Sebastian has mentioned a couple of terms common to mushing, ski-poling and a fan hitch.  A musher holds a ski pole and rhythmically swings the arms up and down, pushing against the snow with the pole tip to give the team a little assist with forward motion. Sebastian has nicknamed Aliy  “Spiderwoman” because she’s using 2 poles to do this, one in each hand.  Look at pictures of her doing this in his article, Yukon River–Galena to Nulato.

The fan hitch he mentions is a different type of harnessing system; each dog attached to the sled by a separate line, allowing the dogs to run in a fanned-out shape ahead of the sled, running in a more side by side fashion, not behind one another. This allows them room to maneuver around rough ice or other obstacles–in a treeless environment. Search for “fan hitch” on the Internet and you’ll see photos of this.

Kelly Maixner and some other mushers aren’t using a fan hitch, but because they are not using necklines with their dogs, the dogs are attached to the single gangline only by the tugs at the rear of the harnesses. When they stop, they can turn around freely, and move away more from the gangline, somewhat emulating the look of dogs on a fan hitch.