Winterdance Quotes

Winterdance
Have you ever had a bond with something so strong that it completely changed your outlook on life? Would you travel across frozen tundra, fall from cliff sides, be chased by dangerous animals, and be dragged over the icy ground of the Last Frontier just so you could understand your animals better? In the autobiography, Winterdance by Gary Paulsen, it talks about the author’s encounters while running the famous Iditarod race in Alaska. This book goes in depth about the connection Paulsen had to form with his dogs through his ignorance as a beginning sled dog racer. The dogs themselves are the biggest symbol throughout the book. Paulsen was constantly learning their ways; how they thought, moved, acted. The bond between man and dog is truly understood and explained through this novel.

Paulsen was ignorant and unfocused during this run. This caused an almost catastrophic outcome which could’ve been life or death, for both him and his team. The group had almost been blown off the side of a cliff in a horrendous snowstorm. But with luck they managed to survive. “And there came a moment-lying on my stomach looking at the hook that I was holding in place with my hands in the faint glow from my dying headlamp-came a moment when I knew I couldn’t allow that. In some way we had gone past where that could be allowed, gone past where I could have lived with myself, gone into an area where it had become we, instead of I” (Paulsen 11). Paulsen had to go into survival mode fast. He would not abandon his dogs because he knew that if the roles were reversed his dogs would have protected him like they have countless times prior. His quick thinking made it possible for the team and himself to wait out the storm all