Living off the grid with 20 pets
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jan 22/01) - Think dog team and images of fur-clad Inuit or northern Dene urging their burly half-wild animals across the wind-blown ice jump to mind.
But many southerners have also felt the draw of sled dogs, the appeal of travelling by dog-power.
John Evanitski is one of those southern mushers. Dogs have helped him get to where he needs to go since he was a kid.
"I was 14 years old when I got my first puppy," Evanitski recalled. "I lived in Beaumont, south of Edmonton and I had a newspaper route.
"I got a little harness for him the next year and hooked him up to the sled I used to haul my newspapers. He'd pull it around for me, and wait while I took the newspapers to the door. It wasn't long before he knew which houses to stop at."
Dogs fit perfectly into the lifestyle Evanitski and his wife Lauri have chosen for themselves and their four children.
He works as a security guard at the Legislative Assembly and lives about 20 kilometres from his job - off the power grid and about half a kilometre from the highway.
Sled dogs can be a hazard for children but Evanitski has learned to eliminate the risk.
He uses Canadian eskimo dogs. They're much larger -- and slower -- than the racing dogs used by competitive mushers. He separates pups after seven weeks to prevent them from competing with each other for attention. The children take turns giving each puppy plenty of attention.
"When raised properly, they have a really good temperament. They're family-type dogs. If my kids fall down among them, I don't have to worry."
The family spent two months during 1999 travelling by dog team from their rural Ontario home along the Trans Canada Trail to Red Deer, Alberta.
"I've been talking to Nahanni National Park about doing an expedition through there, but there's still a lot of bugs to work out," said Evanitski.
This winter Evanitski is hoping to carve a dog trail to Great Slave Lake from his home. He's got a little over three kilometres cleared with another 10 to go.
When the link is done, it will open up the world of big lake travel to the family and the dogs.
"It'll be a totally new experience for them," said Evanitski. It wasn't clear whether he was talking about his dogs or his children.
