As I sit on my brother Jeff’s couch, eating a few cookies from the batches of my Grandma’s snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies I just made, family comes to mind. You see, I’m a fantastic sister. I arrived at Jeff’s in California a week ago, and part of his condo tour included specifically letting me know where the cookie ingredients were “in case you want to do any baking.”

With empty cooling racks on various surfaces and crumbs beneath as reminders of what had been and could be, I took the hint and did some baking. My brother and I are very different people, but his baking cupboard showed me that we do share that interest.

Jeff and I also share a love of the outdoors, reading, and travel, but our interests and intelligence vary beyond that. He went to MIT to study computer science; I went to UAF to study my own interdisciplinary major of nature photojournalism. He plays ultimate frisbee, reads court cases, and even travels to Washington, D.C., to sit in on U.S. Supreme Court sessions for fun. I hug puppies, play in the kitchen, and run for fun. In other words, my brother is smart – as in naturally intelligent.

Jeff’s brains took the family to D.C. for his 3 years as a contestant in the National Spelling Bee. While he was busy working his way to tying for 5th in the nation, I was nervously pacing upstairs in our hotel room.

Whether he knows it or not, I truly don’t know what I’d be like as a person if it weren’t for him. He was one of those kids who got straight A’s in school without needing to put much effort in, so I just grew up assuming there was no reason for me to not get A’s. The difference was that I had to earn them with late nights and a few actual tears of fear for Honors Chemistry. (Of course not too far in I learned that Chem is awesome and ended up taking AP Chem.) I graduated from high school with a high GPA and carried that work ethic and need for good grades throughout college.

Ultimately none of that really matters, though, since I can now sit in a brewpub and watch football on the screen above Jeff’s head while he’s watching on the screen over mine. (Although somehow he did get the hideous gene that makes him support the Wolverines. NO approval from me on that one.) Both of us got the quieter side from our Dad rather than the talkative gene, and while we don’t talk much or live close by, we get along reasonably well. He has his tech life, and I usually find puppies.

I’ve realized that I probably wouldn’t be exactly where I am without the influence of my human brother and canine sister. Because Jeff was part of a very active Boy Scout troop, I was always envious of his outdoor excursions. When it was time to decide on a destination for Jeff’s senior trip – a family trip following graduation from high school – we all had been interested in Alaska, but Jeff is the one who officially requested it.

Little did I know in 2004 that a month of Alaskan summer would lure me to college in the Last Frontier. Nor did I know that my ride on the Riverboat Discovery would be the very first of dozens; when wildlife fieldwork failed to pan out 8 years later, I became a deckhand for the 2012 season. When riding the Riverboat in 2004, I first laid eyes on Trailbreaker Kennel, home of Susan Butcher and David Monson. Being a dog lover, that was obviously the highlight of the boat trip for me.

When I heard that Trailbreaker could use a hand in 2012, I quickly offered my help and  became a dog handler for my 2 days off the Riverboat per week. Being on shore with the dogs was so great that I made a few appearances late in 2013.

Fast forward to March 2017 when I was fresh off of 2 months in the heat and sunshine of Mexico. I’d returned to Alaska earlier than necessary in the hopes of catching a few weeks of winter. At the GCI Open North American Championship Sled Dog Race I ran into Laura Allaway, an Iditarod musher and fellow dog handler at Trailbreaker.
She mentioned her winter tour business had been shorthanded; I mentioned I was back in town with a whole lot of not much to do until summer. It’s not hard to put the pieces together from there. She told me she couldn’t offer me much money for helping out but that there was an open cabin next to the dog yard.

I was SOLD.

Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but it looks as though it’s thanks to Jeff that I’m a dog handler for Golden Heart Dog Tours out of Trailbreaker Kennel. God probably had a slight hand in it, too. 😉

Being a sled dog handler in winter had been an idea since coming to Alaska, but needing income to pay off student loans had put it on hold. Now that I’m free, the dream is real! As of this past week, I finally had the chance to hop on a sled pulled by my own little team! From my childhood with Pixie to present times, puppies have always been the best.