Category archives: Uncategorized

I have just come back from an end of the season dog check. Well, that’s what I call it anyway. This is the time of the year when most of us have stopped running, have had a chance to sleep in a little, and actually have had a few full…

When I first started building sleds in 1979 the concept of the bar brake was just coming into use on the new toboggan sleds hitting the market.Up until then the most accepted method of braking a sled was the pedal brake. (Photo #1) These came in a variety of shapes…

Blastomycosis, hereafter called blasto, is an infection caused by the fungus Blastomyces dermatitidis (B. dermatitidis). Although it occurs primarily in humans and dogs, it has also been observed in cats and horses. Blasto can affect most organs, including the brain and eyes. This disease can be every bit as devastating…

Lead dogs for an arctic expedition team have to be more than just physically buff and athletic.They must also be intelligent, tough minded, and capable of negotiating miles of wind-ripped tundra in the black winter night with 20 other malamute brutes behind them breathing down their necks. Training these guys…

Unalakleet, Alaska; March 2008The leaders of Iditarod 36 have paused here impatiently, briefly, and are now long up the trail. There were large crowds of spectators for the first few front-runners; the groups that meet the teams that pass now are smaller but still impressive. Closer inspection will reveal that…

Mark Hartum is a talented, young and very successful musher living with his family in Edmonton, Alberta. Mark has traveled around Canada, the Lower 48 and Alaska for open class races and has proven himself to be a top contender in the sport. I had a chance to talk with…

The leaders that push the high end of sled dog performance will drive the quest for perfection by breeding only the best dogs.On May 4, 2008 I will enter the second childhood of my arrested development. Even though I’m 52 as I write this, and have been running sled dogs…

Kenth Fjellborg is a lucky man.When he first began dreaming of running a sled dog business in the 1980’s, only a handful of tourists found their way to the village of Jukkasjärvi in Swedish Lapland, which has been the home of the Fjellborg family for nine generations. Thus, making a…

Talkeetna, Alaska is a little town, 15 miles down a dead end road off the Parks Highway and is mostly known as a launching point for Denali expeditions and flight seeing. Most of the visitors to Talkeetna arrive by train or tour bus, then spend the day walking around town…

Little did I know that my vivid childhood memories of snowy mountain tops and dog teams as portrayed in various glossy magazines would take me on a journey, many years later, across the pond from the UK to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.With that memory firmly implanted in my…