During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
Expedition Blog Feeding the Sled Dogs
Feeding the Sled Dogs
Sunday, 12 February 2012 22:25
Student Response Worksheet (Upper)
Student Response Worksheet (Lower)
This week's Notes from the Trail is all about taking care of sled dogs. In last week's Cast YOUR Vote, students helped us narrow down this topic. Based on your votes, we will focus on feeding the dogs.
Dave and I walked down to the dog kennel this morning. We opened the dog food shed and pulled out a 50 pound block of frozen chicken meat. We had to break the block into smaller pieces for the dogs to eat. We used a log splitter to do the job. The chicken broke apart easily. We filled buckets with cubes of chicken. Each cube of chicken weighs about two pounds.
The dogs were howling and barking while we were working. They knew what we were up to. They know the familiar sound of the food shed door opening. At first, one dog sounded the alarm. He barked as if he was telling the other dogs, “Chicken! Hey guys, they're cutting up chicken for us! I like chicken!” The other dogs began barking and howling. They were telling us that they wanted chicken too.
When the dogs at Wintergreen are working, they need to be fed two times a day. We give them water at the same time as the feeding. These dogs are serious athletes. They work in very cold weather too. They need a diet that is high in protein and fat.
A sled dog's diet is very different from yours. They don't need to eat fruits and vegetables like you. People are omnivores, but dogs are carnivores. That means dogs are meat eaters. We feed the sled dogs dry dog food and frozen chicken. The dog food looks similar to what you might feed your dog at home, but it has a more fat and protein in it. The sled dogs are more excited about the chicken. Each dog gets a two pound chunk of the frozen chicken. This meat contains plenty of protein. When the weather turns really cold, we will supplement their diet with lard. They need extra fat to stay warm in extreme cold.
All of the dogs in the Wintergreen kennel are Inuit dogs. Their nutritional needs are similar. They work really well on this high protein, high fat diet. We have some smaller dogs and some bigger dogs. The bigger dogs need more food. The smaller dogs need less food. We check the dogs often, to make sure each dog gets the right amount of food.
After we have given each dog their chunk of chicken, the kennel is silent. Every dog is happily chewing on their frozen food. Their water dishes have water in them. They are content for now, but we must feed them twice a day. Every person and dog here knows this routine. Tomorrow when we open the food shed again, we will hear the same excited barks.
Food for Thought
How is your diet different from a sled dog's?
What do you eat each day?
What are healthy foods? What are unhealthy foods?
What are the food groups?
To learn about the food groups, check out the Talking My Plate activity:
Use this link to find out how many calories you should eat each day:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/
Use this link to learn more about each of the food groups:
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
Use this link to learn more about feeding sled dogs:
http://www.mushwithpride.org/
Fennel's Field Notes
I had a lot of fun yesterday! Amy was guiding one person on a dogsled. She chose three of my friends to pull the sled. They were George, Ricki, and Millie. They are all friendly, young dogs. I ran along.
The weather was cold and windy. The other three dogs and I liked this. We like the cold weather because we have such thick fur coats. In warm weather, we get too hot. We actually run faster in colder weather, because we are comfortable.
I ran ahead of the dog team. I would stop to smell interesting things. There were wolf tracks on the trail. I could smell the wolves too. I also smelled a snowshoe hare. The snowshoe hare was very close to the trail. It ran away when it saw me. I chased the snowshoe hare, but I didn't catch it.
What a fun day! I hope the weather stays cold. I also wouldn't mind finding more snowshoe hares near the trail.