Father's Day Excitement in Lorne Mountain

Happy Father's Day to our Dads, our uncles, our bro-n-law Rob, and to all the dads.

This is the first year I have ever received a Father's Day present. It is not because we are having a kid, that is silly. However, we are expecting two young ladies to be joining our family:

Both dogs are belong to our musher friend Deb, who we met though our FRW friend Evelyn who is still in the Rouge helping to build habitat with Friends. Evelyn and Deb paddled the east shore of Lake Superior Provincial Park, and their families have been long distance friends since Deb moved here. We have Deb to thank for our beautiful mountain home (she told us about the vacancy and got us a tour before the listing got into the newspapers) and now we have Deb to thank for two beautiful Alaskan Huskies.

The black and white spotted lass is named Smiley and the gray/black/white and maybe a bit of yellow beaut is named Cookie. Deb has had these girls for awhile, funnily enough they are both from Ontario. They are not on her racing team so when we told her we wanted to find some dogs she was happy to allow us to adopt them. After our conversations last night (see Lauren's late night blog from Friday) we did visit Deb's cabin this morning and we did meet again for the Cookie and Smiley to ensure the chemistry between us felt right. It felt right very quickly and we are both rather excited about this new dimension

When we thought this morning couldn't get any better (we also slept in, well Lauren had a morning nap), we visited the dump to dig around in piles of 'waste wood' to find the right materials to build new dog houses for Cookie and Smiley. It turns out that the dog house that came with this place is for a much bigger dog. We had no problem finding great pieces of solid rough cut supports and thick plywood sides, plus we got to say hello to neighbours who knew our names.

So here is where my Father's day present comes in- after lunch we went into town to buy me a circular saw to build sturdy new dog homes for our pups. Alaskan Huskies usually want to live outside and sometimes don't even sleep in their boxes. Maybe one day they will sleep indoors with us, but we want to give them something that is more familiar. We still need to locate straw bales and food but within a few days we will start a new chapter in this adventure of life.

Afternoon rain dampened our building of the houses, but it gave me a chance to go back to Deb's measure the boxes that Smiley and Cookie are living in now and (because Deb was not there this morning when we first visited) I got to share with her the good news that yes we were preparing to take both the dogs. This is an exciting day for us.

To give you a sense of the excitement and just how unique dog mushing as a lifestyle is, I took a little clip of more calm moment in the kennel this afternoon while I got to visit each one for a little pet and chat. Sorry for the bad camera controlling - put down your coffee before you watch this clip.

The boxes will be finished tomorrow and I think that we will get the dogs on Tuesday, if all goes well, and they like their new home and us, we will keep them. Please cross your fingers for us that all goes well.

Lauren plugged in the camera this evening and uploaded a week's worth of photos. Here are a few of the highlights.

 Our neighbours and friends from the market put up a Mongolian yurt on their property Tuesday morning and I got to fulfill a long time dream of mine to help built one of these gorgeous structures. It over looks Cowley Lake and Needle Mountain and Gray Ridge. They plan to run a bed and breakfast with it, and we have already been invited to spend the night.

Later that day we visited the Yukon Wildlife Preserve before moving Dan and Cheryl's greenhouse.

 We didn't see many mountain goats but this one way awesome, it looks like s/he is running out of its own coat. The enclosure had tonnes of white wool draped over the shrubs.

 One of my favorites was this fox

 I'm sure these are mountain goats like the ones we saw north of Kluane and after crossing the Canadian boarder from Skagway, but couldn't see a discernible animal that was looking after these two hilarious young'uns.

Ever seen a baby wood bison? The two of them really didn't want to be looked at, this was a lucky shot on a second pass.

Okay now I'm tired. It is 3am Sunday morning and the sun will be up in an hour. It has not been dark enough for stars in about at month now, it is already dusk and has been for a while. This place is so unique.

From a proud father, to all the others, Happy Father's Day!

Colin and Lauren (who is asleep)