Describing the "indescribable."

February 20, 2006

If I say something is "indescribable," that’s what it means. It’s like being pregnant or dead – either you are or you aren’t, and if something is indescribable, it can’t be described. That doesn’t stop people from trying to describe things like the Grand Canyon and the Northern Lights and some of those descriptions are fantastic. And some of the photographs and videos you see really give you a very close approximation. Then you see the real thing and you say – "Oh – so that’s what that looks like."

I was around seventeen years old when I first stepped to the rim of the Grand Canyon and in seventeen years I had seen dozens of pictures in books and magazines and National Geographic and so forth. And I’d seen it on plenty of movies and documentaries and television shows. So as I stepped toward the rim of the Grand Canyon I was quite certain I knew precisely what I was about to see. And when I looked out over it I just sort of said to myself "Oh… " It was as if I’d never even been aware of it before that moment.

This morning around 6:30 Pacific time I was finally outside when the Northern Lights were in their full display. I’m forty four years old and I’ve seen every possible representation of the Northern Lights, even in an IMAX dome theater. And I’ve heard people rhapsodize about the way they look for my entire life so obviously they would come as no surprise when I finally did see them. In one sense, the Northern Lights and the Grand Canyon came as no surprise – the second I laid eyes on them I knew precisely what I was looking at. But still after all those years I didn’t know they would look like that.

My experience with watching an elite dog team head out of a checkpoint under full steam was similar. I haven’t had a lifetime of watching sled dog racing like I have of the Grand Canyon and the Northern Lights but I’m relatively familiar with the sport. I’ve spent a lot of years around a lot of dogs and I’ve seen some fast ones. But I stood there and waited for that team to start, stood there watching them twitch and hop and get ready to take off and then Lance Mackey gave whatever command makes those dogs go. I just had no idea that something that was that large and powered entirely by animals could move like that. He had twelve dogs left at that point, six pairs of two plus his sled, so I guess the whole thing was forty feet long, or in that neighborhood. As long as a semi. I was about fifty feet away so maybe there was a noise but I did not hear one thing – not a click or a jingle or a yip or a scrape – silence. And that forty foot long monster was standing still then it was gone – like that. I will never, ever forget that.

It’s been fun writing this and maybe you’ve enjoyed a sentence here or a paragraph there. But if you’ve never seen the Grand Canyon or the Northern Lights or a fast dog team, the only way you’re really going to know what it looks like is to see for yourself.

As for these two photos, nothing too exciting. Just as we were leaving Pelly, two more teams had arrived – Gerry Willomeitzer and David Dalton. And Sebastian Schnuelle was on his way in but we were on our way out. The picture with the fence in the background is Willomeitzer and Dalton’s dogs bedding down for a brief rest. See the snow shoes packed on the side of the sled? They’re part of the mandatory equipment that every musher has to have. The other picture is of Ivory and Nicky getting out of the car for a minute against the backdrop of a landscape that I can only describe as forbidding. Their water bowl is on the ground beside them but they’re ready to get back in the car.

Anyway, have a great day,

Jay, Ivory and Nicky