A Metis Dog Musher

We spent an evening in the tent of Gerald and Jennifer Azure.  He is a Metis, half Cree Indian and half French, and one of 10 kids that grew up in a small town in rural Manitoba, sounds like lots of alcohol problems in his family and they made their living by running trap lines with their dog teams.  When snowmobiles made it easier to manage the trap lines, his parents had more time to drink in town and left the kids at the cabins out on the trap lines.  As trapping came to an end, Gerald says, "our life fell out from underneath us".   He has evolved from that to running the most successful B&B in Churchill called Bluesky Bed and Sled and he's kept his dog team and offers tourist dog sled rides and is the co-founder of The Hudson Bay Quest, an Iditarod type dog sled race from Churchill to Quillan south of here.  He starred in a segment of a reality TV show on the Aboriginal People's Television Network called "Fish out of Water".  He was featured in a human interest story during the Canadian winter Olympics about Isabel, one of lead dogs who is blind.  Two of their lead sled dogs were in the tent with us for the evening, and Jennifer brought in two of their 5 day old puppies snuggled in leather and fur gloves.

Gerard told us really almost unbelievable tales of his dog sled races and life on the trap lines, but his love for sled dogs and the problems these dogs face was his main focus.

Several of their dogs are rescue dogs who have been abandoned, mistreated, some has been interbred with other breeds like greyhound and border collie so that the dog can run faster and not overheat, but they don't have enough hair to withstand the cold nights and they need to sleep inside!  Most of his team are Greenland Husky or Eskimo sled dogs and they are compact dog that are smaller than most people's labs.  Names of his dogs included Ultra, Sound, Yahoo, Google, Pepsi, Coffee in addition to the more traditional Buck and Chinook.  Tomorrow, we go for a sled dog ride with Gerald.

One last note on the Hudson Bay Quest.  It was originally a 240 mile ride from Churchill to Arviat hugging the coast of Hudson's Bay.  Lots of storms and the ice moves twice a day with the tides.  It became so dangerous and several mushers and dogs were almost killed, so now the route has been moved from Gillam to Churchill.  Gillam is 210 miles due south so the route is now through the trees.   

All good sled dogs come back as ravens."