My Teacher's Malamutes

As we moved farther north I was given a second dog. We lived at Good Hope Lake near Cassiar, in northern British Columbia. I attended a one room school there and our teacher was Mr. Robinson. He had two Malamutes that he had brought up from Vancouver. I always played with them at recess. The mother dog was more shy than her grown up pup, but they were friendly. When the school year ended he was going back to Vancouver, and gave me the younger dog. There was also a puppy picture of her that he had saved. She was small and sitting on a tanned hide to have her picture taken. This dog was a very nice dog all around.

The next place we moved to was Haines Junction in the Yukon Territory. A small town about a hundred miles from White Horse. From there you could take the Haines Highway down to Haines Alaska.
For a couple of winters we lived right on that road in a mobile home. We were the check point. There was a barricade set up and everyone wanting to go down that road had to check in first. Dad would call or radio ahead,to let them know that the vehicles were coming through. There was a record book where the model of car, license plate, number of people in the car, destination, etc. was written. This road went through areas where the blizzards were "white outs". The road was closed after a certain time at night. Sometimes the road was closed altogether. The people that traveled it and lived down there, called back when they got home. Those that were traveling on through, went through the check point at the end.
If you stayed on the Alaska Highway you would go on to Tok Alaska. At night sometimes we could hear the wolves howling not too far away. It is more eerie sounding than dogs or coyotes. I walked to school and it was about a mile from where we lived. If the temperature got near 50 below zero or lower Mom let me stay home.
My new dog Chena stayed outside and little King stayed inside. King died at Haines Junction. He was four or five when we got him and now he was old.
Another dog came and spent a lot of time at our place. He was from Bun's Cafe just up the road. Mom sometimes made pies at the cafe. It was a busy place and Bun's wife was always working. One of her sayings was "Bun tells me to run!"
Now back to the dog. He was a big white dog with a broad face. He was quiet, calm, and gentle.
One night these dogs went to the experimental farm on the Alaska Highway. The next day we got a call that these two dogs had been shot for killing chickens there. This was very sad.
For a while we had a pug mix dog. It went down by the road one day and got killed.
Dogs need a fenced area, or to be tied for their own protection. Dogs that are out on their own don't know the dangers of cars, guns, or being stolen. There is also some danger of wild predators, and even other dogs.

Dad found someone who had Chihuahua puppies and we had a dog again. Taffy was so tiny she could fit in the palm of my hand. She grew up to be a sourdough!