Helen on June 21st, 2010

“On a cold spring day in 1907 a group of us gathered around the stove in a Nome saloon and began talking about dog races. After a few weeks of arguing we worked out the rules of the ‘All-Alaska Sweepstakes.’” -A.A. “Scotty” Allan, in Gold, Men and Dogs (G.P. Putnam, 1931)
The historic All Alaska Sweepstakes [...]

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Helen on May 15th, 2010

Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel profiles dog sledding legend Lance Mackey when the Emmy®-winning show returns May 18, exclusively on HBO:
The Dogfather. Lance Mackey might be the toughest and most dominating athlete you’ve never heard of, unless you live in Alaska. A resident of Fox, Alaska, Mackey is considered one of the [...]

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Helen on May 10th, 2010

The Yukon Quest and Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races have seen many foreign teams enter and finish their 1,000 mile courses, but the mushers are usually from similar northern climates, or at least from places where it gets cold enough to wear mittens and snow boots once in a while.
When Oswald “Newton” Marshall signed on [...]

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Helen on April 14th, 2010

Alaska Dispatch’s Team & Trail blog presents a wide-ranging collection of articles and news items relating to sled dog racing in Alaska, written by Northern Light Media’s Helen Hegener. Here are a few of the more interesting posts which have appeared over the past few weeks:
Jujiro Wada: Co-founder of Fairbanks and Iditarod trailblazer There [...]

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Helen on March 22nd, 2010

The 2010 Iditarod was one for the record books, with the incomparable Champion Lance Mackey and his Dream Team setting the pace for the second-fastest time ever recorded, resulting in an unprecedented fourth victory for the master musher from Fairbanks. Iditarod’s Eye on the Trail blogger Bruce Lee wrote, “History was just made. For [...]

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