GREENFIELD — The sport of dog-sledding creates an unforgettable bond between a pack and musher that lasts well beyond a canine’s lifetime. This unique relationship and the love for the sport shared by owners and their dogs is showcased in the 2021 documentary “Heartprints In The Snow.”
The film was released in July 2021, and is now available on Roku and Amazon Fire through “Channel 96” or the “Muskegan Channel.” It can also be found online at https://bit.ly/3t9fh73.
Director Robert Michael grew up in Michigan and his family participated in dogsledding for years. The documentary reflects on the director’s connection to the sport and the bonds that are forged between the canines and their owners. As the host of the film, Michael interviews guests from across the country, including Greenfield Community College Outdoor Leadership Program Coordinator Bob Tremblay, to explore the love for this centuries-old sport.
Michael, who now lives in Los Angeles, said he was inspired to make his documentary after attending a directors’ guild screening of the 2020 film adaptation of “The Call of the Wild” with his friend, Janine Gateland, who narrates “Heartprints in the Snow.”
“Every time I see Hollywood make a film about dog sledding it reminds me of my upbringing,” he said. “It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back because I probably cried five or six times watching it (“The Call of the Wild”) but it’s something that resonates with people — bonding with your dogs.”
After the screening, Gateland asked Michael why he had never made a film about his connection to dog sledding. Upon reflection, he realized it was a chapter of his life he never got to close. In creating the film, Michael said he found closure with the sport and the passing of his family dogs. His parents, Faith and Robert Anderson Sr., as well as his sister, Amanda Anderson, are interviewed in the film and talk about their active years in the sport while living in Flint, Michigan until 2009, when Michael went to college and their family relocated to Texas for his father’s job.
Using archival family footage and interviews with subjects from across the country, Michael creates a documentary that highlights the sport and the undeniable bonds formed between dogs and their owners. Referencing the 2006 film “Eight Below,” he notes the attachment and dedication the owner’s have for their team of canine companions.
“I knew going into this that I would really focus on people’s dogs that have passed, and how their teams affected them,” Michael said. “That was at the forefront the entire time and I’m really happy with the people that we interviewed because they were so open and willing to share.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic beginning as they prepared for travel and filming, Michael said the production chose to cancel flights and in-person interviews and instead opt for virtual conversations with most of their subjects. In total, Michael interviewed nine subjects for the film, including Tremblay.
A native of north central Massachusetts with a master’s degree in Outdoor Adventure Education, Tremblay is the current department chair of GCC’s Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership program since 2016, and has been an outdoor adventure guide since 1982. He has been dog sledding in Massachusetts since the mid ’90s, and hosts the Youtube Channel “Baystate Backcountry.”
The channel, which has over 760 subscribers, features dozens of videos of Tremblay mushing with his 3-year-old dogs, Shiva and Bandit. For more than two years now, the trio has filmed themselves mushing and ski-joring in the winter, and bike-mushing or bike-joring during the warmer seasons, right here in Massachusetts and New England.
“My whole thing is I want to show people what’s possible with just two dogs,” Tremblay said. “I had a large sled dog team for many years, and I’ve done commercial mushing, and now I’m just really having fun with two pets.”
Both sled and bike mushing, Tremblay noted, require strong communication and teamwork between the musher and canines. He had a pack of Malamutes he would sled with for over a decade between the mid ’90s and 2000’s. During this time he owned an outdoor adventure company and would take people out on guided sled tours.
The film, Tremblay notes, acknowledges that some people may question if having dogs pull sleds is enjoyable for the animals or if it could be abusive. While he said he could imagine that “for some breeds it would be an inappropriate thing to do,” Nordic breeds like Huskies and Alaskan Malamutes instinctively want to participate in high energy activities like dog sledding.
“With the Nordic breeds, it’s in their DNA and I think it’s crueler to not give them the opportunity to be what they’re meant to be,” he said. “I think a good musher who loves their dogs and cares for their dogs is going to get the most out of their dogs, and the dogs are going to give the most back… To the dogs, it’s play, it’s not work.”
In the documentary, Tremblay shares the story of his shepherd Husky of 15 years who hiked 500 miles of the Appalachian Trail with him. After she passed on, he went about six months without a dog before getting an Alaskan Malamute.
“When she was very small, literally 10 weeks old, my father in law had given us a little toy sled…,” Tremblay says in the film. “We would hitch her up to it just to take pictures cause we thought it was cute, but she loved pulling it. So every time we would take her out for a walk, this little puppy, she’d want to pull this little toy sled. I never intended to get into mushing.”
As the dog got bigger, he said, they were given a dogsled and they realized she needed a companion. He said the dogs taught them to dogsled. After the dogs had two litters, Tremblay and his wife found themselves with a team of 12 Malamutes for several years.
“It’s inherent to them,” Tremblay says of dog sledding. “It’s more about giving them the opportunity and then teaching them to be disciplined in terms of not biting their lines and knowing when to stop. The dogs, because they like to pull and like to run, they’re receptive to that training.”
In his role with the Greenfield Community College outdoor adventure education program, Tremblay said he participates in other recreation activities like backpacking and skiing, but dog sledding remains a personal hobby. Getting out as a team, he said, allows him to experience the world through the dogs’ senses.
“Every time we go out, they’re giving me a gift as much as I’m giving them a gift,” Tremblay said.
“Pets cannot stay with us for a lifetime… they leave us, but for mushers they don’t actually leave. They stick with us, they leave tracks like little heartprints in the snow,” Gateland narrates to close out the documentary.
According to Michael, “Heartprints in the Snow” is currently up for the Michigan Regional Emmys for Cultural Documentary, Best Host and Best Narrator awards. He said they are also actively looking to create a 10-episode docuseries on the subject of dog sledding and the bond between mushers and their canine companions.