As the cold weather comes to our neck of the woods, we decided it was a good idea to stay close to the warmth of our fireplace. I used this down time to share with Jaxon the great, as-of-yet unresolved mystery of the snow channels. Sitting in front of a crackling fire, eating biscuits, and sharing good stories is a nice alternative to battling freezing temperatures and dealing with frozen blue paws. Ok, we haven’t hit the freezing mark yet, but we’ll never pass up a chance for a good biscuit.
As many readers of this blog already know, Hank thought it was important to keep alive what we all enjoyed and loved. He faithfully maintained a journal filled with his ideas and amazing tales of our exploits. Many of Hank’s writings never made their way to this blog. He was a dogged perfectionist, always re-reading posts and fine tuning them. Everything had to be just right for Hank to make a post.
One of those stories that Hank never got around to posting is the mystery of the snow channels. This story was important to me, Hank, and Otto. It needs to survive. The three of us were the only dogs aware of this strange mystery. Try as we might, we were never able to come up with an answer. As the last remaining member with a first hand account of this event, it’s time to share it with Jaxon. I don’t expect the kid to solve it anytime soon, but I’ve got to start spreading the word and give him a shot.
This all happened back in the spring of 2015. We were looking forward to things warming up and pow — over night we got walloped by several feet of snow. We weren’t afraid of the snow, or anything else for that matter, so we excitedly rushed out the door to the backyard. There, we discovered these roughly cut, rather primitive channels in the snow. On the one paw, they seemed rather hastily done but showed a lot of work. The channels took some planning. Some were very precise and contained unusual angles. Some were long and pointed in the direction of trails. If you look at the picture at the top of this post, one of the channels points off in the direction of a path in the woods. In the picture in his journal, Hank drew an arrow to call attention to this particular channel. Other pathways were very short and seemed to go nowhere. There was an 8′ section that was perfectly level. Still, we couldn’t figure out a meaning or purpose for the channels.
When we just about ready to give up and go back inside and warm our paws, we heard a strange noise off the woods. We have pretty good ears and pick up on sounds that most people would ignore, but we never heard anything like this noise, before or since.
Hank was the first to react and charged off in the direction of the noise.
It was clear enough that all 3 of us heard it, but we couldn’t agree on what made the noise or whether it had anything to do with these mysterious channels.
Hank was convinced that whatever made the noise would return and make itself known, so he kept a watchful eye in that direction.
Myself, I figured we could accomplish more by doing what terriers do best — smelling every inch of the ground for clues.
That’s me in the picture above, nose to the ground. Take a close look at that picture. Those marks in the snow aren’t from any human, or at least none I’ve ever met. Could this be the proof that these channels were made by a large animal, one that wouldn’t want to stick around to take on the 3 of us? If the marks aren’t tracks from an animal, could they be evidence of a language? Maybe we need to bring in an expert to translate them.
When I first told Jaxon about the snow channels, he was unimpressed. But when I pulled out Hank’s journal and we reviewed these pictures carefully, getting even this small glimpse into our storied past hooked him. He was full of questions. He wanted to jump on the internet to look for answers. Not every truth reveals itself on the internet. Hank, Otto, and I already went down this path anyway. There wasn’t any sense letting Jaxon experience the same frustration we went through spending all that time and finding nothing.
Could the snow channels have been the work of a large animal like Big Foot? Maybe the markings of a space ship from another planet? We never came to a solid conclusion. Hours re-reading Hank’s journal and studying these pictures didn’t bring us any closer to the truth.
Jaxon wants to contact Josh Gates, but I am not sure promoting his show helps us. Going the celebrity route could get expensive in a hurry. They’d want to bring in heavy equipment and excavate the entire snow channel site quickly to wrap everything up in a 1-hour TV show. This has to be done carefully, methodically. Both Jaxon and I agree that we’re much better able to handle anything that involves digging.
We’d really love to solve the mystery of the snow channels and put this one to bed.
Does anyone have experience with these channels?
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