Table of Contents

Editorial:  Defining the Inuit Sled Dog

Featured Inuit Dog Owner:  Sylvia Feder

All the Wrong Reasons

DNA Project

Last Trip of the Century to the North Pole

Bering Bridge Expedition - 10 Years Later

Ways of the North

Behavioral Notebook:  Watching TV

Poem:  Standing Invitation

Video Review:  Dog of the Midnight Sun

Janice Howls:  Observations

In My Humble Opinion:  Work, et. al.

Navigating This Site

Index of articles by subject

Index of back issues by volume number

Search The Fan Hitch

Articles to download and print

Ordering Ken MacRury's Thesis

Our comprehensive list of resources

Talk to The Fan Hitch

The Fan Hitch home page

ISDI home page

The Fan Hitch Website and Publications of the Inuit Sled Dog– the quarterly Journal (retired in 2018) and PostScript – are dedicated to the aboriginal landrace traditional Inuit Sled Dog as well as related Inuit culture and traditions. 

PostScript is published intermittently as material becomes available. Online access is free at: https://thefanhitch.org  PostScript welcomes your letters, stories, comments and The editorial staff reserves the right to edit submissions used for publication.

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                                                 artwork by Sylvia Feder

Standing Invitation

by Janice Dougherty

As if shot from cannon,
Those crazed and savage beasts
Surge forward in their  harnesses
Howling for release
Of their ancient, seething energies;
Defying all those clucking tongues
Who smirk and say: "They've lost it!"
Wish they could see them run.
I smile now, as they lunge and strain,
Proud and eager with power;
Thrusting in unified abandon
For brief, precious snowy hours.
For this alone they were bred and fed,
All else a flimsy vanity.
Transporting my soul to an older place,
And restoring me to sanity.
Time long past, now, but still recalled
When we scavenged each other's leavings,
When our lives and deaths were intertwined,
Measured out in our labor's heavings.
They stand inside the threshold now,
Of the door to civilization -
Yet beckon me back to join them
In an older realization
Of the flow of life, of simple joys,
Of a truly incredible bond.
I lift my foot from the pronged claw brake
And urge them to take me on!