The Fan Hitch Volume 2, Number 1  November 1999

Newsletter of the Inuit Sled Dog

Table of Contents

Editorial: 
The Bigger Picture
*
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

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


Editor's/Publisher's Statement
              Editor: Sue Hamilton
              Webmaster: Mark Hamilton
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.

Contents of The Fan Hitch Website and its publications  are protected by international copyright laws. No photo, drawing or text may be reproduced in any form without written consent. Webmasters please note: written consent is necessary before linking this site to yours! Please forward requests to Sue Hamilton, 55 Town Line Rd., Harwinton, Connecticut  06791, USA or mail@thefanhitch.org
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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