After a long trek across Maine from Brownville to Houlton and then north up the Trans Canadian highway, we arrived in St. Jacques, Nouveau Brunswick, late on Sunday evening. (I say “Nouveau” because I’m sharpening up my Français in case I get perdue-ed while the Head Musher is out on the trails and I’m navigating the local chemins by myself).
Monday was a day of rest and grocery shopping, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.
St. Jacques is right on the Canada/U.S. border so we decided to cross back into the U.S. to shop and eat lunch. We were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents for 45 minutes while they checked our papers and our empty trailer. They were very pleasant during the entire process but it doesn’t give you a warm feeling knowing that your tax dollars are being spent to check out a couple of 60-year olds with a Sgt. Preston of the Yukon sled on their SUV roof. No doubt this suspicious couple is on route to blow up a Shop & Save in Madawaska by careening through the aisles with a fertilizer-laden dogsled.
First they asked us a series of pithy questions designed to discover the real purpose for our visiting Madawaska:
“Why are you visiting Madawaska?”
“Have you ever visited Madawaska before?”
“Are you carrying any weapons, explosives, beer, hard liquor, or hard water for a nuclear reactor in your car or on your person?”
Then the Head Musher had to fill out a form similar to the one the airlines give you just before landing. I’m thinking that the agent handed it to her because she appeared to be the one who could read and write.
Then the agent said he was going to search the car and asked whether or not the dogs are dangerous. This is a variant of old Inspector Clousseau question “Doz yur dug baite?” Yeah, they are a danger to lick the skin off the top of your hand if you hang around the car too long. Whatever you do don’t hitch them to the dogsled on the roof of the car.
He announced that he was also going to open and search the aluminum trunks on the trailer. We tell him that the trunks are empty but that doesn’t deter him. After all, what better indication that they are not empty than that the possible perpetrators tell you that they are.
After the agent conducted the search and convinced himself that whatever we were up to was not discernable from the available evidence (we were actually smuggling aluminum trunks), he sent us on our way to terrorize the Madawaska Shop & Save using the only weapon in our possession – a Visa card.
The only good that came of this episode was that the agent told us about a great place to eat named Dolly’s where they have great lobster rolls. So, as the head Musher often says “We landed on our feet again!”
A few hours later, we headed back and had to clear Canadian customs on the other side of the river. I pulled up to the window and handed the agent our passports. He took one look at the dogsled on the top of the car and said: “You guys are going to do some mushing! Those are good looking dogs in the back!”
When I told him that the Head Musher was going to run in the Can-Am he said “Great, so you guys are going to be with us for awhile.” After some small-talk about the chances of snow, he handed me back the passports and said: “Have a great time in Canada!” Nice to see some common sense at work.
All dogs and mushers hit the trails tomorrow for the first 10-mile training run. Colder than a well-digger’s knee here this morning but the dogs love it. We are hoping that that snow storm that’s scheduled to hit the mid-west will hit here on its way out to sea, but, at this juncture, it looks as though it will pass south of us.
In the next mushing bulletin I may have to address the question: “Why does it only snow where you don’t want it to?”
Later,
The One-Man Pit Crew