Four Quarters of Light by Brian Keenan Page A

together, almost as if they had accepted that I was here and that there was no need for any more uproar. Dan had drifted into dog mushing like everything else he had done, but now he enjoyed it to the exclusion of everything else. I wasn’t convinced by the exclusion of everything else bit and pointed knowingly to his expensive hi-fi equipment. ‘Maybe dogs and music are a way of dealing with this country,’ he said. There was almost a wink in his eye. ‘Mushing helps you get into the country. When you are behind a team of dogs you can go anywhere and there is nothing your team won’t do for you.’
    â€˜And the music?’ I said, pushing the question.
    â€˜Sometimes the weather gets wicked up here so you turn on some heavy rock or turn up some Beethoven and you can blow the whole friggin’ place away.’
    I sensed that maybe Dan was making up some sourdough story just to keep me amused, but the idea of a blizzard blowing outside and Beethoven, Bach or Led Zeppelin breaking decibels inside while Dan’s two dozen dogs howled their own accompaniment seemed to me absurdly honest.
    Whether Dan realized I was genuinely laughing at his story or whether he wanted to encourage the fantasy, he decided then to pour us some whiskey. I explained I didn’t drink spirits and he looked at me with mock surprise, said there wasn’t an Irishman alive who didn’t drink whiskey and proceeded to triple the amount of the stuff in my tumbler with the remark, ‘Nobody up here cares too much what you do or don’t do, and anyway, onceyou’ve drunk that you won’t impress me about saying you don’t drink spirits.’ I shrugged my shoulders in compliance. Part of me thought that Dan was just being macho again. He must have read my thoughts. ‘You’ll need something warm inside you if you are going out with the team,’ he said. ‘Coffee’s fine, but it doesn’t sustain you out there.’ There was something solicitous in the remark. Dan was after all as practical as his comfy cabin had presented itself to be.
    I suggested that he play one of his favourite classical CDs. He laughed. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘music is for listening to when everything else gets done and there’s nothing else to do but listen.’
    â€˜Okay, that seems fair,’ I said.
    Raising my overfull tumbler of whiskey, I dashed off as much of the three swallows I could without gagging and choking and suggested we make ready with the dog team. After all, that’s why I was there.
    What I wasn’t expecting was the amount of preparation one has to do before going out to hitch the team. Dan rummaged through the gear hanging up in the kitchen, pulled out an old box of more gear and threw clothes at me like a rag picker, saying, ‘Put that on, that should fit, if it doesn’t roll up the sleeves, it doesn’t matter if the gloves are too big,’ shouting orders at me while I just stood in obedient silence trying to fit on all these clothes.
    â€˜What’s all this for?’
    â€˜It gets very cold out there, very cold, and when you’re charging through the bush the cold doesn’t care too much for you so you need plenty of layers, plenty of thermals.’
    Soon Dan had me dressed in an outrageously sized pair of waterproof and windproof leggings, a top coat to match a huge pair of fur-lined gloves, a pair of his own special boots, a cap with fur muffs to cover my ears and another coat with a hood to tie around that again, a scarf to ensure my mouth and nose were covered, and finally a pair of sunglasses. I looked in his small kitchen mirror at my bulk and size and said, ‘How are the dogs going to pull all this weight?’
    Dan’s answer was quick. ‘A dozen of those dogs in front of you will pull faster than the same number of elephants. Remember, you ride on top of the snow, not through it, and you’ll have to learn to