This past weekend B and I had rented an ice shack to go ice fishing, and then we realized it was also the starting day of the Yukon Quest International Dog Sled Race. This is a 1,000 mile race between Fairbanks and Whitehorse Canada & this year it started in Fairbanks!  So we figured, let’s do both and have a true weekend of firsts…first dog sled race & first ice fishing for us both!

The start of the race was right in downtown Fairbanks, with snow built up into a snow road right down the main streets.  Funny given all the time and massive efforts that happen to clear snow…to cart it back in for a day. But very fun! The whole town seemed to be there cheering the…mushers? on.  None seem more excited than the dogs taking off on the long journey they train for.

After seeing several groups take off, we walked along the route — walking on the street itself allowed us to see just how much ice is built up on the pavement we drive on! Needless to say, we focused quite a bit on not falling. 😉  Each team that lined up behind the starting line had many join to hold the dogs back. And the many of the dog teams whose turn had not yet come were in their transport vehicles which were barking and yelping away!  It was remarkably loud back behind the starting line.

After grabbing some coffee we hit the road to get to our rented ice shack on Birch Lake, about an hour from town. After walking out, we figured it was more than safe to drive out like the others in our remote ice fishing shack village.  So — add to the “first” list my first time driving on a lake!

Our shack was lovely, with four areas to dig holes through the ice in the corners and a wood stove in the middle. 

The ice hole was not open, it was super icy…so we took out our auger! Our hand auger, which worked pretty well though I can’t say I’d anticipated the amount of ice and snow we had to remove to get clear.  Our auger is also pretty narrow in diameter; intentionally so that it wasn’t a ton of effort to get through the ice.  Which eventually, we did!

So we created a pretty small hole — and then a pretty amazing thing happened.  Some guys in a truck, who’d passed by us as we were arriving stopped and said that they noticed we had a hand auger and offered to use their gas powered auger for us “it only takes 30 seconds and we’d had to go through about four feet of ice”.  I’m not sure that it was four feet of ice below our feet – but that thing was powerful and quickly opened up our hole larger and then another one so we could have two access points!  Thank you kind stranger.

So then we set ourselves up with our fishing poles baited with some egg thing and shrimp; B quickly got fed up with his tangled line and misbehaving reel and opted for his fishing line on a board.  We enjoyed some hot cocoa, chatted, stoked the fireplace….oh, and fished.

I can’t say we actually caught anything (which is totally fine with me). It was a fun time, and think we’ll be giving it another shot this weekend too (now that we have it all set up)…after all hot cocoa in a warm shack on the ice, pretty skies, not too shabby!