) – however the rest of the crowd were receiving this news for the first time. I think the most interesting part of the tour for me was when Jeff gave his talk on the intricacies of competing in the Iditarod – there was plenty of stuff there that I had wondered about and that he answered and getting it from a four time winner was invaluable.

We were not allowed to touch the older dogs (which I kinda felt disappointed about and I suspect had a lot to do with liability they perhaps might not have been covered for) except for one named Deets who was walked on a leash by the crowd. He decided that Tim and I were “his people” and seemed settled in before his handler insisted he moved on. They had five litters on the ground right now and this was common for a big kennel like this – they don’t want to take their great racing females out of competition for breeding during the height of competition season so they have their litters happening in the summer months. The five week old puppies were handed around and photos were religiously taken in case you wanted to purchase them later of course. To be honest all the puppies being handed about and I only felt drawn to one little black and white smooth coated tacker of course. He was bright eyed and sassy and looked a little glum when I was made to hand him back so others could hold him. True – I could see it all in his eyes!

The dogs still train behind an ATV but obviously for shorter runs given the warm weather. The initial presenter gave a lot of background about the Alaskan Husky breed and explained how they were named and trained. She explained how they are purebred with long ass pedigrees not recognised by AKC because of the lack of standard – which suits sled dog race breeders just fine understandably. I spotted two dogs up the back – there were probably around 30 kennels with dogs on tethers in the area – that definitely had Pointer in them and spoke to one of the trainers later on and she said yes, after commenting on my observant eye, they are experimenting with combining top sprint mushing dogs who have GSP in them (only very little, one eighth or one sixteenth) with a couple of Jeff’s top racing dogs (long distance good speed) to try and get more speed over a longer distance and to also give the sprint dogs longer endurance.

I imagine that’s a line, a delicate balance that all top Alaskan Husky breeders aspire to, get a team of 9 or 10 dogs who will travel the long distances at more than the currently winning speed of 10.5mph. Put too many of those fast twitch muscle fibers down and the endurance will be lacking – make those slow twitch fibers work a little quicker and you’ll increase the speed. I spoke to Jeff about their potential (if they don’t make the caliber of race team dog he’s looking for) in the agility arena. He stated he and his ex wife had once placed an Alaskan in with the BC puppies, raised it just like them, trained them just like them but there was just something that never quite worked with the husky. I’m curious to know exactly where it didn’t work. They seem to want to please but then there is that “don’t give a shit if you fall off the sled” component as well. You often see in agility if the handler falls on their arse badly (as in can’t quite get up quick enough) our dogs will automatically turn back to us to check if we’re okay. As Jeff said his dogs only give him a check in look when they pull in to stop at a check point just to make sure the guy that’s handing out the food is back there still. I get the feeling if you got an Alaskan Husky pretty fired up and revved for agility there might be some battles with the whole team thing, we do this together, I can envision once the Alaskan figures it knows and it can do everything really fast then following the designated course may become an issue! 😉 However I’d love to see someone experiment with breeding an Alaskan with a Border Collie. That explosive speed to start running and pulling could only be beneficial, their athleticism only adding to the BC style.

I very much like the cheap Fit Furlife Treadmills they had going for puppies and adults alike – I did wonder if I could convince my guys that making that wheel spin round and round under their feet could be the best fun in the world! LOL!

They have to leash this guy or he runs himself ragged.

This is Jeff and his favourite dog Salem (he’s 12) and he is the resident puppy trainer but has also won the coveted (by the silly humans not the dogs of course) MVP award of the Iditarod by being voted best dog of the race one year.

Siblings practicing CPR techniques. Or it’s a case of “Hey do I still have that horrible halitosis?”

This is Deets. He was a cool dude.

He showed great taste in people. One of the ladies we travelled with declared, seconds after coming off the bus and being offered a puppy to hold, “Oh I’m not really a dog person, no thanks”. Um. What? I see crazy people. They’re everywhere. Also you paid over 50 bucks for this. *Shrugs* I’m not spending any more time working on that.

So that was it. It was all very slick and commercialised and feel free to purchase X, Y and Z and that’s fine, the guy’s gotta make some money to support his dog habit so I can relate. Although I don’t think I’ll ever spend quite as much as 100 thousand in one year to get a team ready for the biggest agility event in the world 😉 I think the dogs are amazing and to me they are the pinnacle of athleticism in the canine world – our top agility dogs have nothing on these guys when it comes to endurance, speed and all round fitness. The way these dogs can run and can pull and their sheer heart and instinct is just something very special to see. I hope I get to ride behind a sled again one day. It’s like nothing else you’ve ever tried…..and you better hang on.