by Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

HOLMAN (Feb 17/97) - Holman - A blizzard is about to engulf the community of Holman, but Houdini, Cranky and the rest of Team Ekpakohak aren't interested.

It's feeding time.

The 10 malamute huskies whine loudly and jump at their chains, each attached to one long chain anchored to the ice of Prince Albert Sound.

Jean Ekpakohak and her daughter JoAnne, who took three of them on a run earlier in the day, walk toward the team while pulling a plastic toboggan loaded with a 45-pound piece of frozen muskox and a full-size axe.

The dogteam's cries of anticipation grow while JoAnne begins chopping the meat into 10 chunks.

When she tires, Jean takes a turn.

"You feed the lead dog first," says JoAnne, carrying a piece of meat to the white dog with black head, the one furthest from shore. It sniffs the meat for a few seconds, then starts to tear off strips.

The team's dogs may have been born to run, but they learned to run together.

Their teacher is Jean's husband, Pat Ekpakohak.

"I used to have a dog team a long time ago, in my younger days," says Pat over tea in the family home. "For 10 years I didn't have any and I just started up again."

He began training this group when they were pups two years ago, and now uses them in the spring to take visiting hunters to polar bear and muskox.

"When you're out polar bear hunting, dogs have to know how to follow bear tracks, especially the leader," says Pat.

"Sometimes you can track a bear for six or seven hours, sometimes a couple of days," he explains. "If there's bad weather, you lose everything."

Trips typically last 18 days, 10 of them spent travelling.

Holman has a quota of 20 bears each season, half for sport-hunting and half for the local hunters themselves.

Last spring, one of Pat's hunting parties returned with the biggest bear of the season, a three-metre giant.

"We don't shoot every bear we see," he says. "You have to look for nice ones."

Though he speaks only of the practical benefits of owning the team, Pat's attachment to the dogs runs much deeper.

"He treats them like they're part of the family," says Jean. "He plays with them and talks to them."

"We run them every few days," she adds.

Pat has lost two dogs to bears. Jean and JoAnne tell of one that died after a bear slashed its throat. "Pat tried to save it for two days, but he couldn't," recalls Jean.

When Pat, who has a variety of business interests, is away from home, responsibility for the dogs falls to JoAnne. It becomes clear Pat's decision to get another team may have had as much to do with his daughter as sport-hunting.

"I feel free out there," she says while laying out a small harness she's making for a litter of pups she is raising. "It's quiet -- just me and the dogs. I like them better than machines."

Though she has been dogsledding for just a year, JoAnne finished second in a race of Holman teams this winter.

"I love the dogs. When you treat them right, they will do anything for you, sometimes save your life."

"She's liked dogs ever since she was little," says Jean. "She stole one from her uncle and never gave it back.

"They're all good runners and they all have their own names -- one is even named after Houdini," says Jean. "He could slip out of his collar no matter how tight it was."

"The little black one is always mean, growling, so we called him Cranky," adds JoAnne.

On the ice that night, as the blizzard reaches full force, Cranky, Houdini and the rest of the team fall into a deep sleep. The wind and snow forms fur-tight igloos around each of them.