OXFORD – A steady downpour didn’t keep dog sledders away from the Down East Sled Dog Club Trade Fair and Seminar this weekend. A hundred or more local mushers gathered in the expo halls at the muddy Oxford County Fairgrounds Saturday to check out the goods sold by vendors, chat with fellow enthusiasts and listen to guest speakers.
Kathy Pickett, one of the event’s organizers and co-owner, with husband Gary, of Nooksack Racing Supply in Oxford, was pleased with the turnout. Of course, for someone whose sport requires snow and temperatures at least as cold as 40 degrees, a little rain is no obstacle at all.
“Everything else revolves around the dogs,” Pickett said of the life of a musher. Pickett and her family took up dog sledding in 1975 when they moved to the state from Oregon. “We didn’t want to snowmobile or ski, so we decided to get a dog team,” she said. Since that time, the dogs have been a factor in decisions ranging from vacations to careers to property purchases for various family members.
Pickett said her daughter, SaraVanderwood, bought 88 acres of land for her dogs to run and play on. Vanderwood and husband Marc own Nooksack Racing, also in Oxford, and keep twenty dogs in their kennel. Vanderwood said mushing is more a lifestyle than a hobby, agreeing with her mother that caring for the dogs is a 24/7 commitment.
Vanderwood begins training her canines in the fall. As soon as the temperature falls below 40 degrees, she said the dogs can be hitched to an ATV. When snow falls, members of the sled dog club practice on snowmobile trails or on land owned by Hancock Lumber in Casco. They race in Fryeburg and Farmington.
Speaker Rachel Scdoris described training her dogs before competing in the 2005 Iditarod. The 21-year-old from Bend, Ore., the first legally blind competitor to race in the grueling trek from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, said a typical day of training begins at 6 a.m. She feeds the dogs and drives into the mountains. There, she runs her dog team 50 to 60 miles, rests a few hours, and returns. While training for the Iditarod, Scdoris’ dogs ran 2,500 miles.
Although born legally blind, Scdoris can see shapes and lights. She cannot see colors or depth, and races with a visual interpreter who rides ahead and warns her of any dangers on the trail via a two-way radio.
“I fell a lot,” Scdoris said of her experience in Alaska. “I hit a lot of trees. It really hurt. I cut off a bit of fingertip, but it’s OK.” Scdoris estimated that she fell more than 100 times during the race. She was scratched from the race after reaching the Eagle Island Checkpoint, 732 miles from Anchorage, when her dogs showed signs of illness, but will compete again in the 2006 Iditarod.
Veteran Iditarod racer Tim Osmar will run as Scdoris’ guide this year. Osmar has finished in the top 20 almost every time he has run the Iditarod. “The only way he’d run it with me is if I promised to finish this year,” Scdoris said. She believes she can do it, and the fans who crowded into an exposition hall in Oxford to hear her speak Saturday will likely be following her progress and cheering her on all the way.
Comments are no longer available on this story