Life in the 'husky chariot': Yaak woman discovers passion for dog sledding

At least a couple times per week throughout the winter, Linda Stehlik can be seen standing at the helm of a dog sled while the team’s silent feet pound the ground, and they, not so silently, pant in unison. Stehlik is sensitive to the movements of her dogs, gripping the handlebars, shifting weight at turns to prevent a crash, and forcing the brake into the snow at times to keep the sled from hitting the dogs.

The team travels about 15 mph, and vocal control is important, Stehlik says, because a 12-dog team can pull a four-wheeler on pavement with the brakes set. Stehlik’s team, which is half the size, usually takes eight- or 10-mile runs, but she has gone on 70-mile runs when she had more dogs.

Three decades as a musher has given her skier’s knees, but Stehlik is still at it. Spending an afternoon with her and her sled dogs – now pared down to five huskies and an English setter – it’s clear that it’s not simply a hobby for Stehlik – it’s a lifestyle.

Siberian husky knick-knacks and framed photos of her dogs are scattered throughout her house. She pages through multiple photo albums spanning the years and generations of huskies that she raised, trained and watched grow old.  She knows each dog intimately … their individual voices .. their personalities.

“This is Fleet’s brother, Wetzel, who was an incredible lead dog,” she says, pointing to a photo. “Fleet was not an incredible lead dog. He would lead if you really asked him to, but he never did it joyfully. But Wetzel, he was good at making turns when you called for them.”

During the summer months, the dogs hike and camp with Stehlik and her husband, Richard, or they pull Stehlik in a custom-made “husky chariot.” This time of year, they pull a sled over trails around Yaak, where the Stehliks reside, or are transported to further backcountry trails via pickup.

“They’re not like a motor bike or a snowmobile,” Linda Stehlik said. “You don’t put them away for the season.”

When Stehlik acquired her first Siberian husky three decades ago to join her two other dogs, she had no idea that her life would change so drastically.

“It somehow escalated up to 18 Siberian huskies and 31 years of dog sledding,” Stehlik said.

That first husky puppy had Stehlik, an animal lover to the core, frustrated enough that she considered finding the dog a new home.

“At the end of three to five months, I was so disgusted with her because all she wanted to do was run,” Stehlik recalled. “But then I read up about the breed a little more – they’re an active dog and they are smart.”

Stehlik knew that God had endowed her with a gift for working with animals, but she took it to another level when she bought her first dog sled.

“My first dog team was a Great Dane, a half doberman, and a Siberian husky,” she said. “I tried to stay out of sight because it was such an odd team. But with that three-dog team I ran all around this valley. They helped me learn how to dog sled and how to train them.”

Some information came from books, but Stehlik also relied on her intuition.

“You train with patience and kindness,” Stehlik said, “very much the same way you would a kid.”

Her husband, Richard, has taken it all in stride.

“He had already been through quite a bit with horses and cats and dogs,” Linda said. “We had been married a fair length of time – probably over 10 years – before I got my first sled dogs, so he pretty much knew what he had gotten into with the animal person.”

Stehlik sets up in a classroom all the tools and equipment she uses as a sled dog musher. After students have a chance to look over the objects, she asks, “What do you think that I use the most?”

Students point to the dog collars, the sled or dog harnesses.

“No,” she always says, “it’s that bucket and that shovel because dogs have to go potty where their area is and you can’t leave them in their area filthy.”

Stehlik is as disciplined as her dogs. Every time she passes their pen – at least twice a day – she scoops up the fresh manure. She packs water to them from the house, mixing it with their food in the winter so they hydrate before the water freezes. They have fresh straw in their individual winter doghouses, made from plastic 50-gallon barrels that sit on a wooden frame above the snow.

When Stehlik’s two sons began school in Yaak, she needed a full-time hobby. Because she wasn’t interested in sewing in the women’s craft club, she took up dog sledding with vigor. She bred her first husky, Mukuluk, which had a six-puppy litter.

“It’s a little bit addictive in the sense that you have dogs that you just love dearly. You keep them and keep them and pretty soon someone gives you another one,” Stehlik said, explaining how her team grew.

At any given time throughout the years, Stehlik usually had 12 to 14 huskies, but there was a two-year overlap where she had 18 dogs. She had retired an older group, which was of the same litter, and was training a young, new group. 

“When you keep an entire litter,” Stehlik said. “you have a bad year because you lose five or six dogs at the same time (of old age).”

Stehlik’s dogs have come in handy on a few occasions, like when her team packed out a friend’s bull elk in the deep snow from behind a gate in the winter of 1996, or when the Stehliks spent a year in the mid-1980s at a remote ranch in the Idaho backcountry. The dogs transported camping supplies over a 7,000-foot pass during the winter months when it was impassable by common means.

“The dog sled was a major part of the transportation during our trips to town, which were not very often,” Richard recalled.

Richard and the boys cross country skied and Linda drove the team the 26 miles to a parked vehicle. By that time, it would be evening and they would have to camp a night before driving to town.

Three of Linda Stehlik’s current huskies – litter mates Dot, Mercedes and Mercury – are 10 years old. In good health the dogs live to be 14-15 years old, she says, so they probably have a few years of dog sledding left. When they are no longer anxious to harness up and go on runs, Stehlik will know it’s time to retire the bunch.

Stehlik currently has the least amount of dogs she has had since she began dog sledding.

“I have five Siberian huskies now and I really notice the difference in whether I’m taking out two five-gallon buckets of water everyday or just one 10-quart pail,” she said.

Like her dogs, Stehlik is getting older, but is still eager to hit the trail. She’s not sure that she will be ready to retire after Dot, Mercedes and Mercury do.

“I might consider taking more dogs,” she said.