Blood recurs as a lesson to the wise: Nature is bloody, not tidy; bleeding sometimes is a cost of achievement; accepting bloodiness is a step toward understanding the wilderness in all its complexity. The author witnesses a wolf pack’s bloody slaying of a doe, and he has a major epiphany about the wilderness—that it can be messy and awful in death but beautiful in life, yet both life and death are the same to the wilderness. Blood spilled is a harbinger of death; in the book, blood symbolizes death, acceptance of death, and the liberation that such understanding brings.

Central to the story are dogs, the pullers of sleds, and teachers of wisdom to the author. Wherever it wanders, the story always swings back to them. The word “dog” occurs 357 times in a book of 133 pages. From dogs, the author learns about courage, determination, humor, anger, loyalty, and love. He’s inspired by the dogs and returns their loving friendship in kind.

When the physical demands of sledding overpower a driver, that person can begin to see things that aren’t there. Hallucinations are a common occurrence among mushers during the Iditarod race. Those illusions, being entirely imaginary and limited to the mind of the witness, naturally bespeak the thoughts and feelings of the person hallucinating.