“An Instructional Quest” meets “The Yukon Quest”

This past weekend I had the opportunity to ride in a dogsled for the first mile of the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest dogsled race. The military housing on Fort Wainwright did a drawing to choose one resident for this honor. My husband’s name was drawn, and he was sweet enough to gift the seat to me.

On Saturday morning, my family dropped me at the start of the race about an hour before the 11:00 start time. Since it was about -25 degrees at that point, I chose to go sit in the warm building after meeting up with my musher and seeing where he was located. After about an hour in the building, I headed back to my musher’s site. He had drawn #24 out of 26, so he was not actually scheduled to leave until afternoon (they release the teams every three minutes). I did not want to miss my chance, so I stood there and froze for the next hour while I watched him get ready.

Finally, it was time to leave. I bundled up in the sleeping bag and sat back to enjoy the ride. Getting to the starting line was interesting. By this point, the dog teams are normally super hyper and excited. To prevent them from tearing off, they hitch a snow machine to the back of the sled so that they can control the dogs’ arrival at the starting line. A couple of tight turns later (and a moment where I almost got whacked by a frozen tree branch), and we were ready to take off.

What a fascinating experience! The race starts above the Chena River and quickly drops onto the river itself. Yes, Fairbanks, Alaska, does get cold enough to safely walk on a frozen river. People were lined up on the river cheering for the teams as they ran by. The mile only took about ten minutes to run, but it was definitely worth all the wait and the frozen toes. The sound of the sled’s runners over the snow will be something I never forget.

If you want to learn more or follow the race, check out: www.yukonquest.com