charity friday, and dogs

My friend Alison asked me to promote her friend's fundraiser for this week's Charity Friday.  Here's what she has to say:
 "My friend Erin, who I went to law school with, is doing the Ride to Conquer Cancer June 15 and 16. It's a 2 day 200+km ride. Erin is riding on the team Allie's Allies. One of Erin's close childhood friends (Allie) passed away at 24 from a rare form of childhood cancer (neuroblastoma). Erin is riding with Allie's sister, Lucy and Lucy's fiance Paul. They also did the ride last year. It's a great cause and what's even more impressive is Erin will be doing this 6 months preggers. Here's the link to their fundraising page: http://www.conquercancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Vancouver2013?team_id=58970&pg=team&fr_id=1441 ."

You heard her, people! Donate to this good cause! The fight against cancer is particularly relevant to my family this week, as we just lost an auntie to cancer.

Also, in honour of the memory of Dr. Morgentaler, who passed away this week, consider donating to the Norma Scarborough Emergency Fund, which assists women with travel and accommodation expenses if they have to travel long distances to obtain access abortion services.  Women in Northern communities like Cambridge Bay, for example, have to travel out of the territory to get access to these services. Donate here.

Finally, because it's Friday, and sometimes I like to post random photos from the Arctic on Fridays, here are some photos of dogs that followed our truck around in Iqaluit. It was snowing hard, and we had just pulled up to the old Hudson Bay Company site in the Apex, when our truck was suddenly surrounded by sled dogs, a whole pack of them.  They were fighting each other viciously on the Apex beach, with many of the dogs wearing each other's blood on their furry faces. We were told not to leave the truck. It was quite the sight.  The most curious part of it all was this golden retriever that was hanging out among them, as though he thought he was a Canadian Eskimo dog himself.  Talk about a poser with an identity crisis.

 

Eventually, a by-law officer came along, because people had been calling in about the dogs running loose in the streets.  Unfortunately, the by-law officer looked scared himself. I don't blame him.  There's something off-putting about a snarl from a dog whose face is covered in another dog's blood.  Also, sometimes the Inuit hunters use dogs to hunt polar bears.  I'm a lot smaller than a polar bear, and so was the by-law officer.  Jack told us that the dogs fight in order to establish rank.  Whenever there a new dog appeared, the huskies would have to fight again to re-order their ranks. I wondered if the presence of the golden retriever was the cause of all the fighting.  I wondered how the golden retriever wasn't cold.

 There was some theories about whose dogs they were.  Rumour had it that Mike had been running the dogs on the ice with his skidoo to train them, but then they had run off.  Efforts were made to call Mike. Mike's wife didn't know where he was.

We thought it might be best to drive away, but then to my astonishment, the dogs started chasing us, following the truck, and then running ahead.  It was kind of like out of a Disney movie, except for the bloody face thing.