Some (maybe all) of you will have seen some of this post on Sheila’s FaceBook account already as it was so poignant I wanted to share it straight away. This version is edited a little as I’ve thought about it and am a little more rational and a little less emotional about it. It is nevertheless a true recollection of the stunning view and when I looked for a second I thought I saw that team on the river.

We took off from Whitehorse. I looked out of the window and there was the Yukon. It was so beautiful I had to photograph it. And it went on for several minutes.

We disappeared into cloud. Then we came through the clouds and there it was again. There was a great frozen river covered in snow cutting through the mountains. It was so mesmerising that I started to well up. Then I realised there was something else I hadn’t noticed before. On the river was a musher and a team of fourteen Siberian Huskies. The lead dog was a beautiful big red boy and there were two puppies in swing.

The big red dog was called Fya and the puppies were called Hektor and Paris and they were running towards a dream.

I think this was that guy you saw on the trail at Carmacks, McCabe and Braeburn but he was still younger and he was even more naive and filled with joy and expectations.

I wanted to shout out and tell him to keep going. Never give up. But I knew he wouldn’t, in the same way as I knew he wouldn’t give up in Dawson many years later with a different team but the same determination, the same steely grit and the same dream.

And then we climbed back into cloud and the mountains and the river and the musher and the dogs were gone. And then the tears started.

Keep chasing that dream Rob.