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The magazine of dog-powered adventure

Sept/Oct 2013#154 $4.95 U.S.

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26 sept/oct 2013

Media Review

Lone WolvesBy John SmelcerReview by Suzanne Steinert

We soon discover the driver of the

sled, and Lone Wolves’ unlikely

heroine, is 16-year-old Deneena

Yazzie, a tomboy also known as “Denny.” She

lives in a remote native village in Alaska’s

interior wilderness and, like the book’s

author, John Smelcer, is a member of the

Ahtna tribe. And she loves mushing dogs.

Released October 15th by Leapfrog Press,

Lone Wolves is by no means Smelcer’s

coming-out party. Having penned over forty

books, Smelcer years ago established himself

as a rockstar of Alaskan literature (his middle

name is Elvis). But with this inspiring

young adult novel, which took fi rst place in

LeapFrog’s 2012 Fiction Contest, he promises

to further solidify his status as “Alaska’s

modern day Jack London.”

Of course, every plot has a confl ict and

every hero a worthy adversary, and not long

after meeting Denny on the trail, we quickly

learn who and what she is up against. Though

the story is a work of fi ction, through Denny’s

vantage point & Smelcer’s sobering prose,

the novel offers a blunt look at the very real

struggles many children (and their parents)

living in Alaska’s native villages face. At

school, Denny enounters drug & alcohol

abuse on a daily basis, when kids gather

outside during breaks to smoke pot and drink

booze. “An excellent student with excellent

marks,” Denny, of course, doesn’t partake,

but is made fun of for not going with the grain

-- including by a classmate named Mary

Paniaq, who was raped by her cousin and is

now pregnant. In remote villages, men often

rape their own relatives; according to a recent

Alaska Dispatch article, one out of every

three Alaska Native women will be raped

in their lifetime. Also, right after meeting

Denny, we learn that her cousin Maggie

committed suicide after fi nding that her

inadequate village education would not allow

her to fulfi ll her dreams of being a nurse and

succeed in the outside world. Here, Smelcer

provides another startlingly true statistic,

that the rate of suicide among young people

in native villages in Alaska is a dozen times

higher than the rest of America. As for

Denny’s homelife, her father is never around,

and her mother, who doesn’t understand her

tomboy-ish ways, just wishes she’d “be more

like the other girls.” She also faces bullying

and prejudice for being a “girl musher” and a

“half-breed,” not 100% native or 100% white

(hence her blue eyes).

The only person who understands Denny

is her grandfather, Sampson, who keeps her

grounded and encourages her to stick to her

guns, be brave, and chase after her dreams.

Quizzing her on the Ahtna translations for

everyday words like beaver (tsa’), coffee

(guuxi), and sled (xat), he also encourages

her to carry on their culture’s customs and

traditions -- and teaches her how to mush.

My favorite moments in the novel take place

when they are out in the woods together

running dogs and sitting around the campfi re.

In these moments, Sampson tells stories and

teaches Denny deep lessons about life that

readers will want to dog-ear (pun intended)

for their own memory.

Such passages also showcase Smelcer’s

stylistic mastery of metaphor and simile (he

moonlights as the poetry editor for Rosebud

magazine), devices he fl awlessly employs

throughout the book that evoke the Alaskan

landscape and provide much of the novel’s

richest detail. Motivating Denny to continue

mushing and not give into peer pressure at

school, Sampson explains, “What they do,

what you do - it’s not a matter of legal or not

legal; not even a matter of right or wrong. It’s

about being true to yourself, about deciding

your own path. People are like rivers, and

the hours of our days fl ow to the sea. But no

two rivers are the same, and no river is today

what it was last month or last year. It’s always

trying to fi nd new channels, shifting in its

gravel bed, hurling itself against boulders

and trying to undercut steep banks. Some

people are content to follow the course set

“In a wide valley -- far away from bustling boulevards and traffi c jams, street lights and parking meters, far away from sidewalks and crosswalks, from shopping malls and fast food chains -- a frozen river winds through snow-covered foothills… And on the frozen river, eight dogs pull a wooden sled over the rattling ice.”

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mushing magazine 27

before them. Life easy that way. Others, like

you, jump their banks, daring to be different.

Like rivers, people end up at the same place,

but how we get there is what makes us who

we are.”

When her grandfather suddenly dies of

a heart attack on the trail on their way back

from her fi rst race, Denny’s mother threatens

to sell off the sled he handmade, plus all of

their dogs, in order to pay the bills. So Denny

resolves to enter the Iditarod, the only chance

she has to make enough money to keep the

dogs, her dreams, and her grandfather’s spirit

alive. While spending nights out on the trail

training, she befriends a lone black wolf with

a grayish white ear, whom she names Tazlina

(meaning swift). “Taz” also has blue eyes, and,

just like Denny, doesn’t fi t in with his “pack.”

Feeding him scraps of smoked salmon, she is

able to get Taz to trust her, and the two form

an alliance. She’s also in need of a strong lead

dog for the race, her mother having sold hers

after her grandfather’s death. Despite being

fully aware of the wolf’s wild, dangerous side,

as a teacher in a nearby village was attacked

and killed by a wolf pack at the beginning of

the book (Smelcer himself survived a wolf

attack in Denali years ago), she focuses her

efforts in the weeks before the race on taming

Taz, by fi rst letting him run and eat alongside

her team, then teaching him “gee” and “haw,”

and eventually, hooking him up to the sled.

Of course, the whole blue-eyed wolf

element is mushing romanticism at it’s fi nest.

But for those who might criticise Smelcer for

stretching veracity for the sake of storytelling,

the author encourages you to learn more

about “Romeo,” a 150 pound wild, black wolf

who lived near the Mendenhall Glacier in

Juneau for years, “playing” with other dogs,

and sometimes even allowing their owners to

touch him.

The author certainly does take a couple

of liberties, however, in the logistical

department. In racing today, there’s no way a

16-year-old with only one qualifi er under her

belt would’ve been eligible to compete with

professional adults in the Iditarod. Most likely

she would compete in the Junior Iditarod, a

160-mile race begun in 1977 to accomodate

mushers under age 18. But, as you’ll see,

in light of the race’s climatic outcome, that

wouldn’t have made for quite as exciting a

story. (And yes, we know it’s fi ction, but the

fact that Denny starts and ends the race with

just eight dogs is an unheard of feat!).

Regardless, Smelcer gets most of the

mushing details right, like his spot-on

description of what a slog it is to unhook dogs

after a long run, when hot coffee and a warm

cabin are waiting for you. As such, the book

offers an excellent peek into the sport and

the place where it originated. The glossary

of mushing terms in the back is helpful, too,

for rookies unfamiliar with the difference

between gang, tug, and snub lines. Smelcer,

one of the very last speakers of the Ahtna

language, also provides a mini dictionary of

Ahtna words and phrases -- where we happily

learn that “grizzly bear” in Ahtna translates

literally to “bear that smells like poop!”

Overall, Smelcer made a great choice in

employing mushing as Denny’s trampoline

to triumph over adversity. Few sports could

better convey the thematic confl ict of tradition

versus modernity, and Denny’s efforts to

fi nd herself while combating the “universal

hymns of misunderstanding” that plague

teens everywhere. Despite the gravitas of the

very serious issues she confronts (something

tells me Disney might not be making another

one of its cute “husky movies” out of Lone

Wolves anytime soon), Denny’s is an inspiring

and hopeful story. Smelcer explains in an

interview on his website, “I am the father

of two daughters, born almost a quarter

of a century apart. There’s not really a lot

of adventure novels depicting the courage,

determination, and inner strength in teenage

girls. I’ve also mushed dogs occasionally in

Talkeetna, Alaska. As someone who is part

of two cultures, it was only natural for me to

write this very autobiographical novel, which

I dedicate to my daughters.”

Perhaps the biggest lesson Denny learns

comes not from her grandfather, but from

“monotonous hours of self-refl ection”

spent out on the trail. “In the Great Race,

mushers don’t stop just because it gets dark

outside. Instead, they push on through

the darkness, guided by their headlamps,

barely illuminating the trail ahead, the dogs

dimly feeling the trail with their feet.” In

life, man is most often pitted not against his

environment, but himself. And being brave is

not about being unafraid, “but, unlike other

people, hanging on for one more minute.” •

"Suzanne Steinert is a freelance travel writer who earned her fi rst mushing stripes as lodge caretaker at Iditarod's Fingerlake checkpoint in 2010, helping exercise a very fat & non-competitive dog team. She spent this past winter working for Iditarod veteran Ken Anderson in Fox, Alaska."

who never knew the meaning of the word

quit.

As the miles slipped by I found it was not

necessary to watch the team as closely as I

had before. With the addition of this one dog

everything thing seemed to have changed. As

they worked away on the trail my mind was

left to wander, to truly miss my dear friend

and realize that in some mystical way we were

still sharing this life together, only in a much

different form.

Those quiet hours on the trail seeped into

my soul and my heart again was fi lled with

inspiration. The passion began to grow in my

work again and my creativity soon fl owed

like water. I found new inspiration in Ursa’s

life as I left the sorrow of her death behind.

Through my art I began to see her life did not

end but that the bond we felt for each other

was growing in other ways as I created her

essence on paper.

In the years that followed I spoke to many

people who had never met Ursa, had never

even seen her, and yet somehow she lived

within them as the light danced in their eyes

when they too spoke of a bond they once

shared with a dearly departed friend.

On those dark moonless nights in the dog

yard as my headlamp swung towards Ursa’s

old circle it would fall on Salmon’s face taking

my breath away once again. For a split second

Ursa was alive but in the next moment she

was gone. In this way Salmon remained a

constant reminder that life does move on in

wonderful ways, through many forms. That

no matter how much we love and miss those

who have gone before there will always be

another friend waiting in the wings to show

us the way out of shadow, out of grief and

out to the quiet trails where the stars shine

brightly, where the wildlife silently walks

through deep snow and the wind whispers

of days long passed and the quiet stillness of

nights on the trail yet to come. •

Off The Trail, continued from page 21

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