I’ve won both awards? The Sportsmanship Award is awesome. But the Humanitarian Award blows me away. This is the one that shows I look after my dogs. The dogs are the whole point, the reason I run. And to have recognition that I take care of my team is just the best feeling. I was so busy focused on the goal of winning, I forgot about the most important award of the race.
Mom and Dad are both looking at me with shiny eyes. I squeeze Em’s hand and then find the strength to stand and move toward the stage on legs that feel like jelly.
When I get to the podium and look out at the roomful of mushers and handlers, friends and family and media, I can’t see any individual faces. But I see the camera flashes going off. I raise a hand to block it, and I blink. All at once, an understanding hits me. I didn’t need to deliver Emma’s letter.
I am the letter.
“I ran this race for my sister,” I begin. “It turned out I needed to run it for myself. I can see that now.” I pause and then tell everyone, “But there isn’t much I can see.”
My heart feels as if it’s going to burst right out of me. I’ve spent so long trying to fit in with everyone else and not be different. But I push on.
“I have trouble seeing anything in front of me lately. And I ran the whole race like that. But I’ve learned a lot.” I step away from the podium so everyone can fully see me. I take a deep breath and then visualize Zesty charging ahead, refusing to have any barriers in her life.
“Let me tell you about something called Stargardt disease.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for helping me with the details of Stargardt disease and for taking the time to answer all of my questions: Sukanya Shankar, Cassidi Benavidez, Josephine Cimo Como, Bethany Richardson, Corinna Tanner, Trish Barsby, Andrea Chambers, Stela Trudeau, Harry Batten, and Florence Waddington. I so appreciate your sharing your personal stories.
Thank you to my sensitivity readers for wading through my manuscript: Denise O’Connor, Kristin Murner, Grace McMullin, and Andrea Chambers.
Thank you to my amazing editor, Ann Rider, and to Liz Agyemang for insightful suggestions and helping make the book so much better. I’m beyond grateful for your support and for sticking with me through a terrible year.
A huge thank you to my research assistant, Bruce Tomlinson, the most knowledgeable and patient historian I know, who continued feeding me sound advice even though I changed gears multiple times. Also thanks to Klaas Oswald for his help and local knowledge.
Thank you to Chris Barry of the Massey Area Museum for her time and enthusiasm. Thanks to Johanna Rowe and the Town of Wawa Heritage Committee. Thanks to the Smithsonian National Post Museum for the information in Stories of the Klondike Gold Rush. And to @wattleofbits for letting me use that great line.
And finally, thanks to my critique partners and beta readers. You know who you are and what you mean to me. Luckily, e-mails are faster than dog-team couriers.
Author’s Note
A sled-dog team in Michipicoten, Ontario, 1920. Photo courtesy of the Town of Wawa Heritage Committee.
This is a work of fiction, but many elements are based on historical events. The details in the letters from William Desjardins are all gleaned from the era of the dogsled mail couriers, from 1856 to the early 1900s. Raymond Miron and Eric Skead are actual men who ran the mail along the north shore, though the timeline has been altered to put them together in this story.
The White River Trail, the historical mail route between Pukaskwa Depot and White River, was well known. But it was difficult to find descriptions of the section between Sault Ste. Marie and Michipicoten beyond the mention of couriers running “the usual route.” Therefore, to conjure the race route, I used a mix of research and local knowledge along with what the characters needed for dramatic purposes. For example, I fabricated a route running from Michipicoten that meets up with the White River Trail. The Pukaskwa checkpoint does not exist in real life. Pukaskwa Park is a large stretch of remote and beautiful wilderness without roads. The community center in Gargantua was created for the sake of the story, and the Cascades do exist but not where they appear on the trail before White River.
I visited the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site in Sault Ste. Marie, and the atmosphere and the Hudson’s Bay Company roots of the museum resonated with me. I wanted to include it but had to take some liberties with the size of the room at Ermatinger House.
It has been challenging and rewarding writing a story set in northern Ontario, as this is where I’ve snowshoed and kayaked and hiked and mushed and explored. The inspiration for all of my books was born here. I hope to have done it justice.
One
Matt didn’t have much time.
“Haw,” he called to his leaders, Foo and Grover, as they approached the fork in the trail. At the sound of his voice, the dogs’ ears swiveled back. It made Matt proud that they listened to him the same way they listened to his dad, even though Matt was eleven.
The team didn’t break stride as they charged down the left trail. Matt loved watching them charge. When the dogs were happy, he was happy. Most times.
The wind grabbed the scarf Matt’s dad had made for him and whipped him in the face. He wouldn’t wear it to school—it was kind of girlie—but out here it was okay. He tucked it back down into his jacket. It was cold for November, but Matt wasn’t worried about that. All he could think about was getting to the mail on time.
Usually it took five minutes flat to get to the mailboxes at the top of the road. His mom would be coming home any minute. He needed to get there before her so he could grab the letter he knew was coming. She couldn’t see that letter.
“Yip-yip-yip!” he called for more speed.
They were almost at the tall pine tree where he’d be able to see the road. See if there was a red Toyota on it. The dogs sprinted, their feet picking up chunks of ice, which pelted Matt in the face. He crouched on the runners and grinned.
Just as the pine tree came into view, he heard a scream behind him. He whipped his head around to see Bandit, one of the yearlings, racing toward him pulling an empty basket sled. Only it wasn’t quite empty. Someone was hanging off the back of it, being dragged along the trail. When Bandit saw Matt and the team, he lowered his head and shot forward. The dog’s burst of speed dislodged his passenger.
“Matt!” a voice shrieked. A small figure in a snowsuit tumbled down the trail, rolling like a big blue hot dog.
“Lily!” There wasn’t time to yell anything else. Matt hit the brake on his sled to stop his team. He then threw the snow hook and stomped on it to hold the huskies in place. He prepared to launch himself at the runaway sled. But Bandit crashed into him first, knocking both of them into a snowbank in a pile of legs and fur.
Bandit’s eyes, ringed in black—the reason for his name—were full of excitement and chaos. He bounced off Matt and dived for the team, but Matt grabbed his harness. As Matt struggled to hold Bandit, he wondered how his six-year-old sister had managed to harness the young dog with all of his energy and sneak away to follow them.
Lily shuffled toward them, her snowsuit making sh-sh-sh-sh noises as she came closer. “I wanted to come!”
“I told you no.”
“Bandit didn’t like being left neither.”
“Not cool, Lily! Bandit hasn’t even been trained! What were you thinking? He could’ve been hurt—” Matt stopped short when he saw his sister’s face. Her lip pulled down, her eyes red. “Aw, jeez. Fine! Get in the sled. Just hurry up!”
She stopped crying so fast, Matt knew he’d been played, but there was no time to be mad.
He didn’t know what to do with Bandit. Matt was not allowed to take more than four dogs out by himself, and he already had four on the gang line. Bandit leaped and wiggled in Matt’s arms. The team grew impatient with the wait. Atlas let out a scream to go.
Matt let Bandit loose and left Lily’s sled on the side of the trail to pick up later. There was a fire in his belly now to hurry.
Just imagining his mom’s face as she opened the letter made him jittery.
Bandit completed a joyous sprint around the team, a goofy grin on his face. And then he took off for home. Foo and Grover immediately turned the team around to chase.
“No!” Matt yelled, but they were already flying down the trail in the wrong direction. So much for listening to him.
“Bandit!” he called, hoping that the dog could hear him above all the pounding feet. Bandit suddenly wheeled around for a crazed drive-by, his mouth wide open in a smile, his tongue flying out to the side of his face. Matt’s leaders also wheeled. At last, they were all going toward the mailboxes.
They made it to the big pine, but Matt couldn’t even look for his mom. He was too focused on not tipping over as they careened around the corner in a spray of snow.
“Yay!” Lily cheered.
When Matt finally looked up, he sucked in a breath at the sight. It wasn’t a red Toyota, but a brown Chevy pickup, which was almost as bad.
Dad.
By the time the team arrived at the mailboxes, his dad had parked and leaped out of the truck, leaving the door wide open.
“Lily!” he yelled, which was his normal tone for saying anything. “I went to find you in the house, and I didn’t know where you were!” He grabbed Lily from the sled and hugged her. “Don’t do that again—you scared me!”
The dogs rolled on their backs, making little contented grunts. Matt dropped the snow hook and kicked it in as he tried to figure out how he could get the mail now without his dad noticing. He inched from the sled toward the sixth box in the row.
Lily pointed at him. “We took the dogs out for a ride.”
“Yes,” Dad bellowed, standing tall. He wore his dusty apron and clogs. “Matthew is taking you whenever he goes out with the dogs now.”
Matt froze. “What?”
“I’m too busy with this order, son. I have to get the bowls done on time, or I’ll lose the contract. You can look after your sister.”
Not for the first time, Matt wished his dad had a normal job. Staying home and making pottery was just another thing for the kids at school to bug Matt about. He also wished he could mention how unfair it was that he had to take Lily all the time. But at the moment, he just wanted to get the letter.
Matt pointed at Lily. “I think she got a bruise from falling off the sled.”
When Dad turned to her, Matt lunged for the box with his hand ready with the key. Just as he turned it, the Toyota came around the corner. His mom coming home from her researcher job.
“Aha! A lovely surprise,” she said, as she stepped out of the car in her rubber boots and light blue office dress. “Whatcha seen, jellybeans?”
“A purple rhinoceros!” Lily shrieked.
“Good word, Lily!” Mom said.
“Errant children!” Dad boomed.
Matt reached into the box and grabbed the mail.
His mom hooted and came in for a hug that knocked off her orange hat and Matt’s ski hat. Nothing Matt’s parents did was quiet or small. His mom’s frizzy brown hair, always sticking out around her face, tickled Matt’s nose. The large paper flower she wore as a pin on her lumber jacket got crushed between them.
Matt had never noticed how weird his parents were until Jacob had pointed it out when they used to be friends. That was the biggest mistake of Matt’s life, letting Jacob come over. He hadn’t shut up about Matt’s family since.
Matt finally peeked at the mail he was holding. The top letter in the pile had the Sunset School District logo on it. His heart pounded as he read:
To: Clara and Tomas Misco
Box 47 Birch Lane
Copper Creek, MI 48339
“Well, let’s all get home,” Mom said. “I brought pizza.”
Matt was momentarily stunned by this news. They never got cool food like store-bought pizza. But the distraction cost him. Mom reached out like a cobra and plucked the mail from his hands. He watched the letter disappear into her purse.
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About the Author
Photo courtesy of the author
TERRY LYNN JOHNSON lives at the edge of a lake in northern Ontario, Canada. For many years she was the owner and operator of a dogsledding business with eighteen huskies. She taught dogsledding at an outdoor school near Thunder Bay, Ontario. She has worked as a conservation officer with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry for seventeen years. Before that, she worked for twelve years as a backcountry canoe ranger in Quetico Provincial Park, a large wilderness park in northwestern Ontario. In her free time, she enjoys snowshoeing and going on kayak expeditions with her husband. Her lifelong passion for adventure and wilderness continues to inspire her books.
Visit her online at terrylynnjohnson.com
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