We are safe and warm inside our Canadian hotel room, listening to Il Divo perform on my husband's i-phone.  We came to the Quebec Provence on the wings of free-mileage wrought tickets on Continental and hotel rates on Fairmont properties that cost no more than a stay at a Holiday Inn Express.  We began our Canadian experience at Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and then moved on to Le Manoir Richelieu in the Charlevoix region, just two hours upward along the St. Lawrence River.  We'd been dreaming of this trip for two years, since the first time we were here in December of 2007.  There's no better place to get in the Christmas spirit if you are snow-deprived visitors from Central Texas.
    Upon arrival, we registered at the Le Manoir Richelieu desk and immediately set about making arrangements for a sleigh ride we'd dreamily thought about for two years.  After much interaction between the Fairmont front desk and ourselves, we were told that reservations had been made for a sleigh ride just thirty minutes from here in the Saint-Hilarion area.
    We'd heard that the temperatures would be below zero Fahrenheit and that fresh snowfall was a near certainty.  We dressed in three layers, four counting our coats, shoved toe and hand-warmers into our boots and gloves and headed toward our destination.  Arriving at a log cabin (without running water) we find that there are no sleighs in sight.  Only dogs.  Acres of dogs kept in large wiry pens on stilts, underneath of which are chicken feathers and blood.   We tell a dog-handler that we are there for a sleigh ride.  "Oui'," he says, smiling, "We are taking you on a big, big sleigh ride.  We all go together.  Excuse me, my English is not so good."
    "It's okay," we say, "Neither is our French."
    We are taken inside the cabin where we are told we should put on extra clothing: waterproof ski pants, ski mittens and their scarfs as our apparel is inadequate.  Then we pay our fare and are led outside into the frozen winter wonderland of pine trees, hills and beau coup snow.  
    It is all too soon abundantly apparent that there is no Santa's sleigh coming to fetch us— that we are about to become dog mushers (my husband, anyway).  I am sized up visually  and immediately assigned to the lowly bed of the sleigh, while my spouse is sent to first-class dog-musher position.  He is motioned to stand behind me and to face the full brunt of the arctic-like wind.  We are given a thirty second lesson in dog-mushing and are off to the races, but not before a broken leash is replaced on the left hind dog.  
    Each sled has a team of six dogs, who on a good day,might actually get along well with one another.  Ours started fighting before we left.  One was ousted by the handler and replaced by a chummier husky.
    No sooner do we leave than the same leash breaks on the left hind dog.  Each dog wears a harness and is attached to the main center apparatus by a shoulder and hind leash.  The hind leash helps to steer the sled, keeping it in the tracks.  Our sled, due to the broken leash, keeps veering to the right, nearly wiping us into oblivion in the forests and streams.  We are off the track as much as we are on it.  The dogs are exchanging snaps, barks and sniffs.  One alpha Malamute sits upon and squashes his Husky teammate when he grows irritated at him.
    Today melts down into a fabulous, single snowflake memory.  Something we'll never forget.  A moment frozen in time that is exquisitely perfect and beautiful.  It has become a much better plan than we'd had in the beginning.  We had already been for a sleigh ride on the previous trip.  This was something way beyond that.
    We can only imagine what it must be like to compete in the Iditarod.  The grit and determination.  The solitude.  Preventing the dogs from fighting one another.  Keeping them and yourself fed and warm against the unfathomable cold.  All united in a common effort.  To reach the end alive, safe from grizzlies, and possibly arrive a winner.  In my view, if you arrive alive, you have won!