For the love of mushing
Danny Beaulieu reflects on growing up with a dog team and how he re-kindled his passion for the sport four decades later
Andrew Livingstone
Northern News Services
Thursday, April 2, 2015
DEH GAH GOT'IE KOE/FORT PROVIDENCE
Danny Beaulieu was six years old when he got his first dog team.
Susan Fleck, left and Danny Beaulieu take a moment to rest during the Dehcho Dog Sled Championship in Fort Providence on March 28. Beaulieu has been involved in mushing on and off his entire life, while Fleck has found a strong interest in it over the last four years. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo
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Growing up on the trapline with his parents and three siblings, Beaulieu would use a four-dog team to follow his father along as they set and checked traps and hunted for bison.
As the older child in the family, it was his duty to help his father on the land.
"When we moved we had to use two dog teams so I always had to haul some fur or food," he said. "One of my brothers would be in the sleigh with me. I was the extra driver for the family when we moved around."
The last four years have brought Beaulieu back to his time growing up. In 2011, his son wanted to get into mushing. So when his son decided he didn't want to do it anymore and with 18 six-month-old puppies already in their possession, Beaulieu rekindled his relationship with a sport he hadn't connected with in over two decades.
"My brother and I used to haul wood with our dog team, which is the way we grew up," he said of how families across the territory used dogs to make life in the bush work. "We all had dogs then, to go visit each other and hunt."
This re-connection with mushing led to Beaulieu and wife Susan Fleck organizing the Deh Gah Mushers Dog Sled Championship races four years ago in Fort Providence. Teams from the NWT, southern Canada and the United States participated in the championship on March 27 and 28, with about 200 dogs and 14 teams participating.
"They never had a race here until four years ago since the early '80s," said Beaulieu of starting the races after moving to the community for a job. "People here were glad to see the racing come back."
When Beaulieu was 15, he lost his connection with mushing. Shipped off to residential school, it was a decade before Beaulieu stepped onto the back of a sled and ran with dogs.
"For 10 years, I stayed away from dogs," he said. "When I went back to trapping, I got some dogs and I started racing with them and I did that for about 20 years."
In the 1980s, if there was a race for Beaulieu to attend in the territory, he was there.
"Back in the day there were races in Fort Smith and Hay River, Fort Simpson, Pine Point," he said, adding Fort Resolution had some of the toughest races around. "I used to go to Simpson in the early '80s and they used to have a race every year."
Beaulieu even raced in Manitoba and Minnesota during a 20-year run of mushing before he stepped away from the sport again in the early '90's and it would be another two decades before he'd come back to it.
"Even when I wasn't running them, I'd be at the races and it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to get involved in it again," he said.
Beaulieu said really heavy training starts around the middle of October, running three or four miles every other day to work the dogs up to 15 miles by Christmas.
"You just have to keep them running slow until they're muscled up and that's when you work on gaining the speed," he said. "If you run them too fast you can pull a muscle. I want to make sure they're in good shape and not train them too hard."
Fleck said it was the first time she'd ever gotten into dog racing. A life-long animal lover, Fleck said when Beaulieu asked her if she wanted to have her own dog team she was unequivocal in her response.
"I said 'Yes, of course,'" she said. "I tell people mushing is rocket science. There is so much to learn, they aren't just dogs pulling a sled."
The hardest thing is training, she said, adding the care and maintenance of the dogs and their living quarters is like a part-time job.
"They're like the Olympic athletes of the dog world and you have to learn which dog goes where and how to train a lead dog," she said. "Each dog is an individual and have their own quirks and personality. It's just so much fun, despite all the work."
For Beaulieu, the four years of work is about to start paying off. He said when dogs reach the five-year range in age they are starting to hit their prime.
"It takes about five years to get your team in good shape when you're starting from puppies, so everyone better look out next year," he laughs.
Beaulieu said he'd like to go back to Alaska and run the open races there before he has to give up the sport.
"I want to go before I'm too old to hold onto the sled," he said.
