Fall 2013 Newsletter Mahoosuc Guide Service and Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge

1513 Bear River Road, Newry, ME 04261 (207) 824-2073 www.mahoosuc.com and www.mahoosucmountainlodge.com

I write to you today still holding the feelings I came back to our country with after traveling to Peru a couple weeks ago. It is always so eye opening to spend time in a third-world country and return to America. I want to give thanks to “all” that we have and my life here at Mahoosuc. We are starting our twenty-fifth year in business and it has gone by so quickly! It has been and still is both of our passions to spend time in the woods, on the water, and on the land with our four-legged friends and to share these adventures and experiences with others! The fall foliage will be in peak colors next week. The reds, oranges, yellows surround us here in this Mahoosuc mountain valley. The dogs are getting friskier as the temps cool and are anxiously awaiting their harnesses and the excitement of exploring new trails!

Dog News Our four-month-old pups—Seamus, Oonaugh, Amber, and Olga—are growing like weeds and intently observing the adults like little sponges and wanting to copy and learn their behaviors and routines. Millie has settled into her new home in Boulder, CO with past apprentice, Janell. During the recent floods, a nursing border collie died, and Millie became the surrogate mother of these four-week-old puppies, cleaning, loving, and protecting them. What a good girl! She’s now a happy couch potato!

In celebration of our twenty-fifth anniversary and as a thank-you to those who have joined us over the years, we are offering a special to Mahoosuc alumni of $100 off our three-day New Year’s trip and $75 off our two-day New Year’s trip. Contact us to sign up.

Polly in Peru

Polly and Kevin with

the pups

Northern News We have one space left on our trip with the Cree March 24-April 2. This is a very unique experience to spend time in the bush with Cree elders Anna and David Bosum. This will certainly be a once in a lifetime experience! Allen Gordon, our Inuit guide, from Kuujjuaq, Quebec, has become a great musher who places high in the Ivakkak sled dog race in Nunavik every year. This race is very challenging, where the mushers and dogs go overland unsupported for seven to 10 days. All dogs must be Inuit dogs and run in a fan hitch. This race often has very tough weather conditions and heavily loaded traditional Inuit style sleds. We have two spaces left on this trip with Allen in mid-April.

Canews Kevin finished building a new 18!-foot E.M. White canoe. It is beautifully built and a number of apprentices got to help with different stages of its construction. Her bright red color is striking on the water!

A relaxing day on the water

Pam Wheeler mushing on a winter trip

August was a busy month for canoe trips. Polly enjoyed a weekend guiding on Umbagog Lake with yoga instructor Sandee Conley and eight other women. Our cabin-based wildlife watching trip from Loon Lodge in northern Maine provided lots of exciting wildlife encounters, including 11 different moose sightings, many bald eagles, “fresh” large bear droppings, and fun navigating over beaver dams as we explored seldom traveled waterways. Our 2014 schedule is now up on our website and we have some sign-ups already for next summer. So if you want to plan ahead for a trip, please contact us.

Sponsorships Mahoosuc Guide Service has been sponsoring children through Save the Children (www.savethechildren.org) since 1991. We give a monthly donation. As the children grow and become independent, we take on another. At this time we are sponsoring a Native American boy, Tucker from Arizona, and Khia, from Appalachia Tennessee, both 10 years old. For the last three years, we have also been giving a yearly amount to an orphan from Kenya helping her get through high school. Damaris is a lovely gal and greatly appreciates our help. The grassroots non-profit organization we work with is called Friends of Kakamega, which is based in Maine (www.kakamega.org). We find these sponsorships very rewarding and a way to give back in the world to those not as fortunate as us.

Mahoosuc in the News Mushing Magazine’s annual touring issue came out in August, and we are the featured “super dogs” this year. Thank you, photographer Kate Sfeir, for your excellent photos that helped us get into the publication. We are very proud of our Yukon huskies lineage after 35 years of careful, thoughtful breeding. The Bethel Citizen, our local newspaper (http://www.bethelcitizen.com/), did a nice front cover story on us this week (September 26) recognizing our twenty-fifth year in business!

Travel Tidbits Polly spent two weeks in Peru on a tour visiting famous Machu Pichhu and her sacred sister, Choquequirao. She traveled by horseback and mule in the Andes Mountains, crossing passes of 15,000 feet. The scenery was spectacular, people gracious and welcoming, and the spirituality of this country is compelling. One of the most exciting moments was negotiating a fresh landslide on the edge of a mountain on a very narrow trail of three feet with a drop off of 6,000 feet down to a raging river with four horses, eight packed mules, and 10 people. We were in excellent hands with our Quecha guides, but it made my knees feel wobbly when I would look below where I stood!

Kevin traveled vicariously with Polly this time while holding down the Mahoosuc Farm but reminiscing about his three years of climbing in the Cordilla Blanca mountain range in Peru back in the mid-80s. Polly and Kevin enjoyed a weekend family reunion on Matinicus Island, 20 miles off the coast of Maine. It was a beautiful, memorable time with Polly’s family. Some of their roots are from coastal Maine.

Thank you! We want to thank the helping hands we had coming and going this summer, which spread the workload for us and gave the dogs more attention. Thanks Jake, Kate, Fran, Sam, Nicole, and Luke! The puppies will remember all of you and their walks in the woods with you.

Retirees The number of retirees living in our daylight basement has grown to the largest number yet of nine. Loyal client, Carolyn,

started a retirement fund years ago for our elderly dogs. We will welcome any donations for their veterinary care. Woof woof! Happy trails! Polly, Kevin, and all the doggies

Upcoming Events at Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge ! October 11—Talk with author Alice Arlen at 7 p.m.

! October 25-26—Wilderness First Aid Training with Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA)

! October 25-27—Wilderness First Responder Refresher Course with WMA

! November 16—Bluegrass concert with Tricky Britches, 7-10 p.m.

! November 29-December 1—Tracking Workshop with Susan Morse of Keeping Track

! November 30—“Animals of the North,” a PowerPoint presentation, 7 p.m. For more information about all of these events, go to our Facebook page. And while you’re there, don’t

forget to “Like” us if you haven’t already.

Kevin and Ootek

in 1991

From the Mailbox

Dear Kevin and Polly, We want to thank you for your time and your kindness entertaining us, the “great tour” and the delicious meal Saturday night. I am amazed at your gift of brains, all the work you do and all of your energy and strength to do it all. Polly, it makes me smile when I am thinking about your moose and your bear stories. You are a great storyteller! Reva Massachusetts

(from a visit in July 2013)

Dear Polly, Thanks for sharing who you are with all of us. It is just perfect. Dee Dee Maine

(from Loon Lodge canoe trip, August 2013)

I was introduced to dog mushing on a trip with Kevin and Polly 10 years ago, and since then I have gone out with them six more times so far on dogsledding trips over the past 10 years. There is no better way to experience the beauty of the Maine woods in the winter than on a dog sled. It's fun, it's challenging, and it really gets you close to nature. MGS offers an authentic wilderness experience. Kevin and Polly take safety of their clients very seriously. Alan Connecticut

(from a trip in winter 2013)

Musher Allie and lead dog Vixen

Why I Love Winter by Susan in Maine

The cool temps and waning light has me thinking of the coming winter…I LOVE WINTER! I love the introspective nature of the season, the clear star-filled nights, the soft muffled sounds following a fresh snow fall, no bugs and no crowds…ahhhhh! I also love dogs, those beautiful sentiment beings who chose to be our companions and bed warmers on those long winter nights.

Several years ago on my fifth-first birthday, my husband gave me the gift of dogs and winter, a day of dog sledding with Mahoosuc Guide Service in Newry Maine. Polly Mahoney and Kevin Slater’s business is unique in that they allow their clients the freedom to experience dog sledding at the level to which they feel comfortable within the limits of the client’s and dog’s safety of course. They have a several decades old breeding program and care for their dogs from birth to death. These dogs are some of the most intelligent, sweet, gentle, and hard-working animals I have had the pleasure to work and play with. The second trip we took, this time with Polly and a friend of hers, was a cultural trip to the village of Ouje-Bougoumou in Quebec, where we stayed with the Ouje band of Cree in their village. The Ouje guides, Anna and David, are elders in their village as well as good friends with Kevin and Polly. Having this close connection, we were welcomed like honored guests and had a truly insightful and educational experience. We spent our days learning traditional skills, such as scrapping and smoking hides, setting fishing lines under the ice, trapping beaver, and snaring rabbits. We learned that rabbit broth is a very important first food for infants and that roasted beaver is a succulent and delicious meat. We were invited to a “feast” that honored the work that Anna and David did teaching traditional skills to the youth of the village. This feast also honored others who had overcome overwhelming odds or who had contributed in some way to the wellbeing of the village. At this feast, we ate traditional foods of moose, bear, goose, and beaver and, of course,

bear grease. Then we danced the night away! We were treated to a tour of the village, including municipal buildings, museum, elementary school, and health center. The week was so full, the people warm and welcoming, a lifetime of memories in seven days!

This past winter (on my 56th birthday), we spent three days dog sledding across Umbagog Lake, onto the Carry Road along the Rapid River, stopping briefly at Louise Dickinson Rich’s home (author of

We took to the Woods), then on to Richardson Lake were we spent our final night. Even though we were still in Maine it felt as though we had the world to ourselves. The food was excellent, the company was wonderful, and the remoteness breathtaking!

Yes! I am looking forward to winter!

Mushing on Umbagog Lake