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the empty sleigh and go charging off again.
    Dan’s instructions were curt, but their brevity emphasized how absolutely fundamental they were. He left me in no doubt that this was a once-only lesson and that apprenticeships in running a dog team lasted as long it took to explain these simple rules.
    I tried to absorb what I had been told in the same manner as I had been told it. Dan’s words had implied but left unsaid something that was now echoing in my ears: in the bush you learn fast or you get left behind. However, my tutor didn’t leave me much time to dwell on this unspoken speculation. Like an eel he was inside the tarpaulin, fidgeting himself into a comfortable position. In no time his face disappeared behind the thick fur of his parka, his eyes hidden behind the shiny blue-black lenses of his sunglasses. Squatting against the whiteness of the bush he looked likea hideous insect newly emerged from its chrysalis. I quickly jumped behind Dan and his dogs, took a firm grip on the sleigh rails and hung on like grim death.
    â€˜Mush’ was the word to say to get us moving, but it felt so foolish and so childish an expression, which indeed was exactly how I was feeling at that moment. I was master of nothing. No part of me was connected to the animal engine that was driving us. My hands held me to the sleigh, but that’s all they did. There was no ‘hands on’ manipulation from me. I had no steering wheel to direct our passage, no clutch, gearbox or accelerator to control the speed. A pilot in the air has his joystick and a whole bank of computerized controls to draw on. I had nothing, not even a pair of reins to connect me and give me power over the creatures that were now charging ahead at breakneck speed. Even a sailor in his small yacht has more control, for he can shed sail or manually position himself against the wind. I had nothing but a pack of mad dogs working with one mind, setting its own course to the tune of Ben the lead dog, and plunging precariously through this snowbound outback. I was simply hanging onto their tails, letting them drag me where they wished. Stupefied, I clung on, trying to replay Dan’s instructions, but my mind could not compute as fast as the team could pull.
    Then Dan roared out something short and inarticulate to the dogs and almost simultaneously rotated his head in a half turn and told me to ‘Lean hard left, Brian, lean hard left!’ Without questioning him I squatted on the runners and pitched my upper torso as far over to the left as I could. I dared not be too inhibited. In Dan’s language, hard left meant hard left, so that’s what I did. Part of me imagined a downhill slalom skier weaving between markers down a sheer slope. It worked! My weight-bearing lean seemed to correct the rolling tendency of the sleigh as the dogs made a hard right. I was mesmerized and flushed to selfcongratulation, but had little time to relish it. Dan was roaring orders again.
    â€˜Two more turns. Wait till the lead dog has made his move and drop your foot to slow us into the turn. After the second turn it’sopen country. They will see it before us and go into a fast run. Make sure you give plenty of foot brake and then lean, then brake, but lighter this time.’
    The instruction, as always, could not have been simpler. I did as Dan demanded and we travelled in and out of the turns with an effortlessness that made me feel like grace revealed. The dogs must have felt it too, at least I wanted to think so, for they ate up the open ground as if each of them had grown another set of legs. I was riding on the crest of their enthusiastic yelps, wanting to yelp myself. Then the cabin loomed and in no time we were sliding up to the dog enclosure with my foot and sleigh anchor guiding us up to the porch. Dan soon had the team tied up securely.
    I watched, wanting to pat some of the dogs, but that seemed as silly as wanting to shout ‘Mush!’ at the