Pictured here are Auke, Alloa, and Atlas napping after a good play session. Hula's pups are all growing and developing well. Their personalities are all emerging. Axle is becoming the biggest social butterfly of the bunch, followed closely by Atlas. Alloa is the most cautious of the group so far. I always find it interesting to watch their early behaviors and see if they stay consistent, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.



Here are Acorn and Atlas hanging out with Jesse. Jesse and Peter have been spending alot of time with the pups this year which is great for both kids and canines.



Here are some of Hena's pups. While we had thought maybe these would be the "b" or "y" litter we eventually decided on a "V" litter. Pictured here are Vesta, Venus, and Viper. The other four are Vegas, Velvet, Vixen, and Vulcan. Vulcan is the Roman god of fire which we felt was a great name since Hena is the Hawaiian goddess of fire. They are all doing great. Vegas is emerging as the spitfire of the bunch - she is always moving and her tail never stops wagging.

Good Day all, People are always asking exactly what it is that we do during the "off season" from dogs- the short period when we can't be running them actively due to the heat of summer. Well, check out this article on cbc.ca to see some of what Warren has been up to. It is a good article, very timely due to world events and outrageous fuel costs. Enjoy! 

Well here they are folks... the new additions to NorthernStar Kennels!! On the top are Hena and her seven pups - five females and two males born on Friday June 13th - luckily we aren't superstitious. On the bottom are Hula's four females and two males born on June 7th. The energy of the kennel is decidely more feminine with these litters, a change I am supportive of! We have decided to name Hula's litter the "A" litter. So far the two males are named Ajax and Axle. The females are Amore, Acorn, Atlas and Alloa- from left to right in this picture they are Ajax, Acorn, Atlas, Alloa, Axle and Amore. We have a few more days until Hena's pups are coming out of the house on their own so we have yet to decide on their names, it will either be a "B" litter or a "Y" litter. Send us any name recommendations if you like - we prefer two syllables.

Apart from loving on the new puppies, we have begun the organizing phase of the summer. We spent the day in the garage today getting dog stuff cleaned up and sorted through. We are going to attempt to so as much stuff as we can for drop bags for the two races this summer- a few less things to worry about during fall training will be a good thing. 

The dogs are all enjoying their "down time" not doing much except free running. I am going to try and do weekly pics of the pups for your enjoyment.
Hope the sun is shining where you are! 
Cheers, Kate

Hello all, The temperatures are finally above zero and are expected to stay that way! We are all excited here for the arrival of Spring. This was one of the coldest years on record for the North with weeks of minus 40 celcius. Global warming doesn't seem to be a big factor here, not this year at least. The majority of the snow has already melted off just over the weekend. Because of our location above 60 degrees we are much closer to the sun so when it is out it it quite warm. You can come in for lunch and come back out in 1/2 hour and you can see how much the snow has melted. The dog yard is now a muddy mess that the dogs sure seem to enjoy but it makes our days a bit grosser. Hopefully the sun will be out today and the last of the snow will melt and run off and the ground will warm up enough to soak up the remaining water. The process usually takes about a week or so to have a nice dry dogyard. The lakes are still frozen and people are still snowmobiling on them, we even see ATVs on there now as well as a go-cart the other evening. I ran my last team last week. The conditions are so icy because of the melting off during the day and then freezing of the meltoff at night that it is quite slick and the kind of conditions where it would be easy to injure a dog, or a human. I was planning to run one more team last Tuesday and I had my dogs loose running around as I got the lines and toboggan ready to go and then Wham! the next thing I new I slipped, was in the air, and came down hard on my bum and then whacked my head...and then literally got dogpiled by my team as I was seeing stars. I took this as a sign that maybe running that day wasn't really in my plans. My head hurt for two days. Ah well, all is good now. I would rather that I got hurt than one of my dogs. I have started free running the dogs regularly now in our various free run pens and they have been having a blast. We find that free running them creates an even more cohesive team when they are working. They sure have fun and I love watching all their interactions. All for now as today is the day to put away all of our big winter clothes and find all the spring/summer clothes that we put away many months ago. I hope that it is a beautiful spring day in your world! Cheers, Kate

Hello everyone, My apologies for being gone for so long. I have been readapting to life here at home and finding time to sit down and write is much more of a challenge for me here than it is on the road. But I am publicly committing myself here to try and be more disciplined about writing to you all! So, you may ask yourself, why has it been difficult to stop and write. Well...the three boys and the 60 dogs will give you 63 reasons to start!! The other main 16 reasons are our puppies. Warren and I have been harness breaking last summers puppies this last week or so. We always harness break pups together. If any of you are familiar with the energy of Alaskan husky pups you can already understand why. They are CRAZY hyper at hookup and definitely take more patience than our adult dogs. Of course we both also want to see how they are in harness initially. We are happy to report that they are all doing well. Only one young girl was not quite sure what was going on and we decided that a big part of that was her desire to be with me back on the sled so on Sunday's run I did not go with Warren to run, all the boys did instead, and I am super happy to report that Iza, the pup in question, is doing well now. She even came back from yesterday's run as one of the pups in lead. When we train the pups, we always use experienced dependable leaders. The normal set up for leaders is to have two out in front. When we are puppy and leader training we attach another leader line or two so we can have up to four leaders up front, the two older leaders and the young pups. It is a much less intimidating space for a young pup to be in rather than being just one of two dogs up front. Warren reported that all the pups did quite well yesterday, the first day of throwing them up in lead, I did not run with him yesterday as I was giving a kennel tour. The kennel visitors were very excited to watch the puppy hook up,departure, and arrival, an added bonus to their visit. Well, that is it for this morning, one of my dayboarders, dog of course, has just arrived so I am off to start the doggie day! Cheers, Kate

Hello all, We have arrived back at home. We left Jacques and Magali's on Friday morning. It was great to get a visit with them albeit it was too brief, but we will take what we can get! After a brief stop in Fairbanks, we hit the road in earnest. The day was a gorgeous sunny blue sky day. The landscape was typically Alaskan, large snowcapped peaks overlooking valleys with cabins of every shape and size fabricated out of a little bit of everything. More often than not the cabins are rarely seen, only a mailbox out on the road showing that there is one somewhere near. There was not much traffic on the road. Our first destination was the town of Tok. We had planned to meet up with friends John, Mari, and Katie Woods to pick up any of Warren's belongings that had been brought back from the trail as they were going to Tok for a race this weekend. We arrived in Tok shortly before them and had time to drop the dogs. We had a quick bite to eat with them and we were off again. It has been really fun getting to know the Woods more through this trip, they are really good people and have great stories! We continued on until late in the evening, crossing the border uneventfully and making it a few hundred kilometers into Canada before retiring to our cozy camper. Warren was still feeling really sick so I dropped dogs alone in the full moonlight. The night was quite magical. Where we stopped had magestic large mountains behind us and the wind was softly blowing with only a few clouds in the night sky. The dogs were all in playful moods. The next morning was cooler, grey with a light snowfall and we were all anxious to get going. The road along Destruction Bay is infamous as the part of the Alcan highway that is the most bumpy and full of broken down vehicles. We happily had no vehicle trouble but did ride out many a bump. The scenery was dramatic, especially with the inclement weather. We spotted a few caribou here and there but no moose or mountain sheep as we had been warned about. I drove most of the day as Warren slept in the back seat. Lena was happily riding shotgun with me watching the miles go by out the window. She quite enjoys riding in the front of the truck. Her leg is healing well but she will be on limited movement for a few weeks yet. The thing we have to do is not let her jump on her leg and she is an infamous house jumper, on off on off on off etc, so this will be a bit of a challenge for her. She is resting comfortably in her kennel in the house as I write. The weather cleared as we got closer to Whitehorse and we were traveling well. We made it to the Liard Hot Springs around 8 pm and of course had to stop for a quick soak which was good for the body and the mind. After the soak we continued on for a bit before calling it a night. We found a good pullout and found it had also been discovered by a father and his two kids traveling with their three horses. They had set up a portable paddock for the horses along the side of their trailer which we thought was pretty cool. They in turn thought that traveling with our dogs was pretty cool too. In the morning they were kind enough to put the horses back into their trailer so we could drop the dogs at that spot rather than having to go and find a new spot. After dropping we hit the road again. Traveling with dogs is a series of the same steps done over and over- drive, stop, drop dogs, move things around in the trailer to get everyone out, finish, put it all away, get the dogs back in their spots, clean up everywhere around the trailer and get driving again. We develop a system for doing it all and don't have to talk much as we go through our steps. We loose drop the dogs most of the time which means we let them out of their boxes and let them move around freely as they do their business. We prefer this to the more traditional drop where the dogs are attached to the trailer. Obviously, there are times that for the safety of the dogs we have to do a traditional drop but whenever we can we will loose drop. It gives the dogs more opportunity to stretch their legs and play abit; it is more fun for us as well. We stopped at the Toad River Lodge for breakfast on our way out of the valley. The lodge is the center for a community of about 75 people and they are always welcoming to the weary traveler. Wildlife was still pretty scarce on the morning's drive but in the afternoon I was lucky enough to see two coyotes and later in the day when we were on the Liard Highway we saw two lynx, a notoriously shy creature. One stopped after we passed and stared at our setup, looking very intensely at us. I longed to stop and take photos of him but knew that if we slowed down he would be gone before I even had the lens cap off so it will remain a memory shot. For those of you who have not traveled the Liard Highway...it is a long mostly one way road with not much to see. It goes on and on and on...I think you get my drift...there wasn't much excitement to Sunday's drive. Warren was resting most of the way so I was alone with the wandering mind of a driver wondering about how our thoughts go from one thing to the next in such a random fashion. Finally we hit Providence at about 9pm, It had been a long day already but we were now only 3 hours from home. Warren took over the driving from here and I was happy to hand over the reins. But as expected, the last few hours of the trip felt like days but we finally made it to Yellowknife just after midnight. We stopped at a large parking area near the local arena to drop the dogs one more time before getting home. By doing this we were able to leave the dogs in the trailer overnight as we knew we would need to get spots ready for them in the dog yard by moving around the dogs that were here. We had hoped to come in quietly and not awaken the neighborhood but the dogs had other ideas. They were needless to say very happy we were home and voiced their excitement. We were hoping that after the initial excitement they would settle down but two loose dogs later they were still going strong. After I got Hurricane and Hawkeye back in their spots I took the time for a quick hello to all those in the yard under the full moon and the dancing aurora borealis. As exhausted as I felt it was also exhilerating to be back in the dog yard with my buddies. They are incredibly hyper and I am looking forward to getting running with them in the days to come. Happily the weather here has warmed up. Bette and Sam were waiting up for us when we arrived so we had a quick visit with them before we all retired. Unfortunately they are both quite sick. The little guys were sound asleep when we arrived and amazingly slept through all the excitement. We had a great day with everyone yesterday as the kids were still on their spring holidays. Peter, Jesse and I as the only healthy ones in the lot here went sledding and enjoyed the beautiful day as the others rested and visited in the living room. The later part of the afternoon was spent playing card games. After an enjoyable dinner we dyed our easter eggs and all retired fairly early. The kids are now back in school, save Sam who is in bed sick still, and we are going to start getting back into the swing of things here. The dogs are loudly awaiting our arrival outside as I write so I am going to go and heed their call. Have a beautiful day everyone! Kate

Good day all,
We have begun the travels home with a slightly indirect trip further north in Alaska. We are now about 35 miles south of Fairbanks visiting with our great friends Jacques and Magali Philip while we await the return of some of Warren's stuff from the trail. They have a great place that they built with a large dog yard and all kinds of pens out in the front yard and lots of happy dogs. They cleared all the land themselves and have built a really great spot here in the woods. It is quite inspiratioal and so much is what we want to eventually  if we could just find the right spot. We will be leaving here tomorrow am to go to Tok to meet up with John and Mari Wood who are kind enough to retrieve our stuff from Mark Nordman and bring it to us in Tok where they will be racing their dogs this weekend. From there we start the real journey home. Warren is really sick so it is good we have a few days of waiting so he can rest. He has spent the better part of the last few days sleeping and I am hoping he will feel better today. I am fighting off the cold at the moment but I feel it in the wings but it is not an option for us both to be sick. Reports from home are that everyone is sick there too. I guess it is just that time of year.
The dogs are recuperating well and are beginning to return to their normal obnoxious selves. Everyone is eating well and feet are looking good. Lena is doing great. She sure isn't acting like she has had major surgery and has a plate and ten screws in her leg - she just wants to get going and get out of the crate. She will be riding home in the back seat of the truck which she thinks is just cool! She still has on her cone which she is finally recognizing is there and not running into quite as many things.
ALl for now as it is time to do my dog chores.
Cheers,
Kate

Good evening all,
To say that the last 36 hours have been full and busy would be a grand understatement. In fact much of the last week feels like a big blur as the activity has been nonstop. Warren was pretty wiped out when he got to Nome but in great spirits. He was incredibly impressed with the dogs. Initial standouts were Cash, Guiness, Dobie, Goblin and Caper but I have only heard a very minor part of the stories from the trail as yet. It is good we have a long drive back home! He already knows some of the ways he will be changing his race plan for next year, but I will allow him to elaborate on the details after he returns from Nome and has had some sleep. He did stick pretty closely to his race plan this year. The slow trails changed dynamics a bit. I believe he will be changing some of the long runs that her did this year into smaller sections. There is for each musher on the trail, a stategy, their "race plan" that they try to adhere to, some more than others. One often hears of mushers "running their own race"- this means they are following their own race plan and not changing their plans because other mushers may be doing something else. The race plan is a huge part of each mushers pre race planning and countless hours and energy  are invested in it. The dogs all looked good coming in and are all eating and resting well now. I flew back with them yesterday - pretty much an all day affair. We got down to the dog lot just after 9am and had just enough time to water the dogs, put all the fronts on the crates and load them up at 1030am for the trip to the airport. We then had a quick meal with friends Rick and Sandy Larsen before I had to run out to the airport to pay for the dogs an my transport back to Anchorage. Rick had finished with his team just a few hours before so we were glad to see him and hear some of his stories from the trail. I met back up with Warren at our host family after the airport trip and he drove me out to the airport again and the dogs and I were off around 130pm. The plane flew northeast to Kotzebue(sp?) first where we had an unsuccessful first landing  due to low fog but after a second pass we were able to land and pick up  a very full load of people and head offf to Anchorage. I sat with Paul Gebhart's handlers on the plane so we shared a good visit and handler stories. I got over to the cargo area around 5pm and met up with Karen who was more than happy to hand over the keys to our rather large truck and trailer combo to me. Great job on getting the rig down from Willow Karen! The dogs arrived much more quickly than the last time which was nice. We spent the next hour or so  getting the dogs settled back on the truck - they were very happy to be back at home. Karen did a great job breaking down all the dog crates while I fed and watered all the dogs. After a longer dinner than expected in Anchorage we headed back to Willow to arrive around 10pm where we briefly visited with Mari and Katie, and Lena who is doing really well. Then we fed all the dogs and realized how tired we were. I think I am experiencing the reality that Iditarod 2008 is over and all the stress, excitement, anxiousness involved with the race has subsided and now the fatigue will settle in. Alas, in dog mushing, there is no rest for the weary! But for this evening, that is all for this story as the morning will be here soon and for us it will be an early one as Karen is leaving from Anchorage early in the morning.
Take care,
Kate

Warren arrived late last night/early this morning. While there weren't huge numbers of people to welcome him in, we were probably one of the most excited group of people, you can hear us all cheering him on in the insiders short video of his arrival. Thanks to Marilyn, Kay, Diana and friends for your support! The run in was a long one for him. He had run a very long run from Shaktoolik to White Mountain and it took abit out of the dogs. Even after the 8 hour rest at White Mountain they were moving slower than he would have liked. I don't think that same long run from Shaktoolik to White Mountain will be in the schedule again for next year. Warren pedaled and pushed the entire route so he was really wiped out when he arrived and is feeling the effects of the race in his muscles today. The dogs looked good coming in. A few have lost  some weight as is to be expected but all are sound, a few minor feet issues which I am already working on. By first reports from Warren, Cash, Guiness and Dobie were some of the superstars. Little Goblin too though he was dropped in Ophir with a sore wrist was a great asset and as a 2 year old we are excited to watch his career. He came into Nome yesterday morning so he has been enjoying some major TLC time. He is one of my favorites.
All for now as I just heard the siren - which they seem to be sounding today again- very confusing and I know that it is sounding for our friend Scott Smith so I am going to go walk down to the burled arch to welcome him. Warren is snoring loudly so I am going to leave him here to sleep.
More later.
Kate

There is a great shot of Warren and the team - with Cash and Edenei in lead - coming up a hill outside of Unalakleet. It is on the Iditarod site March 10th pictures image 14 of 25. There is another on same day -image 20 of 25- of Warren sound asleep on the floor in the community center. I ran into Mark Nordman, the race marshall, yesterday briefly and he said Warren is in good spirits from the reports he was given - and he has more pictures of Warren sleeping on the floor to give us - he didn't talk to him as he was sleeping. I am going to go now and help Lew repair his flat tire and then go out to the airport to pick up the remaining dog crates - seven of 12 had arrived yesterday - some of them quite damaged, I have to see what I can do to repair them today. Hopefully the last five will be in better shape. Enjoy the photos - the dogs look great!! Kate