by John Huston

Larry is a dog. He is not little. Larry is 90 plus pounds of muscle and fur. These days he is skijoring with Hugh, but I spent two weeks with him earlier in the trip.

He is a pulling machine who loves to pull so much that he barks and hammers his harness when he’s stopped. He and his brother Axel are our workhorses and pull the heaviest loads in the back of our caravan. Larry has so much fur around his neck that sometimes it’s hard to find his collar. He also has a huge head, a huge mouth, one of the biggest mouths ever seen on a dog, and an equally large tongue. So he takes that fur, he takes his big old head, and it all combines to kind of give him a lion-esque regal presence. So he is often sitting there lying in ways that make him look like a very comfortable and contented lion who is never ever cold.

Every day these days, he seems to reveal more of his playful personality. Sometimes he paws at the legs of his skijor companion or other times he’ll roll over on his back and scratch his back on our ski tips. It’s these sort of hardworking and endearing qualities that have caused a lot of people to fall in love with sled dogs as we have done so with ours. They’re a huge part of trip and we really, really love working with them. So, good job, Larry; you’re a good boy.

We’re on Nansen Sound right now. We just finished another dinner, which never ever has trouble going down. Kyle’s appetite is increasing; he’s now munching on one of our 630 calorie fudge bars as a dessert. Toby’s brushing his teeth and Hugh is cleaning his glasses with his underwear. Good job, Hugh. We don’t have a lot of things to clean glasses with around here.

OK, thanks for listening. Things are going really smoothly. No wind right now, and we’re headed to Land’s Lokk and we’re going to tell you more about that pretty soon.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/5/13, Day 36
Location: 80°53'N, 89°28'W
Traveled: 7.25 hours, 12.8 miles
Temperatures: 2°F am, 2°F pm

LITTLE LARRY