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Where Dogs Fart
by Cindy Matthews My mood is sour after three flights from Toronto, Ontario to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. I’m so famished I can eat a cake tin. On 50th we find the highly touted Gold Range Bistro. It’s past the lunch rush. Our server, who is between fifty and seventy, greets us with a grunt. She says, “Sit where you like,” while still eyeballing her soap opera on a tiny portable TV hanging above the bar. During commercials, she chums with a burly, bald guy sitting near the cash register. She refills his coffee cup to the brim. The stir-fry my husband, John, and I share is fresh and edible. Our requests for more water are ignored. After the meal, I read my fortune out loud. “Travel is food for the soul.” I let out a little laugh. John has to remind the server to make out a bill for us. I slide a few quarters under my plate. Before we leave the bistro, I adjust the suspenders holding my flannel-lined jeans. I tighten the laces of my good-to-minus-forty boots. My balaclava, still soaked with moist breath, smells like rotten teeth. The sidewalk outside the bistro has a metre-thick build-up of ice and crimson splotches are embedded in it. John says, “Hell of a big order of fries someone dumped here.” It’s clearly blood from a brawl, I think. “We should have asked the waitress if the auroras are still going,” I say into a gust of wind. “Like she’d care,” John says. Later that evening we prepare for our dogsled-aurora ride. I read online that the night temperature is expected to be -40 and colder if the wind picks up. I debate how many more clothes I should wear. Just dress in layers, my logical brain argues. Within seconds I curse the pair of long johns that have already crept up my butt crack. The double-layer of socks feels like casts. “You’ll need snow pants, you know,” John says. I scoff at that. I tug on a t-shirt, a wool pullover, a dickey, and then the parka. I adjust the lined pants. My arms poke like branches from my body. I pull a balaclava over my head and adjust it over my face so only my eyes are showing. My hat is fur-lined and has ear flaps. I tug on wool socks and boots before pulling on finger gloves and insulated mittens. I glance over at the snow pants I’ve left abandoned on the corner of the bed. I am as ready as I can be. Once seated in the tour van, I can’t breathe. The over-zealous heater makes me nauseous. I try to open a window but can’t manage because of all the clothes I’m wearing. By the time we arrive at the sledding place, I feel a great urge to strip off every bit of clothing I’ve got on. I lean against a chain link fence where the secured sled dogs yip in anticipation. Our female musher gives me and the other tourists the once-over. She instructs us to wait in a shed while she hooks the dogs up to the gang line. Lined pants, insulated rubber boots, and mittens hang from the walls, ready for rental by unprepared tourists. Arrogance washes over me since I am satisfied I know how to dress for the conditions. The dogs lurch, waiting for the ‘Go’ command. John, a nurse from Vancouver, a couple of others, and I slide into the sled. Our musher presses each person’s legs around the body of the person in front. I notice that my calves hurt when the musher exerts her weight against them. Within minutes, we’re off. The air soon snaps with dog flatulence. Ice crystals form on my lashes and cold bites my eyeballs. Our musher shouts, “Duck,” as the sled slithers under naked tree branches. We sail along the hard pack at a rapid clip. I lean against John’s chest to escape the frigid air slapping my eyebrows, the only part of my face exposed to the frigid air. The sled lifts and soars. When it crashes to the icy track below, it lands with a thud, only to rise again toward the star-flecked sky above. Within minutes, we slither to a stop. We step from the sled’s clutch and glue our eyes on the sky. Still too early. Black as velvet. The night sky is clear and the only ambient light is from a wisp of new moon and tourist cell phones. We enter an uninsulated cabin. The musher ignites paper and wood inside a rusty oil barrel. We soon sip warm cocoa and chew ginger cookies. We redress and step outside so Japanese tourists can take their turn by the barrel. We overhear that a young married couple intends to copulate in the cabin once the auroras begin. They desire a luck-filled baby. After a few minutes outside, the cold soon penetrates the thick soles of my boots and swallows my legs. Our group soon requests another turn by the barrel. Once inside, our musher says, “Strip off your socks.” Mine are damp with sweat. After I manage to peel the socks off, I sandwich my stiff, icy toes with my fingers. “My toes are sweating. How can that be?” I whisper-yell to no one in particular. My frozen jaw chatters with each word I utter. Our musher sits on a lounge chair in the farthest corner from the barrel. The straps of her overalls lay folded along the upper part of her muscular arms. Her eyes are half-closed as she listens to the oohs and ahhs coming from her sled-tourists. She says, “I see the auroras all the time. Nothing special.” I feel crushed by her casual indifference. Within minutes, she says, “Now. Come outside, everyone.” From behind gnarly tree silhouettes, threads of green light finger the sky. I tighten the drawstrings on my parka hood and recline on the frozen lake to wait for the show. Cold gnaws my spine while delicate bands of green and pink light kiss my eyes. I squeal with delight. My husband adjusts his tripod and starts clicking. I twist my head in order to take in the whole sky in one glance. My mouth hangs open in awe. Strips of light arch to form a chain from one end of the horizon to the other. God puffs on the auroras causing them to lengthen, dance, and undulate. Aurora curtains open and swirl to music playing in my head. And, then, as fast as they form, they cease. “Five more minutes, then back in the sled. We must return,” says the musher. “It is late.” Whoa, no more turns at the barrel, I think. My feet and lower legs throb to the knees. The boots are cinder-blocks as I trudge to the sled and awaiting dogs. My lungs snap with the cold. The Vancouver nurse nestles against my awaiting thighs which are so icy-cold they’re now blazing. Within moments, we begin to weave in and out of black spruce. The only sounds are the whine of the sled’s runners gliding on hard pack interspersed with the soft jingle of the dogs’ collars. “Look, there and there and there,” says my husband from his position behind me. His arm jabs past my face and I can feel the rough fabric of his sleeve snagging against my balaclava-covered cheeks. “Auroras. Best ones yet.” I curl into my chest, stuff my mittened hands into my arm pits, and pray my husband doesn’t figure out I’ve squeezed my frozen eyes shut. It’s hard to care when my attention is drawn to my imminent death. All at once the sled grinds to a stop. “Everyone out,” says the musher. Even her seasoned cheeks are flushed with the minus temperatures and wind chill. She quickly leans down, extends a mittened hand and releases us from the clutch of the sled. I don’t recall the trip from the van to my bed. I suspect I floated; I am that close to becoming an angel. Back at the bed and breakfast, I’m too exhausted to check my feet for blackened toes. I cocoon in a pile of blankets and shiver myself to sleep. In my dream-filled night I run naked through woods as dark as velvet. Our musher is chasing me. Harnessed dogs bark but their voices are mute. A giant’s face glows from the sky. It’s the server from the bistro. Her face is so deeply creased I’m fearful her wrinkles will swallow me. She extends lime green fingers and I hesitate before grabbing on. She caresses my frozen body before releasing it skyward. The next morning, someone drags a water delivery hose in the snow past my window of the bed and breakfast. The rasping sound of the hose draws me awake and I feel buzzed to discover I’m actually alive. |
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