Location: Maine, USA
Occupation: Teacher and Dog Musher
Next Race: I’m definitely knocking out the Can-Am 250 at a minimum this upcoming winter but I have some other dreams in the works.
We had the pleasure and sitting down for a day with Jonathan Hayes in a hotel room in Bangor, Maine and recorded a bunch of content for an upcoming series. While we were there we did a quick, Q and A.
Jonathan shares his most humbling experience. “
I’d have to say probably my most humbling and humiliating
being drug into Unalakleet on a capsized sled on ice and the out of control team. That village is used to seeing the best mushers and best dog teams in the world come through. And here I come on my expedition being drug in the town by my dog team. was pretty, pretty embarrassing.”
Did you know his favorite piece of gear under $100 is a pair of wired earbuds?
His favorite music:
I grew up in the ultra conservative Bible Belt South where you only listen to Christian music. As I’ve grown up I’ve widened my musical spectrum but I still really like the heavy metal, the modern heavy metal Christian rock bands like Red, like Skillet, like Thousand Foot Crutch…a lot of great bands out there to listen to, I listen to everything from Five Finger Death Punch to all that good stuff.
Audiobooks and podcasts?
“Definitely listen to your podcast,
What a plug!
It’s been my passion and I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the mushing community and your podcast helps me do that. So I do that. listen to it rather than getting hung up on the daily news day after day. I listen to some weekly news podcasts to keep me informed without over obsessing with politics and news and audiobooks. It’s always been fiction until recently. have a desire to you know Gary Paulson you know all that stuff. I have a desire to kind of follow in the steps of Gary Paulson in the sense that he started doing some autobiographical stuff and then moved into fiction and I’d really like to write some fiction as well.”
Hottest, hot take about mushing or outdoor leadership:
“Mushing and leadership are great parallels. Man, can learn so many leadership lessons from the dog team and…can learn a lot about how to work with your dogs from leadership and team building as well.
Socials: Mush Maine and MushMaine.com
Every time someone hears that I’m a musher, they say, have you run that race up in Alaska, the Iditarod? And I’m just sick and tired of hearing that question. So one day I would love to run the Iditarod. All right. Any ideas on when? Well, I’m definitely banging out another Iditarod qualifier this year.
I’ve dreamed of mushing in Antarctica, which is not going to happen because of the international regulations that prohibit dogs being down there now. just the Arctic in general, I love maps. love studying maps. And I look at the Baffin Island region and the coast of Greenland that corridor that so many polar explorers used, including Isaac Israel Hayes, so many polar explorers used that corridor between Baffin Island and Greenland to access the Arctic and always thought it’d be cool to go up there.
I am a pretty chill guy unless I am late or lost.
I think that when someone is late, it’s disrespectful of your time. And so when I, myself, am late…
I do have an addiction sadly and it’s coffee as you can see sitting here on the table. I drink copious amounts of coffee.
It’s kind of a potpourri of a couple people who really spoke into my life early in my life.
My father is a foremost theologian and he is completely self-educated. He taught me when I was a child that all education is self-education. Whether you’re sitting in a university or sitting in a reading chair in your living room, you have to put in the effort to educate yourself.
So that’s always been a thing. And then, and this only lightly pertains to the world of mushing, but my theology professor at Milligan College said, the mark of an intelligent person is the ability to reflect on a position that is not his own and to consider the possibility that he himself is wrong and that the other person is right. And I see that really lacking in the world…
This ability to actually really reflect on what someone else is saying and to consider the possibility that I may be wrong and that my opponent may be right.
I also think… that’s crucial in every aspect of our lives. You know, from having dialogue and communication to understanding dog care and mushing, it applies everywhere. Especially in today’s social media world. It’s interesting, I started this podcast back when social media was just first starting, and it’s interesting to see how it developed.
Paul Terrio just bought main made sleds from the company. The previous owner was retiring and Paul Terrio is a long time musher. He knows, you know, dog sled’s in and out.
I thought it would be a good hat tip to my state and to Paul Theriault who’s taking this on to have him build the freight sleds that we used on the expedition. These things are exactly what I asked for. They’re tanks. you can beat on them. take a lot of abuse. don’t have to, simple to repair when repairs need to be done. just rugged. And so for most of the time, training, it’s exactly what we need.
this isn’t what you’re looking for but I went to I went to Alaska to train with Mitch Seavey and to run his dogs and I did a lot of qualifiers and
Literally before we left for the Copper Basin 300 just a tune-up run with some of the dogs that had recovered from Injuries to make sure that they were okay. Just hooked up some dogs But that meant you know, obviously they were amped up because you know, they they’ve been off the trail and I just took a took a plunge down a ravine my leg post hold and completely derailed my plans of running the copper basin. And so going up there, sacrificing all of that time and then not being able to run both of those races.
There are things that are outside of your control there are things that can happen.
The only thing you can do is control the variables you can control and then roll with the punches. Because punches will come, adversity is going to come. There’s going to be things that are outside of your control that happen. And, like with a good lead dog, that’s where your true character is determined, not when everything’s going your way and when you’re winning all the time, but when you get hit with adversity out of the blue…
How do you deal with it? You know, that’s going to determine It’s going to determine who you are as a person.
Well, it depends on the person. For someone like me, my wife says I don’t know how to just sit still and enjoy an evening just flipping through the channels and eating a pizza. I have to be doing something all the time. So for me, the training is not a big deal. I enjoy it. I enjoy being on the move.
It’s money.
I have a lot of people reach out to me for advice too when they’re getting into mushing just because of the good PR that I’ve gotten. And it’s pretty standard, first of all, find a mentor. And second of all, buy the best dogs that your money can afford. And no one wants to hear that. They want to.
I didn’t want to hear it when I started. I wanted to take my show dog line Siberian Huskies and win the Can-Am 250 with it. buy the best dogs that you can afford and just build from that team and breed up from that team.
Then you can, if your goal is to win races, if your goal is to be competitive, you need to buy the best dogs you can afford.
I think and I know that this is a little bit of a mincing of words, but I think the quest should not be for happiness, but for joy. Happiness is an emotion and it’s dependent on circumstances But joy is a state of mind that you can have Even when you’re going through adversity a sense of gratitude a sense of joy, where happiness is a feeling that comes and goes very much dependent on what you’re dealing with.
I can say on an expedition my happiness went a lot more than it came, but my joy and my gratitude, just that sense of being present and soaking in the beauty of where I was and what I was doing, that can be constant even when you’re facing adversity.
By far, this Centennial Seppala Expedition. It was by far more difficult than the 300 mile qualifier, ven my solo 261 expedition.
It scares me to get older and not be able to do the things that I love. I’m starting to get older, I’m starting to get closer and closer to 50. So, there’s a lot I want to do and my body is starting to slow down. But I think what scares me the most, not to get political, is just the over-regulation of the things that we’re so passionate about by people in… some state capital or some federal capital that had, you know, talking about mushing has no real understanding of mushing, but they’re going to regulate to people who’ve been doing it for 20, 30, 40 years, how they think, you know, best it should be done. And so that’s an ongoing battle.
I have a concern that if we don’t hold the ground, stand in the gap, if we don’t stand together, the mushing community isn’t always good at, if we can’t stand together as a unified front, we’re going to keep losing ground.
I’m big on trail mix just because it’s simple, it tastes the same whether it’s frozen or not. Just popping it in my mouth. We had some turkey jerky on this trip and then I found out about halfway through the trip that Aaron Burmeister had some dried salmon that he had given to our cameraman. And our cameraman’s not much for salmon.
So man, I was like, I will trade you in a heart. He loved my turkey jerky and I was like, I will trade you this jerky and a heartbeat for that salmon. And when we did that, I was just enjoying some Aaron Burmeister salmon. You put that in your mouth and no matter how cold it is, it just begins to dissolve in your mouth.
It’s not always, sometimes the crap’s hitting the fan and you’re stressing and you’re swearing and know you’re screaming but there are these, you know, zen-like meditative moments where the team and the musher… and creation you know it’s just all just in sync and it’s a it’s it’s a beauty that those that haven’t experienced it just can’t understand i i like it i tell people it’s a wolf pack inviting you to go on the hunt with them you know this is the the closest thing to a human being out with a wolf pack on a hunt…because somewhere deep in their DNA, that’s the reason they’re moving down the trail is because they’re that pack.
They don’t know what they’re hunting. They don’t know why, but they’re they’re moving as a team and we get to join that team and it’s beautiful.
There’s a lot of things that I’d never do again that I wouldn’t talk about…
No, but it’s something I would never do again. Man, there’s just really so many things. mean, you know, if you’re not learning from your mistakes, then you’re not growing and think that introspection is crucial to being a good human being. If anything, have a tendency to do it too much. I’m really hard on myself and critical of myself. man, just every day I’m learning something from my mistakes.
