Polly Mahoney is a registered Master Maine Guide and the co-founder – with partner Kevin Slater – of Mahoosuc Guide Service, based in Newry, Maine. Since 1990, the pair has been leading dogsledding and canoe trips in some of the wilder areas of Maine, other parts of New England, and into Canada, including trips in collaboration with Native communities. They currently have 27 Yukon huskies, and two lifetimes worth of knowledge about moving through and living within remote areas.
I grew up in South China, Maine. My family is outdoorsy – my dad was a Boy Scout leader, and my mom’s whole side of the family was outdoorsy, skiing and sailing. She also was a horsewoman, so I grew up riding horses. I got into horseback riding in a serious way. I used to ride in pony club and do eventing, so you’re jumping and riding on trails through the woods a lot. That was my main outdoors experience growing up.
When I was 18, I headed out west and worked at horse ranches in the summers and I was a ski bum working at ski areas in the winters. When I was 20, I headed north to Alaska, and I worked for the Park Service in Skagway. I met my ex-husband in northern British Columbia, just over the mountains, and he had sled dogs, so I got into dogsledding through him. We lived in the bush, and that’s how I learned a lot of my bush skills. We were also involved in making a couple of movies with our dogs – Never Cry Wolf was one of them. We were living what I’d call a semi-subsistence lifestyle. We hunted for our meat – moose, caribou, or sheep. We didn’t have running water or electricity. We used our dogs for hauling firewood and water and transportation to get out to the road.
Part of what made me love being up north and attracted me to going there was the wildness and the remoteness. But the isolation was actually kind of getting to me after all of those years, and I realized I wanted to be around more people and more things going on. I had this dream of having a guide service and taking people out into the bush or into the woods. We were too remote. People couldn’t find us.
I had a childhood friend who worked for the Outward Bound school here in Newry, and I used to write letters to her all the time when I was up in Alaska. I just thought it was really cool what she was doing with Outward Bound. I had a dream of working with my sled dogs with the Outward Bound school. She even told me about Kevin Slater, my partner now, when I was up in the Yukon.
I thought I could work as an instructor for Outward Bound with my sled dogs. I went to Minnesota, and I was planning to spend the winter. And once again, someone was telling me about Kevin Slater, and he was starting a dogsledding program here in Maine. I thought, well, I haven’t lived in Maine for 13 years, I guess I’ll come back and spend the winter here. He was offering more work and more money than in Minnesota. He also had a dream of starting his own guide service. So, we worked together at Outward Bound for about six months, and then we started Mahoosuc Guide Service. That was 30 years ago.
It came together pretty easily, because we had a common goal. He had been collecting used gear. He had a lot of gear and a lot of experience with canoeing and climbing. And I had experience with dogsledding and canoeing, because I’d done a lot of canoe trips up north when I lived up there. I had my own dogs, and he had just acquired some dogs. When we met we had 12 dogs all together. When you start breeding, the numbers go right up. For many years we would keep 40 to 45 dogs. Now we only have 27 dogs, which is not that many. Six of those dogs are retired. So we have basically four 5-dog teams. That’s not a big team, but it’s enough. Depending on what the trail conditions are, it could be made into three bigger teams. For this winter, it’s perfect, because with Covid, it means we don’t have to mix people from different households on our trips.
It’s a lot of hard work what we do, a lot of physical work. We’ve been noticing changes over the years that make it more challenging for guiding. We’re so affected by the weather and climate change. Our winters are getting shorter all the time. The weather is more in extremes. We’ve been getting a lot of thaws in the winter, so you’re getting slush on the lake. It seems like the temperature is always right on the edge of whether it’s going to rain or snow.
I am an animal lover, always have been. First it was a cat and then horses and now dogs. I’ve been dogsledding for 41 years now. That’s a long time. It just was perfect for living in the north. It’s a great way to travel through the bush, a very natural way, and the winters there are long. Now I use dogs to make a living, so it’s a different way.
People always ask if I like canoe guiding or dogsled guiding better. I don’t know if I could say that I like one better than the other. I really like working with my dogs and the dynamics between the dogs. But it is more work, because it’s winter, and you have all the dogs’ personalities, plus all the people. Summer guiding is a little less stressful, I guess, because you don’t have those dynamics. I really like meeting new people and working with them.
I like seeing what happens with people. When they have an amazing experience, sometimes it’s almost like having a spiritual experience of being out in the bush. Those “Aha!” moments when it’s quiet and seeing the sunrise or sunset or really connecting with the dogs or seeing wildlife – that’s always very special. Seeing a moose or hearing the loons, all the wildlife connections that people have. Also, people get really nervous learning something new. So to see how they become more comfortable with whatever skill they’re learning, and also within the group, I love seeing that happening.
I started working with Native people when I was in British Columbia working in big game trophy hunting camps. I really enjoyed their style. It’s much different than non-native, but they get as much game as anyone else. Being quiet on the land and really close with the land. It’s just a different time clock.
Kevin and I started working with Cree Indians up in Northern Quebec. We took some photographers up when they were fighting the hydro project up in James Bay. In the end, they never used the article, but it was our in with the Cree, because we were there supporting them. Just to show up in the village and want to hang out with the Cree people wasn’t easy. It was a three-day drive to get there. We’d drive up and our clients would fly in and we would mush them to Kuujjuarapik. Then new clients would fly in, and we’d mush them back.
In 1994, the British Antarctic Survey decided they wanted all the dogs to be removed from Antarctica. Kevin had the idea to bring the dogs back to the Inuit people. The project became known as “Home for the Huskies,” and the dogs came to Newry. We drove them up to James Bay, then mushed them 500 miles up the coast of Hudson Bay to the village of Inukpuk and gifted them back to the Inuit.
Now we’re working with the Penobscot here in Maine. We have the Way of the Wabanaki canoe trips, and we’ve been working with them to help them establish their cultural tours. We really enjoy doing those cultural trips and bringing people to the Penobscot. We have different Penobscot people come and teach their crafts – like flint napping and the history of it in the state of Maine. Jennifer Neptune teaches how to pound ash and make a basket. She takes us on a nature walk and does plant ID and medicinal uses. They always bring a birch bark canoe and talk about how it’s made and maintained, and then we all get a chance to paddle one. We have fire talks, where people can ask any questions they want to ask. Jason Pardilla and Ryan Kelly are both pretty good paddlers, and they teach paddling strokes. Jennifer always does a blessing, and we offer a blessing in the water before we go. People really like learning all of this.
Even though we’re here in Maine, it’s definitely a different culture. It’s kind of my style, too. Being quiet on the land. Working with the land instead of against it. And being observant and patient. You have to wait until the time is right, and a lot of people want to set a schedule. For most of our trips, Kevin and I do set a schedule, and we stay on it. But I always tell people before they do a cultural trip with us that things aren’t going to always happen right on schedule, but they’ll happen when they should. If you can accept Indian Time, things will just flow.
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