As a kid, Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs Lamar Nisly was fascinated with dog sledding. He read books about dog sledding, including those by Jack London, and always dreamed of being able to lead a team of dogs on his own. Over spring break, his childhood dream came true when he and his middle child, Elizabeth, traveled to McMillan, Michigan, to get a taste of the experience.
“I’ve always been fascinated by this allure of the wildness of it and the open spaces, as well as the relationship that comes along with training and raising the dogs,” Nisly said. “Also I turned 50 this year, so it seems like the thing you should do when you turn 50一to do something significant like this.”
Nisly and his daughter went to Nature’s Kennel. It houses about 150 dogs, trains and races sled dogs and gives people with no experience with racing the opportunity to try it for a day. The dogs in the second category were ones that didn’t make the cut for racing, including some who were retired from the Iditarod. Nisly opted to go on the 20 mile excursion, and he and his daughter each received their own team of six dogs as well as a guide for the trip.
“They try to make it as realistic as it can be for newbies who are just there for a morning,” said Nisly. “As much as you can for the fact that we didn’t know anything about the technique of dog sledding at the time, I felt like they did a good job of letting you be hands on and really having the chance to feel what it would be like to interact with dogs and have that experience.”
The dogs’ top speed was 10 to 12 miles per hour. They controlled the brakes of the sled by stepping on a piece of plastic with metal on it that would dig into the ground. Controlling the brakes was their main responsibility on the trip, Nisly said.
“The interesting thing was, at least in this case, there wasn’t much to be done in terms of controlling the dogs speed except for what we did on a braking end,” said Nisly. “Much of our task was staying balanced on the sled, because you go around the curves and try to hold the runner down so it doesn’t flip up, and then the braking so you didn’t run up on top of the team in front of you.”
It stood out to Nisly how much the dogs loved what they were doing.
“The most memorable thing was just seeing their joy of running,” said Nisly. “There was a jolt of energy and excitement about running. It was so built into them, it was striking how much that was built into their DNA.
They were panting, they were working hard, but they were also loving it─the way in which their wildness and energy interacted with the wildness of the space and the openness of the beautiful surroundings was the highlight for me.”
Nisly said the scenery was more beautiful than he expected as well. The trail was covered in two to three feet of snow and surrounded by trees.
“Once we started going, the dogs were completely quiet, just silently running through the snow,” said Nisly. “ It was just beautiful, being present in nature in that way. While it was obviously very tame as we were being guided the whole way, the wilderness part of it was the power and energy of the dogs and the ways that you had to try to manage that.”
Overall, Nisly said he is thankful for the opportunity to complete one of his long-standing dreams with his daughter.
“Connecting to my childhood dreams about what this would be like was pretty nice,” said Nisly. “It definitely gave me a sense of completion on that thing that’s been in the back of my head for so many years, a sense of having now done it.”
