One of the hardest working individuals at the Steger Homestead is Nancy Moundalexis. Nancy joined the crew in October when she joined expedition member John Stetson to train dogs in Churchill, Manitoba. Nancy arrived at the Homestead in early November and began training dogs by four-wheeler and dogsled, when conditions allowed.

She wakes up every morning before the sun to feed, water, and scoop the dogs. She spends her days on the trail, helping Elizabeth and Abby get to know the teams, and trouble-shooting problems as they arise. In the evening she can be found in her little cabin by the dog yard, repairing harnesses and gangline sections, or practicing her banjo when she needs a break from all the work. Nancy will join the base camp team, traveling from village to village during the expedition.

In order to be successful on an expedition of the caliber of the Global Warming101 Expedition, all the canine athletes must be in great condition. The dogs must be prepared to pull thousand-pound loads for ten hours a day, ten days in a row. There are three ingredients to a great dog team: good dogs, premium nutrition, and an excellent training program.

Dog training began on September 1, 2006, long before the first snow fell. Just like human track athletes at the beginning of their seasons, the dogs were eased into the winter’s running routine. Twenty-four dogs were split into several teams and ran hitched up to a four-wheeler on wooded trails. They started out running a couple of miles a few times a week at a slow pace. The four-wheeler is a great dog-training tool because of the ability to adjust the resistance and amount of weight each dog pulls simply by changing gears. Throughout the season, we have slowly raised their mileage, encouraged a quicker running pace, and added weight to their load in order to increase their strength and aerobic capabilities. With an uncharacteristically warm fall up here in Ely, we didn’t get enough snow to run on sleds until late December. Since then, we have been loading up the sleds with logs to get the dogs used to the type of loads that they will be pulling on Baffin Island.

Location is definitely a plus in terms of getting the dogs ready to run in different types of terrain. From the Homestead, we can run our sleds out of the driveway and, in an hour’s time, arrive at beautiful Jackfish Bay of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

As of late January, the dogs are on a three days on/one day off schedule. Now they are running seven hours a day (roughly twenty-two miles) and pulling a seven-hundred-pound training sled. We are working on developing leaders for each of the two teams and have narrowed down the sled-dog field to twenty-two dogs. The dogs that were cut are sent to good homes. Sled dogs are loyal companions and make terrific pets.