Table of Contents
Editorial:
The Bigger Picture
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Featured Inuit Dog Owner:
Paul Landry
*
Book Reviews:
On Thin Ice
Of Dogs and Men
*
Poem: Brave Little Heart
*
Janice Howls:
Hypothyroid Disease
*
Fan Hitch Contributor
Receives Writing Award
*
Expedition
News:
The Thule 2000
*
In My Humble Opinion:
Traditional Advice
*
Updates:
The Nunavut Quest
2000
Ihe ISDVMA Meeting
Editor's/Publisher's
Statement
Editor-in-Chief:
Sue Hamilton
Webmaster:
Mark
Hamilton
Print
Edition: Imaged and distributed
by the IPL students of the Ulluriaq School,
Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik
The
Fan Hitch,
Journal of the Inuit Sled Dog International,
is published four times a
year. It is available at no cost online at:
http://thefanhitch.org.
Print subscriptions: in Canada $20.00, in USA
$23.00, elsewhere $32.00
per year, postage included. All prices are in
Canadian dollars. Make
checks payable in Canadian dollars only to
"Mark Brazeau", and send to
Mark Brazeau, Box 151 Kangiqsualujjuaq QC J0M
1N0 Canada. (Back issues
are also available. Contact Sue Hamilton.)
The
Fan
Hitch welcomes your
letters, stories, comments and suggestions. The
editorial staff
reserves
the right to edit submissions used for
publication.
Contents
of
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copyright laws.
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reproduced in any form without written
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The
Inuit Sled Dog International
The
Inuit
Sled Dog International (ISDI)
is a consortium of enthusiasts whose goal is the
preservation of this
ancient
arctic breed in its purest form as a working dog.
The ISDI's efforts
are
concentrated on restoring the pure Inuit Dog to
its native habitat. The
ISDI's coordinators welcome to your comments and
questions.
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Photo credit: Ken Pawson, Admiralty Bay, Antarctica
1949. Number One Team, Yap in lead.
Brave Little Heart
by Ken Pawson
Tucked away in drawers and cases I have bits of souvenirs,
Picked up in many places - In many different years.
Most of them in money are not worth anything.
But the cheapest of all is priceless for the memories it can bring.
For, by far the very dearest, though for money it wouldn't sell,
Is a sledding dog's old harness and his little sledging bell.
If I hold it but for a minute I see once again it would seem
The fine little chap pulling it - 'Yap' - leader of Number One Team.
Now it is quite clean and supple and seldom, if ever gets wet -
But times in the past it was frozen, smelling only of blubber and sweat.
For a brave little heart beat within it. A brave little chest
faced the strain
Of long weary days on the sledge trail, and in memory I see him again.
Only a dog from a sledge trace - in a show ring he'd never be seen,
And yet in my heart he'd taken first place, as he did in Number One
Team.
And whenever life's journeying finds me with a heart that's beginning
to fail -
That faded old harness reminds me - 'Slog on to the end of the trail!'
And when the last lonely ridge is approaching, and the days of this
life but a dream,
I'd be happy to have pull me over - 'Yap', Leader of Number One Team.
* *
*
Ken Pawson was born in 1923 in Yorkshire, England. He enrolled in the
R.A.F. and served in World War II from 1942 to 1946 as a meteorological
observer - Atlantic Transport Command. Trained in surveying at Ordinance
Survey and University College, London, England, he served in Antarctica
under Dr. Sir Vivian Fuchs from 1948-1950 on a British Expedition (Falkland
Islands Dependencies Survey) as a meteorologist and assistant surveyor.
He came to Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1957 and has been part of the Calgary
Mountain Rescue since it formed in 1962. Ken and his wife, Jean, have traveled
extensively to the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, as well
as far away to Australia and the South West Pacific. Always active, he
enjoys climbing, skiing, walking and canoeing.
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