History

Dog Teams

When Justine first moved to Gunflint, getting around in the woods was done by either snowshoes or dog teams. She had no experience with either but soon learned.

By the time Bruce was a boy, Justine had a team of five dogs. They ran one lead dog in front with two pairs behind. The dogs were used to running across a lake and not necessarily following a trail. As a result they had to be able to follow commands. “Gee” meant go left and “Haw” meant go right.

Mom’s smartest lead dog was named John. He followed commands almost before they were out of Justine’s mouth. On a wind-blown lake, he could find and follow a trail just by the feel of the snow on his feet. One job the dogs did was haul ice to the ice house. It was boring and Mom said that after a bit John forgot every command he knew. The dog would just sit and look at her.

Because these were work dogs, they ate a lot of food. The main food was corn meal mush. It was freshly cooked each day. During the cooking process, the pot would boil and sputter all over creating a cleanup mess. Protein came from fish, meat scraps, and bones. These might be from a butchered deer, from the CCC camps nearby or from the grocery stores in town. It was a struggle to come up with enough food because of all the calories the dogs burned.

Occasionally the dogs would come into contact with a porcupine and end up with a snoot full of quills. This could be a potentially life-threatening experience because the quills worked their way into the animal. Justine’s solution was to string the dog up his hind legs. With the dog unable to move, she would use a pair of pliers to pull out each quill. Generally the dog only needed one encounter with a porcupine to learn to stay away.

Summer feeding and housing was the big drawback of dogs. Justine talked of one time when the dogs keep howling at night. She finally discovered that one of the guests had been a polar explorer. He missed the howling dogs and would entice them to howl every night.

Snowmobiles replaced sled dogs. Justine accepted the change saying you never walked home with a dog team but you could with a snowmobile.