Way Up North - Volunteering for the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race Next Week

My wife and I worked as backcountry rangers in what was then a new National Park Service area in Alaska called Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve in the early 80's. We thought we'd be living in a wall tent but ended up working out of an old roadhouse called the Slaven Cabin during the summers of 1982 and 1983.

The cabin is out there - miles from any town or road - on the banks of the Yukon River between Circle and Eagle, Alaska. We haven't been back since 1983 and we're headed there this Sunday, February 10th, to volunteer for the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race.

Back in the day, the cabin was a place for sternwheelers to put on wood in the summer and for the mail-carrier dog teams to warm up and layover in the winter. There was also an active gold mine with a dredge nearby on Coal Creek. The mine was still operating when we were there in the 80's tho the dredge had been shut down. Since our time the gold mine has shut down and the mine, the dredge AND the cabin have been turned over to the Park Service.

The refurbished Slaven Cabin is a resting place and dog-drop on the 1,000 mile route of the Yukon Quest. Our mission will be to help Park Service folks keep the fire going, the food warm and maintain a hole in the up-to-6-foot-deep ice of the Yukon so that we can haul water for the dogs. If it snows we get to help pack the snow on the river so planes can land and to try to keep the race-route in decent shape. Mushers can come in any time of the night or day so we'll have a night shift and a day shift.

The race runs for 1,000 miles between Fairbanks, Alaska and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. They flip the start every other year and this year it starts in Fairbanks.

We're psyched to go back after all these years, and even more so because there's a Cool Works connection with one of the mushers. Cool Works helped Julie Estey find her way to Alaska. I met her in Girdwood a couple of years ago. She left a perfectly good cubicle in Chicago to mush dogs in Jackson Hole and then became the Executive Director of the Yukon Quest for a few years. She gave that up last spring so that she can run the race this year. We'll see her at the start on Saturday and again 300 miles down the trail when she gets to the Slaven Cabin.

Check out her Musher Profile and track the race.

It was 42 below zero in Fairbanks yesterday. This will be a wake-up call, even coming from Yellowstone.

The winner of the Quest last year was Lance Mackey who also won the Iditarod - a truly super-human feat given that both races go for over 1,000 miles and there's not that much time between them.

We'll be at about mile 300 at the Slaven Cabin Sunday the 10th through the 15th or so, whatever it takes to see the last musher through and get the place cleaned up. We hope to have some stories and photos to share.

Current Time and Temp in Fairbanks

Feb 22 - Colette and I are back in Seattle, working our way back to Montana tomorrow. Twelve mushers have finished the race, 3 are still mushing and 8 mushers scratched. They bill it as the "Toughest Sled Dog Race in the World". I won't argue that.

Here's a video of the race start - it was between 40 and 50 below zero:

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and here's Michelle Phillips leaving the Slaven Cabin. 300 miles down and 700 to go. She ended up finishing an impressive 4th place.


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Check out the slideshow on Flickr and look for more vids and stories soon at My CoolWorks.

My favorite photo....