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We all seem to have survived the Y2K Menace reasonably intact. I know my dogs weren't bothered in the least by it. My biggest Y2K glitch will be continuing to write 1999 on my checks for at least ten years. Right now we're all worrying a lot more about the cold snap than about whether somebody's toaster doesn't work. We've settled into a classic winter pattern, with a ridge of cold air extending all the way from Siberia to the Yukon Territory. It's blocking all of the warm air storms and keeping them to the south, where they will roll across the Gulf of Alaska and slam into the Pacific Northwest.

The coldest air is just north of the Alaska Range, with readings into the minus-50s from Kaltag to Eagle. Tanacross, up near Tok, had 61 below F (-52 C) this morning. Fairbanks even had to cancel its New Year's Eve fireworks display because it was minus 51 F (-46 C). This deep freeze will get a few degrees colder every night until it finally pushes out to the east. If it hangs around for another week, some places in the Interior could easily see 60 or even 70 below. By then we could be seeing minus-50s, and some of the traditional cold spots in our area already have been that low in the past few days. In fact, I had -42 F (-41 C) here Thursday morning, and several places down toward Willow were below minus 50. Mushers on the Knik 200 this weekend will undoubtedly hit at least 40 below on the Yentna River, and very possibly 50 below.

I didn't run the Knik 200 because my dogs aren't ready. I finally got out and ran 12 dogs tonight, which was the first time they'd run in almost two weeks. It's just been to wet or snowy or cold to hook them up. I don't like to run dogs for training when it's below minus 25 F (-32 C), and many other mushers use similar figures. The dogs would do okay, and certainly will on the Iditarod and other races when they see these temperatures, but I don't feel we get much positive training accomplished when it's this cold. Even today it was -25 when we left the lot with two teams of six for a one-hour run, and it was already down to 30 below when we got back. I'm more interested in making sure the dogs stay well hydrated and keep plenty of weight on when it's like this. It doesn't take much for a dog to get behind the power curve in severe cold, and I don't want to run the risk. Short runs will be plenty until it warms up a bit.

Yesterday I spent the day taking care of a lot of little things that have to be done to keep this place running in cold weather, like changing the oil in the diesel generator (once every two weeks), charging batteries (always need a couple spares ready to go), working on the snowmachine (starter problems), arranging for the fuel oil tank to be topped off, running up to the local truck stop for some more propane for the heater in Barrie's cabin, shoveling out a few more items that were buried last week, warming up the truck (it starts at 40 below, but just barely), and warming up the snowmachine (using a 50,000-btu Red Dragon propane airplane pre-heater), among other things.

Of course, taking care of the dogs is a constant affair as well--feed in the morning, clean up the yard, make food for the evening feeding, feed in the evening, make food for the next morning. And all of this doesn't include running them. I did take the snowmachine out in the evening for a run around the club trail to try to pack it down some more. Barrie and I made a drag out of a snowmachine track to help smooth the trails, but it doesn't do much good on the extremely hard and crusty snow we have now. That took a couple of hours and turned out to be a lot more work than I expected, and at 30 below as well.

Our biggest problem on the trails is moose. They've been stomping huge craters in even our best-groomed trails and it's impossible to fix them. I don't know why they're so intent on walking smack in the middle of our trails. They're even leaving blood on the snow where they're breaking through the packed crust and sinking up to two feet. It would be a lot easier for them to walk in the unpacked snow, which isn't that much deeper and doesn't have as bad a crust. Last year we didn't have much of a moose problem, but this year they're everywhere, and making nuisances of themselves. One ran right through John Barron's team on Thursday (nobody hurt) and Barrie got between a cow and her calf this afternoon on the club trail not a quarter-mile from the dog lot--luckily her leader kept going and avoided what could have been a nasty situation.

We have too many moose up here. In the old days, before humans settled in the area and started wiping out the predators, there weren't a lot of moose in the upper Susitna Valley. Now the state manages the population so there are plenty of moose for hunters every year, and mushers seem to be the ones who pay the price, along with motorists on the highways. In my humble opinion, the only good moose is one that is either in the next borough or in my freezer. I might have one solution, though. I've been seeing plenty of wolf tracks out behind my place--big ones--and I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to help them re-establish their place at the top of the food chain. It wouldn't bother me at all to see our local wolves and their coyote buddies dine regularly at Chez McMoose for the next month or two.

One other thing I did yesterday was keep the television on as I was wandering in and out of the cabin. The Anchorage PBS station was showing the millennium arrive in each time zone and I'd catch one now and then. I was particularly interested in the Middle East. First they showed the countdown in Bethlehem, which is where our concept of counting years began, of course. This is the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era, and we sometimes forget that many people in the world--a majority --have different cultures and religions and calendars and concepts of time. The use of the Christian calendar is only skin-deep in many places, more a matter of convenience than conviction. In fact, immediately after Bethlehem, the next stop was Egypt, in front of the pyramids at Giza. The announcer made a very good point, remarking that for Egypt this isn't the third millennium, but the seventh. I couldn't help but think the millennium didn't mean much to a lot of people around the world other than a great excuse for a big party.

Anyway, it's 2000 now and I guess the big letdown is that it's going to be an awfully long time until we can do this again. But wouldn't it be fun to imagine what it will be like on Millennium Eve, 2999? I personally take the "Star Trek" view of things--that the future will be a better place, albeit not without some bumps in the road along the way. If the exponential pace of progress continues until then, there's no telling where mankind will be--certainly among the stars, a la Captain Kirk and his successors. I can only wonder if they'll still be mushing dogs then--and on how many different planets.

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About to enter the Solomon Blowhole on the beach trail from Topkok to Safety. Winds ahead are more than 50 mph from the right. Nome is less than five hours away. (1999)

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