HOWLIN YUKON JANIS' FAMILY
I'm real proud of my beautiful family back in Maine!
as well as my new people in the Yukon!

Copyright © 2005 J. Jeffrey Bragg

Hello again! Here's Me, Janis, the only Chinook Sled Dog in the Yukon,
in the arms of my dear Food Lady, Isa Boucher, who feeds all us sleddogs at Seppala Kennels!

THIS IS GONNA BE my Chinook Family Page, and I hope I can collect some photos here of all my family, humans as well as us Chinooks. I want to have pictures of Master Jack and Missy Suzy, and Food Lady Isa and my Lifetime Boss, and my dear Momma and Poppa, my respected Grandparents, and ALL of us Power Howlers! That's gonna be quite a project, I think, 'cause I have to persuade the home folks back in Maine to take some of those pictures that I don't have yet. It may not be real easy, 'cause I gotta persuade my Maine Missy to arm herself with the Dreaded Dubbie Digi camera and confront all them Homebody Howlers! LOL! But I better get it started with what I already have now, 'cause Boss said the other page was getting too long. I'll start with another nice big tartan link to my home at Tullibardine Farm -- just click it, and you can see the beautiful farmstead, and find out EVERYTHING about my home folks!

My Dearest First People

 

At left: My dear, dearly beloved Missy Susan Murray, with old Comet. I never got to meet Comet 'cause he passed away a few months before I was born; but he's important to me 'cause he did just what I'm doin' only the other way: he came all the way from Talkeetna, Alaska, to Maine! At right: My dearest First Bossie, Master Jack Murray, just the way I like to remember him, jolly and reassuring and supportive! Here he is with ME all gawky and worried, just when we started out on my Long Journey to the Yukon!

My Momma and Poppa and my Grand-folks

   

At left: My dear, dear Daddy TULLIBARDINE POWER! I like this one because he's hauling hay for the horses here.
My Dad's a real Working Chinook Sled Dog!
At right: My Mom TULLIBARDINE RED SPARKLE when she was feeding us. Isn't she gorgeous? I love my Mom's beautiful smile. Missy says that's ME all alone at the milk bar, but I can hardly believe that I was ever that greedy.

   

At left: My dear old most respected Granddad NORTHDOWN OOTAH,
who is Number One I.S.A. Chinook and always will be!
At right: My dear Granddad HOWLIN HILLS FOX MAULE RAMSAY
but Missy calls him Ramsy-Damsy and in this picture he's pretending to be a Mud Husky, teehee.

   

At left: My Grandma PERRY GREENE NATANIS with the wolfy eyes!
At right: My other Grandma TULLIBARDINE MUSTANG in the snow.

Janis Joplin: My Namesake and Cultural Icon

Here she is, the one and only Janis Joplin. She had such a short, sad life, and so many folks were real hard on her. But she was like Wally, a pedal-to-the-metal kind of person who didn't care a hang what they all said! And what a voice, and what a style! There are some of her pictures where I can see I look a lot like her, too. I identify with her 'cause they treated her mean in school, like some of the dogs here treat me sometimes.

Missy Suzy named me HOWLIN YUKON JANIS 'cause I guess somehow she knew I would have to come to terms with The Blues and my life in the Yukon would not be very easy especially while I was young. And the truth is, I identify in all kinds of ways with Janis Joplin. They say she had a howling, "yowlish" singing style, and I really dig that 'cause that's how us Power Howlers sing. And she made a name for herself and changed the face of Rock music 'cause before Janis there were only just "chick singers" and she was really the first famous female Rock singer to be a solo star and front her own Rock group! And it's my ambition to make a name for MYSELF in the Yukon and to change the face of things by making people aware of us Chinook Sled Dogs. And when the sleddogs here give me the cold shoulder, or snarf at me (TONYA perforated my upper lip the other day when I was only just tryin' to be friendly with her!), or some of those crazy males want to EAT me 'cause they don't even think I'm a dog -- then I really understand what it means when I read something like "Janis Joplin's tortured soul gave her blues the authenticity of direct experience."

See, I've been reading up about Janis, 'cause she's my namesake and cultural icon! And even the people who write about her are hard on her, and some other Rock stars like Pete Townsend said horribly nasty, hurtful things about her. I'll put links to two articles here. The one from Texas where she was born is good. The other one's the Wikipedia article about her, and I think in this case their so-called "neutral point of view" amounts almost to hostility. See what you think:

• Handbook of Texas Online: JOPLIN, JANIS LYN
• Janis Joplin - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

My dear brother Baby!
(What a handsome guy he is!)

I just got an emergency message from home! They tell me that my poor brother Baby is still looking for a HOME with some very special people, and Master Jack and Missy Suzy are so concerned about home-ing him that now they don't want to take any money for him, but only to find just the right people to cherish and love him the way my Boss cherishes me. Hey, Missy finally sent me a picture of him! Gosh, he's getting HANDSOME! Here's what Missy has to say about Baby :

SWEET and boisterous! Baby's the HOWLER leader in the bunch (starts the family group howl in his crate every morn at sunrise!). Happy to explore life with many of his howler family; as well as on his own. Living in Tullibardine farmhouse currently; would likely prefer to share his new home with other dog(s) (he's 'no nonsense' with his littermates, regardless of his smaller size); and might also prefer to stay in the country, where folks won't mind his yodelling at sunrise (should he keep this practice up)!

This being my CHINOOK FAMILY page, the least I can do is to help my dear brother find his lifetime people! So come on, folks -- I just know there's somebody out there who would love to have a Duppy Puppy who's a lot like me to be their loyal best friend. All you gotta do is go to the Tullibardine website and complete their Puppy Buyer's Information Form! (Like me, he'll be registered with the International Seppala Association's Chinook registry.)

I got the DOGHOUSE BLUES!

I'M STILL HAVING A HARD TIME finding doggy friends here at this old Seppala Kennels in the Yukon! I've been here A WHOLE MONTH now and still most of them just don't seem to accept me at all. Those two guys from Spain just want to eat me up for their supper, they refuse to believe I'm a dog, and people like Zaki and Polara snap at me when I have to pass by their stakeouts on the leech with Bossie, if I get close enough. It all makes me feel SO BLUE and so much like my namesake Janis Joplin, that I went and wrote another straight-from-the-heart blues number that is sure to become a classic. Before I post that, though, here's a photo Boss took in the exercise-yard a few days ago, when I got introduced to the little puppies from Pia's litter.

Here's Missy Isa trying to get the little puppies to play with me!
Li'l Gregor is snarfing in my face while the other two cower and try to hide.
I even got down on their level but it didn't seem to help.

So here it comes, folks! This one's called "DOGHOUSE BLUES" and I gotta feelin' it's the one that's gonna make me famous. Bossie says if I post it like this that I must explain some things, though. He says I have to tell you all that I DON'T actually cry or howl all night long, in fact I don't howl at all. In the evening after I have had my supper in the shack, bugged The Girlfriends Tonya and Lizzy a whole lot, and crashed for a couple hours on the bed right beside Bossie, he carries me tenderly out to my big luxurious doghouse full of soft straw and wood-shavings, snaps my li'l light chain on me to keep me close where nothing can get me, and I snore away, dead to the world, till around nine the next morning! It's true -- I actually love my doghouse a lot; it's home to me now. Now, if I could figure out how to make Bossie put Tonya out here and give me her spot on his bed, yeah, I guess I'd prob'ly do it. But I'm really very happy with my present arrangements, actually.

All the same, artistic licence, y'know? I think this is gonna be a Yukon blues classic! Here it is:

Janis' Yukon Doghouse Blues

Well they [D] put me in a doghouse,
[A] Tied me with a [D] chain. [D7]
Yeah, they [G] put me in the doghouse,
[A] Tied me to a [D] chain. [D7]
[G] Here I am, and here I
Guess I must remain. [A]

Listen 'at ole owl,
Hootin' in the Yukon night.
Just listen 'at ole owl,
Hootin' in the Yukon night.
Yellow eyes an' big claws,
Sho' do give me a fright.

Girlfriends in the shack,
Lyin' on the Boss's bed.
Tonya 'n' Lizzy in the shack,
Sleepin' in the Boss's bed.
Janis outside in the cold!
Straw and shavin's instead.

I GOT THE DOGHOUSE BLUES,
Cryin' all night long.
Howlin' doghouse blues,
Cryin' all night long.
Blues tonight, blues tomorrow,
Blues is gonna be my song.

NOW THAT I'VE GOT EVERYBODY FEELING SORRY FOR ME, I want to just mention an appalling rumour that I heard recently. I'm afraid this one comes straight from the farm, so to speak. I heard that my sissy BRUZZ are all sleeping in a big heap together UNDER A HEAT LAMP!!! Now I heard all sorts of excuses made for them, that although there was a roof overhead in the new pens, it was a little leaky until the real roof goes up, and that it wasn't really all closed in, and the Nor'easters might blow through a little bit. NEVERTHELESS, I mean, here's me ALL ALONE in my doghouse in the Yukon, no warm bodies to snuggle against, and there's snow on the ground now (as you can see from the photo I just posted), and the temperature's going down to minus 12 Celsius (+10 F) at night -- AND I DON'T NEED NO SISSY HEAT-LAMP!!!

The rumour didn't say whether my brothers were now also wearing panties and lisping, but if they are I think I know a place not too far away where my First Missy Susan could maybe send them. I'm sure she knows what I mean. Oh, Great Spirit of Old Chinook, maybe you should look into all this and see whether it's true or not. If it is, I guess I must leave it up to you whether or not you tell Wally!

Update About ME!

31 October - Well, I'm part of the family, too! So why shouldn't I talk about myself here? The thing is, I think I'm startin' to do a lot better here in the Yukon! Maybe that's just false optimism that comes from Bossie havin' just given me a delicious chunk of RAW RABBIT LOIN, but I don't think so. So okay, I got PERFORATED by Tonya on the end of my schnoozle, and I've still got a very visible li'l scar there, but I've come to think that's sort of like that University in Germany, y'know, where you jus' aren't authentic until you have a duelling scar on your cheek? An INITIATION RITUAL, like! Queen Tonya herself marked me, so I gotta be one of the pack. (Oops -- Lizzy just told me, "just because you got a nose like a banana, don't go thinkin' you're one of the bunch!")

But you know what? LIZZY PLAYS WITH ME NOW!!! We go running around together like crazy in the yard, and we scrap and tussle together. She's kinda rough, though. And when she runs, there's just no way I'm ever gonna catch her, or even keep her in sight. I keep tryin', though. Bossie sez I'm growin' good, and I weighed 25 pounds a few days ago. Also I have SIX NEW TEETH! Maybe one day I'll be able to defend myself when some of these primitive yokels mistake me for New Zealand Lamb.

And last night the temperature got down to MINUS FIFTEEN CELSIUS and I got through that just fine! (Missy Isa had put some fine fresh new hay in my doghouse and it smelt heavenly in there!) I think I'm gonna be a SOURDOUGH SLEDDOG before too long now!

Love and doggy-kisses to everybody!
HOWLIN YUKON JANIS

Photos of Natanis, Ramsay and Ootah courtesy of Tullibardine Farm and Copyright Nancy Bartol. Photos of Power, Sparkle, Jack Murray, Susan Murray and Comet, courtesy of and Copyright Tullibardine Farm. Other dog photos Copyright J. Jeffrey Bragg and/or Isa Boucher.