October 19, 2020

First Snow! And an update.

October 19, 2020/ Ryne Olson

Peeps enjoying the snow on a sunshiny day! Photo credit- Kalyn Holl

We have received the first snow of the season in Two Rivers! One day we’re planning to go pick lichen for the reindeer, then BAM! We wake up to fresh snow! So while our lichen collecting adventure was foiled, the dogs were ecstatic about the cooler temperatures and fresh, soft snow on the ground.

We’re currently training three teams: two adult squads and one team of young guns. Since the young guns team is really only seven dogs (Tobin, Rose, Watson, and Sherlock coached by Rucu, Ham, and Crunch), we rotate the race dogs into the youngster team so that they all have an easier training day occasionally. The two adult teams tend to be divided based on each dog’s location in the yard, but otherwise, no choices have been made yet for A Team versus B Team. Training schedules can vary from two days on/one day off or one day on/one day off.

And then we have TWELVE puppies!

Fly, Spit, and Fox all live in the yard with the big dogs now. Every day, they go for a loose run totaling about five miles by ATV. The puppies, of course, probably run double that distance as they dart through the woods, run back and forth, and chase each other down the trails. These three are the sweetest. Without any training on our parts, the Fire litter knows to run back to their houses at the end of the run.

The Cheeses and Office litters also get walks every day. For most of their lives, they have lived in two separate pens: the Cheese litter in one and the Office litter in the other. Recently, we’ve had to get creative and separate the three boys in the Office litter. Big Tuna, Mose, and Dwight are FEISTY. Tensions started running a bit high between the three boys, and they were getting scrappy. I have never had a litter of puppies get in such squabbles. To settle things down, we separated the boys (one in each pen) with the other puppies dispersed randomly. But then the Cheese litter (who are all very attached to each other) were quite upset to be living in separate pens. The current solution? Holly and Mose in one pen, Dwight and Beesly in another pen, and the Cheeses and Big Tuna in the largest pen. Phew. So many personalities!

Pilot, Peeps, and SailorPhoto by Kalyn — Pilot, Peeps, and Sailor
Photo by Kalyn

Big TunaPhoto by Kalyn — Big Tuna
Photo by Kalyn

Training run with the adult squad. Goblin teaching his daughter Yoshi how to lead!

Are any Ryno Kennel followers also Office fans? You’ve probably guessed that I’m a big fan of the Office based on the fact that the youngest litter is named after characters from the show. A bit of back story- I’ve always loved to watch the Office, and then a few years ago, Paige Drobny told me how she has it downloaded onto her iPod and listens to it to help her fall asleep during races . She doesn’t need to watch the show. Just the soundtrack puts her in a good, happy headspace as she falls asleep. Hm… I had never considered doing that! While I don’t listen to the Office on the trail (mostly because I’ve been too lazy to download it) The Office has become a major crutch for my brain in every day life. If ever my brain is caught in a silly anxiety trap that I know is highly irrational but I can’t break the loop (I’m sure many of you can relate), then I pop on The Office and listen. It’s dry humor and sometimes a bit crass. But at the end of the day, all the characters still care for each other. So here’s to the Office Litter!

The below is a video of Dani at the Outpost Cafe bringing hot London Fogs to Kalyn and I as we passed by the Two Rivers Outpost! Thanks DANI! You can see Louie, Bert, and Ernie wanted to go say hi!

October 12, 2020

List of Fun Facts by Mandy

October 12, 2020/ Ryne Olson

There’s a little habit I do within the first two miles of a run: I go through a mental list of fun facts I know about each dog on the team.

It’s a mixture of basic information such as age, little-mates, and races they’ve completed so far. The facts might relate to running. Is this dog a trotter or pacer? Good Poopers are labeled above the Team Stoppers. The former poop beautifully and quickly while still efficiently running... the latter stop so fast that the dogs behind them practically run them over and squeeze it out like brown toothpaste if not for the musher’s encouraging “come on” chant and careful speed control—but try to never break for a bad pooper. But best of all, I really enjoy thinking of more odd fun facts.

•Bull always poops to the right of his dog house

•Dolly either runs straight back to her dog house or belly-crawls under the dog platform, causing heads to tilt at the ground in confusion

•Oryx usually greets us with a bone in her mouth to help against her habit of digging aggressively into your back, leg, or other closest body part to her

•Watson is a gentle giant and will push his head in between your legs for attention while you’re poop scooping his spot—he requires a lot of pets

•Rucu the teddy bear loves pulling and running... until the dog booties come out

•Wombat often rolls over whenever you initially go to harness her

There’s a lot of pieces to keep a kennel running smoothly and the to-do lists can have a tight grip on the mind. It’s distracting. Leaving the dog yard for a run, there’s an incredible amount of energy and excitement—screaming dogs and harness banging—and it can be contagious.

So, my habit of fun fact listing is a bridge between the craziness of hooking up and when we settle into a run. The dogs soon find a steady stride and my mind calms with them. The air and scenery are serenity, easing us into the miles for a lovely run. I adore it.

And it just gets better with snow!

October 05, 2020

Eagle and Salmon

October 05, 2020/ Ryne Olson

Over the past few days, I took a mini-vacation to the town of Eagle.

More specifically Matt, Elke, and I drove six hours down the Alaska Highway, then three hours down a dirt road called the Taylor Highway, then boated 45 minutes down the Yukon River to a remote kennel (home of Wayne and Scarlett Hall). The Halls live six miles downstream from the already isolated town of Eagle. The colloquial phrase would be “they live in the bush” or cut off from the road system.

For those who avidly follow the Yukon Quest, Eagle probably rings a bell. It’s a checkpoint on the Quest between Dawson City and Circle City. The small community is located on the banks of the Yukon River and can be accessed by a 160-mile dirt road, known as the Taylor Highway. The Highway is unmaintained in the winter, cutting off the community of approximately 85 year-round residents (according to Google) for the winter months. The Yukon Quest trail runs along the Taylor Highway from the 40-Mile River Bridge up and over American Summit to the town of Eagle. Below is a video of the Ryno Team going over American Summit in the 2020 Yukon Quest.

For being such a small town, I have a strangely large number of friends and connections who either live in Eagle or are originally from there. My good friend Amanda Gecas with Boundary Fur Sewing who made my beaver mitts and hat as well as allowed me to run some of her incredible dogs like Jana, Drummer, Charlie, and Pirate is from Eagle. Through the wildland firefighting world, we have met other Eagle friends as well. For this particular trip, I was tagging along with Matt and Elke as they went to visit Matt’s parents- Wayne and Scarlett. This is the second time that I have traveled to visit the Hall’s in autumn, and it has become a favorite trip of mine.

Two years ago, we traveled to visit the Halls and helped them store their fish wheel for the winter. Using the fish wheel, the Halls catch chum salmon to feed the dog teams as well as salmon for themselves. This year was different. There were very few fish. A sonar station is located across from the Halls, and biologists live there in the summer, counting the number of fish that pass the location to ensure that the fish population will stay healthy for the future. A quick biology reminder- chum salmon are born in the river, swim to the oceans, and at an average of four-years-old, they swim back up stream to spawn and die.

Salmon haul from several years ago. We actually got these chum from the Tanana river, but you get the idea.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game do a great job of describing the sonar site across from the Halls:

“Of all the salmon that migrate past Alaska Department of Fish and Game sonar sites, salmon migrating past the Eagle Yukon River sonar site travel the furthest. Salmon that reach the Eagle sonar site have traveled 1,200 miles upstream. And as they migrate past the site and into Canada some travel more than 2,000 miles before they stop to spawn. Because they are shared between two countries, these salmon are managed according to precautionary, abundance-based, harvest - sharing principles outlined in the Yukon River Salmon Agreement the United States has signed with Canada. Eagle sonar project escapement estimates for king and fall chum salmon help ensure agreement obligations are being met and that Canadian-origin stocks are managed sustainably. ADF&G runs the sonar site in cooperation with Oceans and Fisheries Canada, which provides two of the site's technicians.”

Typically, biologists plan for an escapement of 200,000 fish, meaning at least 200,000 fish pass the sonar camp to ensure a healthy future population. This year is currently tracking as its lowest number on record. According to Alaska Fish and Game:

“Using genetic analysis on all chum salmon that have passed the mainstem sonar site operated near Pilot Station since July 19, it is estimated that 189,000 fall chum salmon have entered the Yukon River as of September 7. The projected abundance is below the level needed to meet the drainagewide escapement goal of 300,000-600,000 fall chum salmon, tributary escapement goals, and Canadian treaty objectives. Fall chum salmon are typically dominated by age-4 fish however, that age class produced by the 2016 parent year, has shown extremely poor survival in chum salmon runs throughout the state.

”Fall chum salmon typically take 39 days to migrate from the mouth of the Yukon River to the U.S./Canada border, with estimated travel rates of 35 miles per day, though travel times may be a bit slower with this year’s sustained high water. The last identified fall chum salmon group that entered the Yukon River on August 27 would be approaching the U.S./Canada border around October 5.”

So what does that mean for the Halls and other dog teams on the Yukon? No fishing. The Halls have trucked in tons and tons of dog food, but for many mushers on the Yukon who feed their teams primarily with salmon, this could be the beginning of the end. It’s not economically feasible to care for a dog team without salmon. And beyond mushing, the effects of no salmon on the entire Yukon ecosystem is a terrifying thought. Optimists are hoping that the fish due to arrive in the Yukon this fall decided to wait another year in the ocean before returning to spawn. Either way, 2020 is a very troubling time in the salmon world.

Moving onto happier thoughts, we had a wonderful visit to Eagle. We climbed the bluffs outside of town, free ran the Hall’s dogs, and spent hours just relaxing and visiting. On our return trip to Two Rivers, we stopped in Delta to pick up straw for the dogs for this winter. Also included in this post is a link to a video called Black Bear Goes to Washington. Denise Lawson is a sled dog enthusiast who has been mushing with the Halls and volunteers for the Yukon Quest. She helps rehome retired sled dogs and wrote and illustrated a series of children’s books about Black Bear, her retired sled dog. Spit, Fly, Foxfire, and I made an appearance in the video. Hope you enjoy!