Sled Dog Watchdog - Gift from a Yukon trapper

'Man wants answers behind skull inserted in his mailbox'
A local anti-trapping lobbyist who found a bleached wolf skull in his mail box is still waiting for an
explanation from whoever delivered the insult.
Whitehorse Daily Star - February 6, 2007
Story by Star Reporter Chuck Tobin

A local anti-trapping lobbyist who found a bleached wolf skull in his mail box is still waiting for an
explanation from whoever delivered the insult.

“He has to explain himself,” Mike Grieco insisted in an interview last week. “I know it was not a gift.”

“What was his real intention? Was it some sort of threat?”

Grieco filed a complaint with the RCMP after finding the skull in his mailbox.

The skull was left in the mailbox at Grieco’s Whitehorse home in mid-January. It was accompanied by a
permit issued under the Wildlife Act authorizing trapper Frank Johnstone of Teslin to give away one
bleached wolf skull as a gift.

Johnstone is declining comment on the wolf skull, though he and Grieco have exchanged heated opinions
recently in letters published in the Star’s opinion pages.

Grieco is staunchly opposed to trapping as cruel and inhumane, and entirely unnecessary in modern
times.

Johnstone staunchly defends trapping as a legitimate and humanely acceptable means of managing and
utilizing furbearers, a renewable resource.

Grieco said the skull was more of an insult to the wolf than it was to him, and he’s not sure what to do
with it now.

“I do not want to exploit it,” he said.

“Most of these animals were killed without sensitivity and I do not think they should be used for pen
holders or something.”

'The New Law of the Yukon'

This is the New Law of the Yukon
And Cheechako’s have made it plain
Send me your foolish and feeble
Send me your weak and insane

Weak are the pampered and serviced
Insane for the need to reform
The pioneer people who built me
Force them to comply with the norm

Swift as a panther in triumph
The newcomers pounce on their prey!
Helpless the pioneers cower
To their misguided and bullying way

No smoking, no mushing, no fishing!
No driving, no fun and no say
About what is acceptable action
Or lifestyle or freedom today

No respect for those who have suffered
To build them this home in the North
My doors have been opened to people
Proclaiming my laws have no worth!

These newcomers claim we are evil
Mindless and cruel and mean
For protecting our claim as a people
Not ruled by the Southern regime

No eating of meat, no forestry
No seeking of Klondike Gold,
The thought police are coming
For us to force us to do as we’re told!

My heart is broken to pieces
As the newcomers squabble and fight
They pave over my golden hist’ry
With social correctness and spite

My Sourdoughs' struggles have ended
As they are now harried and gray
Too tired to battle these morons
Who feel that they know the right way

It is said that we won’t go to meetings
But we are busy attending our works
‘Cause what is the point of opinion
When your home is invaded by jerks?

'Hugh Conner' (with apologies to Robert Service)

The following poem was published in a regular opinion column ('Ramblings') in the Yukon News on
October 17, 2007 by Mr. Doug Bell (using the pen name ' Hugh Conner' - Yukoner), retired publisher of
the Yukon News in Whitehorse. Mr. Bell was apparently offended by the few vocal animal rights people
who speak up on behalf of Yukon animals.

Yukoners need to hunt, fish, trap, and mush dogs or they are not very happy campers. It should be noted
that Mr. Bell, when he was a newspaper publisher, apparently never had any of his reporters do their due
diligence in investigating animal cruelty affecting sled dogs, in particular the Yukon Quest dogs who have
suffered and died in the 25 years the disgraceful race has been staged. Is it any wonder why some of us
are somewhat embarrassed to live in the Yukon? Thanks for the poem, Hugh!