My Summer Job

Well, I have my wonderful husband, Andrew, to thank for this job!  He went to Black Diamond, a local resort in Healy, looking for a restaurant position and the owner said, "No, but do you like horses?"  He said my wife does!  So, here I am, driving teams of draft horses giving covered wagon rides!

Dan and Dick, Percherons, with the wagon named Wells Fargo

Ernie and Randy, American Belgians, with the wagon named Bouncy

The night of the five wagons (the fifth team, Dan and Dick, are at another hitching post...bullies).  Horses taking a break at the Pavilion. 

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Overall, the job is pretty cool.  Sometimes a bit stressful.  When a 2,000+ lb. animal doesn't want to do something, there's not a lot that can be done.  With that said, on a daily basis each horse team (team consists of two horses) and teamster (person who drives horses) goes on two tours.  The tours themselves are 5 miles round trip (heading west of town towards DNP..."into the wild") which takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours all together.  It takes about 45 minutes to get to the furthest destination, the Pavilion, where guests sit down in a dining area which has no electricity or running water (it has a generator for lights when it starts to get dark and there are porta-pottys out back).  After they eat, we return to Black Diamond which takes about 45 minutes as well.  We do take different routes there and back with the exception of a short road connecting the two routes.  The resort offers 4 wagon rides a day, a breakfast ride, a lunch ride, and two dinner rides.

It takes about 45 minutes before and after the rides to take care of the teams.  When I arrive, I go get a team from the pasture and walk them (at the same time) over to the wagon yard to get geared up.  It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to do that because the two areas are a good half mile or more apart.  Once at the hitching post in the wagon yard, we brush them and clean their hooves, then put their gear on them.  All of that can be challenging depending on the horse.  The resort owns 15 horses (9 American Belgians and 6 Percherons), 4 of them are new this year and aren't being trained yet, so we have five working teams plus an extra horse (because his partner passed away last year of natural causes).  Most of the horses are very sweet and docile, but four of them are a handful.  They are not as easy going, a little more jumpy, often bratty and stubborn.  The largest horse, Ike, weighs 2,700 lbs. but he is not the tallest.  The tallest horse, Randy, is 19 1/2 hands high (a hand is about four inches).  So, after the horses are geared up and hooked to the wagon, we wait until we see the bus, that has picked up all the guests from the canyon area outside the park, drive by to head towards the resort.  By the time we get there, the people are standing there, watching the grand entrance of the horses and wagon!  At the Pavilion, the horses get unhooked from the wagon, put on the hitching post, head gear is taken off, and they are given carrots and water.  When we return from a trip, we immediately take their gear off (clean it) and brush them, check their hooves for rocks, and give them oats.  Then walk them back to the pasture.

With at least half the horses I can't even see the top of their hips when I am brushing them.  They are HUGE!  When putting their gear on, it is all connected, so you have to carry everything out on your shoulder at once....ackward and heavy.  With three of the horses I have to use a step stool to set the hames (curved metal bars that tighten around the collar and used to hook to the wagon's yoke) around their collar.  When you put their head gear on they are supposed to put their head down (if not without asking then when asked or told) and some are better than others with that.  When they don't put their head down I am on my tippy toes barely getting the job done.  I've been stepped on a couple of times, but no damage done.

Answers to common questions people have...the horses do stay in Alaska all winter.  They winter in Delta Junction which is about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks.  Delta Junction is the only place in the interior of Alaska that can grow hay.  The horses grow several inches of thick hair during the winter to act as a natural blanket.  Right now, we give them (all 15) about 1200 lbs. of hay a day.  They do two tours a day for two or three days then have a day or two off.  There are two main pastures side by side and all teams but one stay together in the same pasture. The same teams always work together.  The only team that gets put in separate pastures, Dan and Dick, is because they are the dominant horses of the group and will gang up on other horses when together.  The horses don't seem to be bothered too much by moose (which is the most common wild animal we see...actually the only one so far).  It all depends on the situation.  There have not been any incidents while on the wagons (I have heard some horror stories though), but while walking them from one place to the other if they spot a moose, they might try to run away or charge it.  If one comes into the pasture (moose aren't very smart sometimes), they will chase it which normally breaks the one electric wire around the pasture.  Several times the horses have ended up on the golf course for different reasons.  That's never good.  One night after letting all the people off my wagon, the horse (Dan), that was perfectly calm, got spooked and in a split second broke a metal link on the chain connected to the wagon.  That noise really scared him and he was all over the place and not wanting to calm down.  It took three of us to get him unhooked from Dick and then our main teamster person had to walk him back to the wagon yard.  And about the wagons, the wagons have rubber tires (obviously), a hydraulic break, and shocks.  The break is for the down hill sections, so it doesn't push the horses down the hill.  The limit for wagons is 14 people.

Every day is an adventure!