GONE TO THE DOGS
Man. Dogs. Team. Coady Lee and company share a mutual bond.
Coady Lee is at home with the solitude he finds on the trail with just his sled dogs for company. The team is now preparing for a big race.
You feel like the only person in the world.
Miles from civilization, with 11 huskies for company, Coady Lee clearly appreciates such solitude.
“The dogs love it, I love it and we love each other, it’s that simple,” said Lee via Facebook messaging from Porcupine Plain, Sask.
“I take harnesses out and booty up the dogs and they are just going mental the whole time. It’s like they are barking at me to hurry up, so we can get out there. It’s like they are chasing something they don't even know is there, but if we don't hurry up, it definitely won't be there.”
Lee, originally from Eastville, and his huskies are training for the Feb. 19 Canadian Challenge Sled Dog Race, a 512-km odyssey into the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan.
Temperatures around Porcupine Ridge are typically between –15 to –30 C, with plenty of snow. After a week’s training there, it’s off to another musher’s home, six hours west, for more conditioning.
For Lee, the key to a successful race is getting “in the zone” and trusting his huskies to do their job on the trails.
“I think it is important to be confident in your team and your team’s abilities, because you don't want to be second guessing yourself when you're 200 miles into a race and you haven't slept much in 48 hours and it is 50 below; it’s better to be confident and trust in the dogs. They will get you through anything.”
In the summer, Lee returns to Nova Scotia to keep his dogs, who enjoy running the backroads of Colchester.
His parents also live in the Upper Stewiacke area where they have a cottage and camp and plan to retire there in a few years.
Lee first took up dogsled racing eight years ago, when he set his sights on a Pacific-to-atlantic bike trek. Needing a winter job to pay for it, he took up guiding dogsleds in Lake Louise, Alta.
“Very last minute, I flew from Nova Scotia to Alberta and learned to dog mush and was guiding a couple of weeks later. I stayed with that company for four years, started my own company for three winters after that, and then got out of the tourism side of dogsledding and decided to focus on racing, because it was more attractive to me.”
This summer Lee will be in the Yukon, having found an outfit doing dog rides with wheeled carts for tourists coming off cruise ships. It will be a way for him to pay for next year’s race season.