We are sitting at the foothills of the Talkeetna Mountains and close to some of the most famous sprint mushing trails in southcentral Alaska, known as Montana Creek. Rohn and Alyssa Buser are here with us to talk about their tour company, Susitna Dog Sled Adventures, his roots in a famous dog mushing family, what it is like to raise a little boy in a crazy, hectic life surrounded by 55 dogs, and more.

Three-time Iditarod veteran Rohn and his wife, Alyssa, moved here just a few years ago to set up their business. They felt they wanted to do things differently than other dog mushing tours and what they offered on the road system in Alaska. The guests’ interactions with the dogs are a priority, and they even offer discounts to fellow Alaskans who might want to get out and try something new. While Rohn still thinks about Iditarod and might return to the trail one day, the couple are happy doing what they love.

Mushing Magazine: We are here with Alyssa and Rohn Buser in Talkeetna, Alaska. Rohn, let’s get this out of the way before we learn more about your business and your family. Obviously, with your dad [Martin Buser] and his history in the sport, did you grow up mushing like junior races?

Rohn Buser: Yeah, I did the Junior Iditarod four times. I ran the Iditarod right out of high school, which kind of ruined me for college. I graduated in December, my senior year. I ran the Iditarod that year and the following fall, and I chose to go to school on the East Coast. I wasn’t as focused on school after. I was a good student in high school, and then in college, I was like, “Yeah, this is not serious.”

MM:  So, where did you try to go to school?

RB: RPI in upstate New York. But it was a little far from Alaska. Yeah. I bounced around. I’m thinking, I’m just going back and doing dog stuff.

MM: When did you finally break free of Dad?

RB: I ran several years with Happy Trails, but I was just out of their kennel. And then I took a break from running dogs. I got burnt out of it. I was not as focused and needed to reassess my approach. I spent a few years saying that I was done running dogs, and then I got my helicopter pilot’s license and flight instructor ratings. So I did that. In the process, I met Alyssa, and it was nice because I could be around sled dogs but didn’t have to do it myself. I like that; it didn’t have the kind of pressure of [running dogs].

It’s fun, but I think it can also be a burden. People put a lot of expectations on themselves, which can get you stressed out.  You are training to run the Iditarod, and everything is towards this one goal, it’s nice to work towards the goal but it’s a lot of expectations and pressure. It was fun with Alyssa because she had dogs, and everybody in her living area knew the dog person, so I didn’t have to say anything.

Everybody in the area knew her as the dog person, so I didn’t have to say anything. But I knew I just couldn’t stay away from it. And now, we have a yard full of our dogs. Most of them we’ve raised from puppies now or are still puppies. So, there’s a lot of fun with that.

MM: Alyssa, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Alyssa Buser: I always wanted to have sled dogs. When I was about three years old, I told my parents that I would miss them when I was in Alaska with my sled dogs, and we used to have a decent amount of dog sledding in Northern California. There used to be about six races. But still, they were like, wait, what? Dog sledding? So, it’s just something that I have always wanted to do. I have always loved dogs. I was always outside sleeping with the family dog. Dog sledding is something I’ve been obsessed with since I was a child.

MM: Rohn, tell us a little bit more.

RB: Well, I was born and raised in Alaska, mostly around sled dogs. I grew up with dogs and have been working with dogs to some degree for a long time. I’m just observing that my dad has run dogs longer than I’ve ever lived.

I had a good mentor there, who picked up a lot of the ways that I work with dogs and things that I learned from him. So yeah, I’ve been around dogs for a long time.

MM: What is the name of your kennel, and where are you located?

RB: We don’t have a kennel name right now. We have a tour-oriented business called Susitna Sled Dog Adventures. We chose the name because we’re in the Susitna Valley part of the Matanuska -Susitna Valley. Yeah, that’s kind of why we chose it. With the trails we run on, we can get out to the Susitna River in just a few miles and travel from there, linking up to the other trail systems just down the road from Su-Valley High School. You could get on the river and run to Nome if you wanted to.

 MM: What’s the furthest you’ve ever run from the house here?

RB: From here, we’ve gone into the Trapper Lake area, Yentna, and beyond. We just haven’t gone that far yet.

MM: Alyssa, can you tell us about your decision to relocate to Alaska?

AB: Despite what most people think about California, it’s not all beaches and ocean, and the Sierra Nevada is beautiful in the summertime. It’s 70 to 80 degrees, and there are always bluebird skies. And in the wintertime, it’s kind of like spring in Alaska. It can be 40 degrees. We get tons and tons of snow.

But the snow can also be unpredictable. It’s not like Alaska, where dog mushing is the state sport. Finding a property where you can have the dogs can be hard. Some years, there’s tons of snow and some years, there’s no snow. When Rohn wanted to get back into competitive dog mushing, it made the most sense to come to Alaska, where there are trails.

There’s way more of a mushing community here. One of my favorite things about Alaska is that you can have so many friends who run their dogs. You can go out with a group of friends and run dogs together. And it’s nice to have friends with whom you can bounce ideas off. So, it was easy to come to Alaska because if you want to have sled dogs, you must move to Alaska. Alaska is, in my opinion, one of the best places to have dogs.

MM: Can you tell us a bit about the landscape and physical features of the area where your kennel is? I know you have a view of Denali when it’s nice out. Why did you choose this spot?

RB: This was one of the places available and in our price range of what we could afford. And the main requirement we were looking for when picking a spot was not having close neighbors. We’re fortunate that none of the properties around us are all kind of just forest right now, at least. So, when we moved here and brought our dogs, we were not just coming into the neighborhood and making lots of noise. We still make plenty of noise, and I’m sure people can hear us, but it’s not right in their backyard. The other requirement we were looking for was a place with access to a trail system so we could get out and go on to a lot of state-owned land. There are swamps, creeks, rivers, and somewhere with undeveloped land without going on road crossings and things like that, so we can just run dogs right from our house.

MM: Tell us about the trails you train on or tour and maybe the topography. Is it all flat? Is it wooded?

AB: The trails we do tours on are excellent; they’re all flat, so they’re easy. They’re beautiful. It’s about 50 -50 going through swamps, spruce, and birch forests. You get to go through the wide-open swamps, which look more like meadows covered in snow, and you get great views of both the Talkeetna Range and Denali on the trail. And then you go through the semi-dense forest, especially after the snow; it’s so pretty.

It’s kind of just you’re like precisely what you think of when you think of like winter wonderland, so that that’s kind of like, I guess the best way to describe the trails is like this picturesque winter wonderland everywhere you look, there’s new beautiful view the trail the tour trail that we do is about six and a half miles it’s a loop we can. We can put in different options for the dogs so they’re not doing the same thing, but when we go out on the training ground, we’re going much further.

So, the start of the run is always on that same trail system, a mixture of swamp and the virgin spruce forest. Then, we get out onto a trail that weaves through sloughs and over creeks. Then we go out onto the power line, and we get to run along the power line for a little bit, which is pretty out there. And then we go on Sheep Creek. Running on the creek is fun, coming from Northern California, where it doesn’t freeze enough to run on water. It’s interesting to go to the creek and learn about it. From there, we can make it onto the Susitna River, which is interesting but scary at first.

Sometimes, there are open lakes and just learning about the ice, and then it goes back into the woods, so I feel like there are a lot of different terrains that we get to run on. This is fun because it’s kind of whenever maybe you’re going on a longer run. I tend to get I can get bored after a few hours and the trails that I have around here. They’re so much fun because just when you might like, okay, I’ve been looking at the same swamp. The trails will change, and then you must steer, and then you’re going around a corner, and then you’re climbing up a hill, and then you’re in a forest, so it’s really fun, it’s very, it’s varied.

MM: How many dogs do you have in your kennel?

RB: We have 55 dogs in our kennel right now. That includes quite a few pensioners, I guess. There are some retired dogs, some pet dogs, and a couple of rescue dogs. About half are coming up into their prime.

MM: With that many dogs, how many of those are tour dogs versus race dogs, and do you differentiate?

RB: We don’t differentiate between them; they’re just race dogs. We use our race team dogs for the tours as well. But then, some dogs would not ask to do the more challenging runs and the longer distances. So, the race team double-duties as working in the tour team, but then some of the dogs are just on tour duty, and we just keep the intensity a little bit easier.

MM: The focus of your kennel is both now building up a race team and the tours. How is that different than like a hardcore competitive kennel philosophy? How can you describe the difference, like, “I’m focused on Iditarod or Quest or something, versus I’m focused on the business.”

RB: I think there are some advantages to doing both but also some disadvantages. Suppose you’re just focusing on racing. That’s your entire winter every day. You can plan and prepare just for this one event. But the advantage of doing tours is that it splits them up. It takes some pressure off having to compete to fund your kennel. One of the things that’s nice about working in the tourism industry is that racing is very exciting.

There’s not that much prize money. There’s not as much sponsorship anymore, I think, compared to the early 2000s and mid, you know, late 90s. , you know, companies advertise differently. So you do not have to worry about where the dog food comes from. The tour is fun for the kennel, and the racing we do is mainly for fun. It takes a lot of the stress of having to race away, and we’re now doing more racing. We want to rather than just because we feel obligated to be relevant or if you have sponsors, you’re expected to do well because you want to make your sponsor proud. And so if you don’t have a lot of sponsors, you can kind of, well, we’re just going to take it easy this year, or you don’t have somebody breathing down your neck.

MM: Rohn, you come from a famous mushing family. How does your philosophy differ from your dad’s, if at all?

RB: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think my philosophy is pretty much like his. I mean, I learned a lot from him about how I train and work with dogs. Maybe I think there are some things that he can do, and there are probably some things that I can do a little better. Everybody implements techniques they learn from somewhere, so I just happened to learn from somebody who has done well, so it’s kind of nice to have that. My approach is pretty much the same. When I’ve run races, you pull into a checkpoint in the middle of the night, and people say I talk to the dogs like my dad does. It’s because I learned from him.

MM: Is there one thing that your dad taught you that always sticks with you regarding dogs?

RB: I think there’s a lot of things. It’d be hard to pinpoint any one thing.

MM: Is there any time you’re out there to hear your dad saying, X, Y, Z? Maybe not even advice.

RB: Yeah, I don’t know. I think the approach, just philosophy of how you run your dogs, is pretty much the same as I thought it’s like making sure your dogs are happy.

AB: Every single decision Rohn tries to make is in the dogs’ best interest. This is in the best interest of the dogs, which is what I feel Martin just really implemented in Rohn. If the dogs are happy, you’re doing a good job.

MM: What are the bloodlines in your kennel?

RB: The bloodlines that we have in our kennel are kind of split between dogs that come from my dad’s kennel. He’s been breeding dogs for 40-plus years. We did some litter splits with some dogs from Joar’s [Ulsom] kennel lines, which are just nice. Joar’s dogs go back to dogs from Norway mixed with some nice Alaskan lines. Mixing those back into the Happy Trails lines, which I’m a little partial to because I’ve run with more of their grandparents and great-grandparents and grew up around them. So yeah, we’ve got some nice lines we’re working with now.

MM: What makes a good sled dog in your kennel? What do you look for? Is it size? Is it weight? Is it head? Is it feet? What? Or a little bit of everything?

AB: Yeah, I’d say it’s a little bit of everything. What we’re, I think, first and foremost, that we’re looking for as far as for our kennel, mainly because we are doing the tours and looking for happy, happy, friendly, kind of outgoing dogs. If you want a sound dog, we’re looking for a dog with good conformation, feet, appetite, and a good coat. You’re looking for that perfect dog, which doesn’t exist, but that’s what every generation you’re trying to get. But if we’re picking out a dog, we are looking for just a pleasant dog to be around because that’s, you know, super important. You’re spending every single day with the dogs.

MM: How many people are involved in your kennel business, such as family handlers, etc., and what do you hope to have in the future?

AB: Right now, it’s just me and Rohn and our son, Kaladin.

He’s not very much help because he’s only two, but we have an employee, Hannah, who occasionally helped with tours this year. Part of one of our goals was to get a handler here on the property. We had so much work to do on the property when we moved in that we didn’t have time to build a handler cabin, but that’s something we’ll be able to do this summer. So Hannah and her partner Matt will be able to chip in, and we’re going to have full-time handlers, which will be such a big help.

Before having Kaladin, it wasn’t that big of a deal for Rohn and me to have the dogs because we both already had our kennels, so it was easy. But then having a child takes up our production, like, basically, more than half. Rohn was taking up so much more dog work, so it’ll be nice for us to have full-time handlers for this next season.

MM: Let’s switch things up a bit. Alyssa, what are your major achievements in mushing?

AB: My major achievement is just getting to this point in my life.

I’ve said that I wanted to have sled dogs, and it’s neat to be interviewed by Mushing Magazine because I used to get Mushing Magazine. I had so many copies of it; I would just read them and dream about having my kennel someday. All I wanted was to have my team of dogs and to be able to go out exploring with them. To me my biggest achievement is having the life I always dreamed about. This is what I always wanted, and it’s just really cool to look back at what I wanted as a kid and be like Wow! I’ve worked hard for this, and I achieved it.

Also, it’s being able to have the dogs and enjoy life with them; having a partner that I can do this with is cool. In racing, the biggest achievement that I’ve done is finishing the Knik 100. I’m not much of a racer, but racing is fun. I enjoy running the dogs—just being out on the trail with them.

MM: Rohn, tell us a little bit about your achievements.

RB: I think, well, as far as competitive racing and running dogs, I’ve won the Kusko 300 twice, so that’s a big achievement, and I’m very fortunate to have done well in that race several times. Then, I finished the Iditarod three times, which was a big accomplishment.

MM: What years did you run?

RB: 2008, 2012 and 2015. I think probably, though, in terms of working with sled dogs, my biggest achievement is probably starting my kennel. I think growing up around it is easy. I have the resources available, can run dogs, and I’ve had the infrastructure, and setting that up on your own is a lot of work. It’s also really rewarding once you’ve got to that point where you have a snow machine that you can use to go put in trails and then get on your sleds and run. Just building everything is a lengthy and involved process. Growing up, I always had access to all of that. I think you get a lot of fulfillment about building that stuff yourself.

MM: Rohn, you mentioned some of those challenges, too, such as getting into mushing on your own. What do you think has been one of the most major challenges with getting involved with this, and how did you overcome it?

RB: I mean, I think I have a huge advantage because I was able to observe kind of the way that a well -run kennel operated. A lot of ideas in terms of even just how you set your dog yard up, you want everything to be efficient because it’s a ton of work. Everything about working with dogs is a lot of work in terms of just daily maintenance of the dog’s feeding, cleaning up after them, and caring for them.

The more efficient you have just a daily routine, the more time you must spend training and interacting with your dogs, just working with them. So, I think that was a big idea for me. Even right now, our dog yard isn’t set up as ideally as I would like it to be, but that’s something that makes it more efficient to feed the dogs is something that we’re going to work on this summer. For instance, just putting the bowls on the houses saves you ten seconds if the bowl is flipped over, but you multiply that by 30 by 365. You’re saving yourselves entire days if you don’t have to dig through the snow and search for a bowl after we get a bunch of snow. Figure out a way to make everything more efficient. Yeah, I think that’s a huge one.

Having the experience to draw from, too, is nice. I mean, it’s such a hard thing to get into because there are so many little things. Running dogs is a simple concept, you know. Get some dogs, hook them up to a harness, put them on the sled, and go on the trail. But then even, putting in trail systems, if you’re somewhere where you have to put in your trails, I know there are people that that’s a huge hurdle because you have to have a –  I mean, don’t have to, you can, you can put in a trail with the dog team, or you can snowshoe it. You know, there are ways of doing it, but to, do longer runs and do it efficiently, you know, it’s just resource intensive. Everything.

AB: Piggybacking off what Rohn was talking about, I think the hardest challenge of having sled dogs is financial. It costs so much; you can do it on a shoestring budget, but it makes everything more challenging. For me, I’ve struggled for years and years and years, just like working hard to try and make sure that I was financially set up to take care of the dogs. You know, you might not have a good snow machine. Or I didn’t have money for a snow machine.

I would use the dogs to put in a trail to get to a trail system that someone had got to. My biggest hurdle was learning because I didn’t have a mentor who had done much more than a few sprint races. Probably my significant hurdles were financial, like supplying for this financially, taking care of it, and then gaining experience. We’ve hit this point where it’s finally a little easier. Yeah, we can finally do things more efficiently, making your life easier.

MM: Tell us about your tourism business.

AB: We try and give people a great sledding experience. We started giving tours because someone had knocked on our door in Northern California and asked us if you could provide us with a ride. We realized that it was an excellent way for the dogs to pay for their food, and it was excellent socialization for the dogs. I like them meeting new people all the time and having fun. We take people out on dog sled rides in the wintertime, and then they get to come and meet the dogs, interact with them, and learn about dog mushing in the summertime.

MM: What types of programs do you offer?

RB: We offer summer and winter tours. The summer tour is mainly a meet and greet of the dogs, of getting people a chance to interact with sled dogs, take people in our yard, they can pet the dogs, we turn a group of our dogs loose and do free run time with the dogs. We also have the option of people going on a walk with our dogs. Just go strolling around, and people get to see the dogs romping around and playing, which is a big part of how we work with dogs. We like our dogs to all have good recall and good manners.

So that’s the summer part of it. And then, in the winter, we do rides that are not super long because it can get cold here. We’ve focused on doing rides that are long enough to give people a full experience—you feel like you’re out on the trail. But we don’t do overnights or all-day events right now.

MM: Are you guys doing all the driving, or are they driving on their own, in the basket, or how it is set up?

RB: One person will be sitting in the front of the sled, and then one person will be standing. They have two sets of handlebars. And sometimes, when we have bigger groups of people, they’ll be on a tag sled behind the sled in front. So, it depends, but mainly, we run with the double-driver sleds. One person sitting, one person standing, and we usually have them switch around halfway through so everybody can have the whole experience of sitting, you’re closer to the dog. It’s easier to take pictures than standing. We also offer night tours as well. We do the same thing, a one-hour ride out and back at night.

MM: I’m sure people ask, “Can I come up and see the northern lights?” And many people don’t understand that it’s not a time, right? And it’s usually at like four o’clock in the morning.

AB: a tour guest asked us when we turned on the northern lights. We have had people call and ask, like, you know, if we come at this time to see the Northern Lights. We don’t even really advertise our night tour as a Northern Lights tour because, you know, it’s so hit and miss, and it’s like normally at 4 am. and we’re not going to be out at 4 am. so we’re just kind of more of a night mushing, but yes people do ask for sure.

MM: Who is your ideal client?

AB: Anyone who wants to experience dog mushing, who likes the outdoors, who loves dogs, and maybe wants to learn more about dog mushing or wants to go on, people who have already been dog mushing and want to go again. Our ideal plan is for anyone who wants to have a good time. Many people find us through our website. We are also on TripAdvisor, on Airbnb for all the spots. I’ll say everything.

MM: Are most of your clients out-of-state visitors, or are they Alaskans or a little bit of everything?

AB: We have, I’d say about 75% are from out of state and then the rest are Alaskans. We love having Alaskans come. It’s fun to get to share the state sport with other Alaskans. And, you know, Alaskans are great because they’re, they’re, they’re hearty people. So, we offer Alaskans the opportunity to try and encourage them to come out because it’s hard sometimes. I think living here, so many tourists and things like this are geared at tourists, and it’s expensive to tour in your state. So, we will try to offer a discount to locals.

MM: When your clients come up, what are their expectations? I know that’s hard to answer, but when somebody thinks about a tour like this. Do they have this romantic idea, or do you have an entirely different idea that you can give them? What do you think their expectations are when they book with you?

RB: The other day for a tour I went out to greet him and he was like, man I was expecting some grizzled old guy looking like a sourdough and to be taking us out. You look like you’re from California or something. That’s a young person. So I don’t know if, like, because there is kind of that, you know, I guess, a stereotype of a musher being, you know, somebody all like big beard and very weathered guess. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually, but I’m not there yet. What’s nice about doing tourism is we showcase our dogs and how we work with our dogs and just kind of share that with people. And hopefully, that gives people an idea of what it’s like into the lifestyle of working with dogs.

AB: But we decided to go to Alaska for most of the clients we get. When we got here, we looked up stuff to do and came out to your guy’s place. So that’s, that’s kind of the, I think the majority of what we get, we don’t get a ton of tours like that, we’ll go off on this other trail, maybe take a little bit longer, or we might spend a little bit more time in the dog yard with them if they’re enjoying it, where if you’re on like a cruise schedule, you have to get going. So, I think that that’s kind of, that’s what we like about having our set up going like kind of our clientele that we’ve based it towards is that we get to adjust based on what people want and what they need.

MM: How do you prepare your guests who jump out of the rental car and are ready to get on the trail?

AB: It’s always nice to have your face layers on, but we have the gear they can wear, kind of no matter what. We don’t cancel because of the cold, but we absolutely will refund our guests if it is cold if they want to cancel, and so far, we haven’t had anyone cancel. Last year, we had people from central California who came when the thermometer was reading 50 below. Our thermometer is a little traumatic, so it was probably closer to 40 below and still cold for California.

MM: Is there anything you guys offer on your trips, whether it be summer or winter, that separates you from a different experience than somebody else? For example, maybe a tour company goes out five miles and has s’mores or something like that. Is there something that is expected of yours that may not be different or may be different from others?

RB: I think it’s the interaction with the dogs for us. I don’t believe any other tour company has the dogs running loose with the guests and letting them interact with the dogs like we do. Especially in the summertime, it’s all about the guests getting up close and personal with the dogs. Our guests have told us they’ve gone on other tours and did not get to spend as much time with the dogs. When we return from the run, if the guests are cold and want to go in the cabin, they absolutely can. But nine times out of ten, the guests spend another 20 minutes in the yard petting the dogs and interacting with them. I think that that’s something that, like, we try and give our guests time to pet the dogs instead of rushing them, you know, on to the next thing. So the next one is, did you have something?

MM: Let’s talk a little bit about your little boy. When will he start mushing?

AB: Our son Kaladin, and he’ll be two on July 27th. Technically, his first time on the dog sled was when I was pregnant with him. But we took him out in the carrier when he was about three or four months old, and we should have logged how many miles he did this year. He came full training with us almost every single run, and he started going in the carrier this season with us. Then he’s graduated to riding in the sled bag, and he has his own smaller dog sled that he got for his birthday last year from Rohn’s parents, and he’s been riding that around, but it’s a little scary if the dog pulls him so Rohn and I are on this sled dog right now.

Okay? He’s getting pretty good at it. We didn’t realize he was watching us. When you pull him around, he starts taking a foot off the pedal and helping you push up the hill and all kinds of stuff, so I think maybe this next winter he might go out on his own sled. We’ll have to see if it’s whatever he wants to, yeah. If I remember correctly, when he was small, you would carry him in a backpack.

He’s getting so independent now. He gets mad when he’s restrained in the backpack. So, it started with the baby front carrier, and then he graduated to the backpack. And then, towards the end of the season, we felt comfortable being in the dog sled. And then, in the last month of the season, I was taking him and, you know, like a race sled. And he started asking me if he could get out and on the runners with me, but they’re still too far apart for him, so maybe next year we’ll build him a seat on the sled or something so he can feel like he’s on the runners with us.

MM: Rohn, when you grow up mushing, are you going to say, “Hey, you got it; you got to run Junior Iditarod,” or are you going to let him make his own path, if you will?

RB: I think it was available to my brother and me to do just because the dogs were there, and so there wasn’t any expectation or any pressure of you got to give the dogs water and scoop poop. We didn’t have that obligation. And I think that’s nice because, first, you don’t want to put a lot of pressure on a kid to do anything. It was something that primarily my dad did. My mom was a schoolteacher when I was growing up. So, she had her full-time occupation. My dad was doing sled dogs full time. So, it was just one thing that one of our parents did. And if we wanted to do that, you know, then then we were expected to help.

But it wasn’t, I think if anything, our parents discouraged us a little bit from doing it, which is good, you want to see if you want to do it, you know, it wasn’t something that was there was a pressure on, okay, you’re going to do that. So, I have chosen to do all the stuff with dogs that I’ve done because I wanted to, not necessarily because it was an expectation put on me other than maybe my expectation. And so, for our son, we’re, I think, doing it the same way if he wants to work with the dogs and run dogs, which for us is a little different because both of us run dogs.

We’re probably doing more camping trips with the sled dogs than I grew up, just because my mom had a full-time job outside of running dogs, so We’ll do more family trips. So, he’ll probably get roped into those, you know, more, just because hey, your mom and dad are going to go camping, and you’re going to come to, yeah, you won’t be able to stay with the babysitter all the time.3+

MM: Growing up, did you experience burnout?

RB: Yeah, I think I didn’t necessarily experience it as from a junior, but it was in my early twenties, I guess, when it had been something that was kind of my only, the only thing I’d done.

So, I needed a few years to see the world outside of running dogs. And I think it’s important for anybody who grows up in Alaska to spend some time in the lower 48 somewhere, just because you do get a different worldview. You know, Alaska is great. And I think there are a lot of amazing things in Alaska, but I mean, even just conceptually.

Living somewhere where you’re on a road system where there are other roads around you for every direction is kind of a different frame of reference because, in Alaska, everything’s kind of on the this a few highway corridors, essentially living somewhere where you can keep traveling in one direction or the other. I mean, the Lower 48 has a lot of stuff going on. It’s just different. So, I think it’s a good thing to do to spread your wings. You spend time outside. And then, I chose to come back to Alaska because there is much of the world to see.

That wraps up our interview with the Busers at Susitna Sled Dog Adventures. You can learn more about them and their business and lifestyle at susitnasledogs.com