THE TRAILS OF THE YUKON QUEST
As far back as the late 1970’s, the founders of the Quest fostered a vision for a long distance sled dog race that would accomplish several important goals…a race that would highlight and guarantee the perpetuation of the qualities and traditions associated with the true working sled dog, a marathon event that would be a true test of the mettle of both mushers and dogs, an international spectacle that would relive Yukon/Alaskan gold rush history, and all of this to be staged over historic trails, some of which had not been used in decades. The story of the short-lived “Rush of ‘98”, the Klondike Gold Rush that saw thousands of glazed-eyed gold seekers scrambling northward over the Chilkoot and White Passes before drifting down the Yukon River water way to Dawson City is well known. What is not as well known is that for three decades before this, gold seekers had been slowly working their way from both the south and the north towards what would become the Klondike mother-lode centred at Dawson City. During this period the trails, both the overland and water routes were opened up and communities like Circle City, Eagle, Forty Mile, Fort Selkirk, Fort Cudahy, Fort Constantine and Stewart City were established along what would become the Quest trail.
Short of travel by snowshoe, sled dogs were the only way to overcome the isolation of the Klondike in the early years following the gold rush. When Klondike Mike Mahoney, one of the most famous of the early gold rush dog freighters mushed his dogs “outside” from Dawson to Skagway return, it took about a month He followed what was essentially the original, but certainly not the shortest route, along the Yukon River system. In summer months, the river stern-wheeler dominated transportation between the Klondike and the “outside” and it was only to be expected that there would also be a loud call for an improved winter transportation route. In 1902 the Yukon government contracted the White Pass and Yukon Route to build the first winter road between Whitehorse and Dawson, known as the Overland Trail. There was weekly and sometimes daily travel over this route using horses and sleighs and beginning in 1929 sleighs pulled by caterpillar tractors. Today’s Quest trail is following these same trails and some of the well-known and almost mystical landmarks such as Yukon Crossing, Stepping Stone and Maisy Mae date back to this era.
Mike Mahoney also travelled north from Dawson all the way to Fairbanks, as did other dog freighters like Hudson Stuck and Arthur Walden, mail carriers like Charlie Biederman, Percy de Wolfe, Ben Downing, news reporters like Tappen Adney and traders like Jack McQuestern. In the process they firmly established the winter transportation routes between Dawson City, Forty Mile, Eagle, Circle, Central and Chatanika, the communities along the present day Quest trail that travels over both Eagle and Twelve Mile summits. The ongoing expansion of gold mining has led to the construction of many new access roads. The emerging use of the airplane beginning in the late 1920’s significantly changed the need for overland winter travel in the north and of course in both the Yukon and Alaska, the routing of original trails has been influenced by the construction of highways….but those original routes are still there and they are being used….by the Quest.
DOGS OF THE QUEST
While sled dogs have always been part of recorded Yukon/Alaskan history, archaeologists have actually traced the presence of sled dogs in the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic back at least 4,000 years. These were the dogs that accompanied the Asian migrants who were part of the Tuniit or Dorset culture to the North American Arctic coast …these dogs are still with us today, known as Eskimo, Inuit and Greenland dogs. The Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890’s, assisted by writers like Robert Service and Jack London cast a microscope on the world of the gold seeker, including the role that sled dogs played in this larger-than-life extravaganza. The sled dogs used during the Gold Rush probably came from three different sources. The Eskimo Dog mentioned above and raised and used by the Inupiak people of Alaska‘s northwest coast was one influence. During the gold rush the term malamute as in “Malamute Saloon” or “Mush You Malamutes!” was heard a lot, probably Service liked the alliteration. It is quite possible that the term stems from the name Mahlemut, which was one sub-group of the Inupiak people known to raise these dogs. Some of these incredibly hardy work animals did eventually become known as the Alaskan Malamute, but not until 1935 when they became a man-made breed registered by the American Kennel Club. A second influence was the Peel River dogs of the Gwich’in of Telit Zheh [Fort MacPherson N.W.T.] and Tsiigehtchic [Arctic Red River N.W.T.]. These people are closely related to the Gwich’in people of Fort Yukon Alaska and Old Crow Yukon. All of these people in turn are of the same linguistic group as the Han or Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation people who are resident in the Dawson City/Moosehide region of the Yukon. Their dogs were the Mackenzie River Huskies, a large and hardy mix of the Eskimo Dog described above and a small fox-like dog that was used by the Dene people and described by Samuel Hearne in the late 1700’s as being “of various sizes and colours…of the fox and wolf breed, with sharp noses, full bushy tails and sharp ears standing erect”. A third influence were the dogs known as the Outlanders. These were the big mixed-breed mongrels that were scooped off the streets of San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and places in between and transported to the Yukon where they were sold for hundreds of dollars. The photos of the Gold Rush are full of these shaggy, floppy eared dogs, always harnessed to a sled and often with a confused look on their faces. The fictional Buck of Call of the Wild fame was an Outlander. A hundred years ago these dogs were mushing the same Klondike trails used by the Quest teams today. While there is a chance that some of their blood could be coursing the veins of present day Quest dogs, the reality is there have been several more influences determining just what sled dogs look like in today’s Quest. Even in the 30 years since the first Quest there is a noticeable difference in the appearance of the Quest dogs. Generally now they are smaller, they have lighter coats and they look more athletic. In the early days of the Quest, many of the dogs were closely related to the Siberian Husky breed. Today anything goes, as long as the dog combines the essential characteristics of hardiness, a willingness to run, good feet, a voracious appetite and speed.
FEEDING QUEST DOGS
In 1898, Klondike Mike Mahoney was preparing to carry the mail from Dawson City to Skagway and one of his biggest concerns was getting enough proper feed for his dogs. He would have to carry all of the feed for the 650 mile journey with him. He felt that had it been possible to get dried fish or dry fatty meats like winter-killed caribou, a pound to a pound and a quarter per day per dog would have been enough. The only dog food left in Dawson, however, was fresh frozen fish and so high in water content that each dog required three pounds of it a day. Fortunately he was told about a miner on Hunker Creek who had a cache of frozen horse meat. Mike traded him flour for it, pound for pound. This cut in half the weight of dog food that he needed to carry. Mike Mahoney understood a bit about the metabolism of the working sled dog. He knew that in order to work they needed to ingest a meat or fish-based protein and lots of fat. In actual fact, the diet of a working sled dog is a little more complicated than that, and of course lots of water to prevent dehydration is essential.
Over the thirty years of the Quest, there have been very significant changes in the way that the stars of the event, the dogs, are fed. When the 26 teams lined up at the start line for the first running of the Quest in 1984 it was more than a race, it was a journey of discovery. Much of the knowledge about caring for dog teams while running marathon distances had been lost. It’s true that beginning with the first running of the Iditarod Trail race in 1973, this knowledge was slowly being rediscovered. But the Quest, with gigantic distances between some check points presented unique challenges and Quest mushers faced the same dilemma as Mike Mahoney.
We now know that Quest dogs need up to 10,000 calories a day, that the diet must contain about 30% meat or fish-based protein, at least 20% fat and refined/cooked carbohydrates in lesser amounts as well as a number of trace elements. The primary ingredient in 1984 commercial dog food was some type of grain/vegetable-based protein, wheat, oats, soya bean, rice or corn. While this type of diet will keep a dog alive, it is not a diet that will enable a dog to compete in a race like the Quest. The Quest mushers knew this and so they carried large amounts of frozen meat of all types as well as fish and fat to supplement the commercial dog feed. Choice meats included beaver and lamb, as both tend to be higher in fat content. White fish tends to retain a great amount of moisture and so was a favourite snack food as it helped to combat dehydration.
In order to ensure that the dogs would be properly fed, the 1984 Quest rules mandated that the sled must carry a specified amount [by weight] of dog food for each dog in the team, the amount was determined by the distance between checkpoints. For the 300 mile run from Carmacks to Dawson City, it was necessary to carry 25 pounds of dog food per dog and officials did have a weigh scale at the checkpoint. For a 12 dog team that meant 300 pounds of dog food alone, You can imagine just how heavily loaded those sleds were, prompting the emergence of a Yukon rural myth that just around the first corner after each checkpoint there was a huge pile of dog food, jettisoned by the mushers as they were out of sight of race officials. The reality is that there was no way that a team could complete these distances without having all of that dog food. Many teams that became stalled by severe weather faced the reality of having to scratch from the race because they were running out of dog food.
With new preservative technology the weigh scales are gone, it is now possible to purchase commercial dog foods that are based on a meat, poultry or fish-based protein. Today’s “high tech” commercial dog foods are nothing like the dog chows of yesterday. This means that it is possible to carry an extremely nutritious and balanced diet for a working dog at a fraction of the previous weight. Mushers still carry meat, fish and fat. Some of this will be mixed with the commercial dog food when the dogs are being fed a hot meal while some is used for “snacking” the dogs.
During the race, mushers run their teams on a strict schedule that is largely determined by the dogs’ need for nutrition. While schedules vary, a sample one might see the dogs running two hours and then being snacked with a portion of lamb or white fish or beef or horsemeat and then running another two hours and being given a “wet” snack which is essentially flavoured or baited water…the dogs think they are eating but the mushers think the dogs are drinking. At the same time the dogs might be given some dry kibble served right on the snow and there might also be a short rest. The team would run another two hours and then have a long rest complete with a hot meal that would consist of kibble and meat together with water, they may even be fed a second time before recommencing their run. The general rule of thumb is that the time running and resting should be essentially equal although some mushers in recent races have demonstrated that their dogs are capable of truly epic runs of long distances, as long as they are being kept well fed and hydrated.
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