by Warren
3/12/2011 3:04:00 PM
We arrived home in Quesnel from the Three Forts Race on March 7th…I’ve had time to reflect on the experience, it’s now time to share some of my thoughts. I was really excited about the opportunity to travel to this event with Warren, I want to thank him for inviting me to be his handler/driver for this race…..Warren is great company and I truly enjoyed spending the week with him and his wonderful dogs. I have read about the Athabasca country for years and am quite familiar with the history, I never dreamed that I would have this opportunity to experience it in such a first-hand intimate way. There are many things I could write about, including the impact and environmental degradation associated with the oil sands developments, life in a boom town like Fort McMurray, becoming an ice road trucker, mastering the art of mixing vanilla cappuccino and dark Columbian coffee at the gas station coffee bars, the geography and history of the Athabasca River, the people we met along the way, Lake Athabasca and Fort Chipewyan but then I could also write about the dog race……I’ll stick to the race.
Ten teams were entered, among them arguably the top sprint teams and maybe even the top stage teams in the world….quite a select group to be travelling with. There were also two brothers from Fort Chipewyan who had both run this route before in previous races, two local mushers from Fort McMurray, a top mid-distance musher from Alberta who the weekend before had finished second in the Canadian Challenge and Warren and his team. This was a stage race comprised of four stages, the handlers drove the dog trucks to the next checkpoint where the dogs were cared for, they were “boxed’ at night. The temperature for the whole race was well into the -30’s C, getting into the -20’s in the heat of the day….it was cold. We were extremely well treated by the event organizers, the race was part of a two week long winter carnival being staged in what is known as the Regional District of Wood Buffalo….this is comprised of about 12 different communities in the northern part of Alberta, the sled dog race was seen as a way to “tie together” many of these communities.
I could go on and on about the race….I will be writing in more detail on my own blog and you are welcome to have a look at
www.mushingpast.blogspot.com I can only say that Warren and his dogs were unbelievable. They were ready to go each day, were strong and healthy, they ate like jackals and Warren finished a very strong fifth or fourth in each stage. Throughout the race Warren used five different lead dogs, they all shone, he was very close to being in the day money each day and was not very far out of being 4th overall. The winner was Buddy Streeper, second was Aaron Peck, third was the second Streeper team being driven by John Stewart and fourth was the second Peck team being driven by Jake Golton. Warren and the dogs did much better than I did as I white-knuckled it over the ice road and cat trails pulling the 24 foot fifth wheel trailer and driving that big Dodge dually….it made my own little Ford Ranger seem like a dinky toy. I made a grand entrance into Fort Chipewyan as the ice road takes a right hand turn while dropping down the bank onto Lake Athabasca,, my forward momentum ceased as my sideways momentum took over and I did end up gently caressing a snow bank….thank you to Gregory (Cowboy) Marcel of Fort Chip for pulling me out.
We didn’t lose any weight on this trip, the organizers fed us like kings. We became quite a close-knit group of mushers, handlers and officials as we spent essentially 24/7 together, dealing with some pretty challenging conditions. There were no wimps among us…I was impressed with the general ability of everyone to survive in harsh conditions. In reality we were all looking out for one another, it was a good feeling. A highlight for me was meeting the Canadian Rangers group from Fort Chipewyan who were providing logistical support for the race while traveling the river on their snow machines, pulling loaded toboggans. These men clearly knew how to manage in the bush…among them was Larry Martin who had won the Fort Chip to Fort Mac race three times when it was staged in the 1960’s, he is also a past winner of the Yellowknife Canadian Championship in the mid 1970’s.
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