Delta looks to repeat glory-filled dog days of past
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Feb 19/01) - With the big dog mushing races just ahead, no one's giving away any secrets.
So a lot of what Tuktoyaktuk musher Jack Jacobson says about his team ends with, "That's not for the paper."
Like mushers all over the Northwest Territories, Jacobson is training his team up for the coming season, running each dog two days in every three. Though he grew up in a family that always had dogs, this is just the second year Jacobson has had his own team.
"Right now, if you're not running 12's and 16's (miles each outing), you know you're behind because the races are 25 miles. The dogs have to find their pace over that distance."
The secrecy is an indication of how competitive mushing has become in the region and Jacobson is among a small group of newcomers focusing exclusively on racing instead of using dogs for both racing and sport hunting.
Joe Nasogaluak, with 20 years experience under his belt, is the current undisputed leader of the local racing pack and one of the driving forces behind the increasing level of competition in the community.
Using the same dogs he uses for sport hunting, Nasogaluak last year won all the races in a series organized by the Tuktoyaktuk Dog Mushers Association.
That was the first year the association ran the series, a race every two weeks.
Nasogaluak has yet to be bettered in the first two local races this year.
"If you've got a good team, you can run any race," he said. Sport hunting dogs, because they have to pull heavier loads, are generally more muscular, and slower, than racing dogs. Nasogaluak referred to hometown mushing hero Peter Norberg, who in 1981 won an international sprint race, then went to Yellowknife and broke the course record in winning the three-day 150 mile Caribou carnival race.
Timing of the season, which consists of the races held in conjunction with spring jamborees in each community, is not the best for mushers who also take out sport hunters.
"You train them all year and your team is on a high end in February, when they're going sometimes 30 or 40 miles a day on hunts that can last 14 days," Nasogaluak said. "Then you start training for the jamboree races and they just don't have the speed. You can finish the races, no problem, but you just don't have the speed."
Winning season
This year Nasogaluak is hoping to up the competitive ante a notch by making the two-day 50-mile Peter Norberg Memorial Race held during the Beluga Jamboree, an open class event, meaning you can use as big a team as you want.
It's a tough chore for those new to racing, like Jacobson, who are just building up their teams, but Nasogaluak said it's a step that needs to be taken if the race is to continue attracting competitive mushers.
"When you run 16 dogs it's hard to go back to eight dogs," he said. "You've got that power and you've got the speed and it's hard to go back."
Nasogaluak said he likes the developments taking place on the local scene.
"Since I started, our guys have been getting racing sleds and buying high-end dogs.
They see the guys down south and do what they're doing and that's what they need to do to race in places like Yellowknife."
