Three days, coffee, toast and orange juice with 200 dogs
Jorge Barerra
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 04/01) - Five minutes before the race 200 dogs start barking.
At the start line the trampled snow is littered with patches of yellow and the air smells like straw.
Behind a row of 21 lanes carved through the snow last-minute preparation for the second leg of last weekend's NMI Mobility Canadian Championship Dog Derby unfold.
In lane 13 Richard Beck's dogs start tugging at their chains hooked around the base of his pick-up truck. Beck and his handlers unhook each dog and strap on the racing harnesses. The dogs squirm.
Grabbed by the collar they yelp as handlers carry them to their spots on the line. Beck's wife Vi has the end of the dog-line around her waist, she's crouched and facing frantic handlers lugging and attaching dogs.
The mad cacophony of barking swells. The dogs smell a race.
With under 30 seconds to go Beck pulls out the snow claw -- an iron hook with two prongs -- dug in the snow. The dogs strain. A rope attached to the sleigh from his truck tightens. A wooden "T" threaded through a loop in the rope and a looped latch attached to the back of the sleigh holds it together.
Beck sits in fourth place, one minute behind third-place musher Craig Williams from Fort Nelson, B.C. and two minutes behind leader Buddy Streeper, also from Fort Nelson.
The dog derby's 150- mile middle distance race is tough. Push too hard and the dogs get tired, pull back and you end up last.
"Ninety per cent of dog teams in the world couldn't run this race," says David Anderson, president of the Canadian Championship Dog Derby.
The first dog derby race in Yellowknife ran in 1955. It was 40 miles and the prize money was only $50. Alfred Drygeese from Dettah took it. Now, drivers race for big-time cash. First place gets $15,000, second place gets $11,250, and third place $8,250.
The winner of each leg gets $750.
A family affair
Beck started racing over 20 years ago. He dropped out after the first leg his first year. The next year he lasted two legs, but kept coming back. Finally in 1981 he finished third. The next year he finished second and the next year he won. A feat he would repeat three times from 1986-'88.
The Beck name permeates dog mushing history in the North. The Beck family have won Canadian Dog Derby championships 22 times. And Beck is back for more.
A minute before the race starts Beck says coming out of the chute is his biggest concern since all 21 lanes merge into one.
"You have to decide whether you pull back or try to push ahead of the other teams," says Beck.
Beck is running with nine dogs. The limit is 10. He's using the same two young lead dogs bred by his son John he used the day before. He contemplates switching them but they look strong.
He's resting three of his dogs. One of them is sick and another didn't drink its water.
A yellow banner with the word Yellowknifer in black letters flaps in a feeble wind. Beneath it standing on a flat-bed trailer the starter holds up a rifle and the announcer begins the countdown -- 15 seconds. The temperature is a crisp -15 C. Under clear skies the track is a clean crystal blue-white.
Rifle shot
Beck yanks the wooden "T." The dogs burst from the gate, howling. Vi Beck, John Beck and Dean Morin the handler, rush to get on snow machines.
Vi Beck follows every leg of the race, criss-crossing Yellowknife Bay keeping times and keeping track of her husband of 31 years. Dog racing is ingrained in the family. She says it creates a unifying and stabilizing force. It's a thing everyone shares.
"Dog racing taught our children values."
She's no stranger to racing, taking the reigns herself on a few occasions at other races.
"I guess the thing I add is that I give Richard the time," she says. "Sometimes he comes home at midnight taking care of the dogs."
"If I didn't mind being alone at home it would be a lot more difficult," she says.
They both have day jobs. But dog racing is more than a hobby, it's a lifestyle demanding sacrifices but offering countless benefits in return.
Northern success aside, in 1994 Richard went to Europe for a race through the Alps. He placed 16th in a field of 53.
In the second leg of the Yellowknife dog derby things unravelled. Just past the fourth check point before a 10-mile loop one of Beck's dogs faltered. With one foot Beck dug the break bar into the snow and stuck the snow claw down. He ran to his tired dog, released it and carried it back to the sleigh. He carried the dog for the next 30 miles in a special canvas compartment on the sleigh. It slowed him down. He began the race in second place but finished in eighth.
After the race, feeding his dogs a soup of water, ground chicken, liver fat, wheat germ and Mazola oil in silver bowls, he says he can still crack the top three.
He's only three minutes off third place and sitting in fifth.
"We still got tomorrow," says Beck.
"Considering what happened today we did pretty good," he says. Beside Beck on lane 14 Yellowknife veterinarian Dr. Tom Pisz gathers urine samples with a glass vile attached to a metal rod from some skittish dogs.
"We test for performance-enhancing drugs like anabolic steroids," says Pisz.
The dogs belong to Jacque Phillip from Fairbanks, Alaska who finished third. Dogs from the top three finishing teams are randomly tested after the race.
Beck and his handler Morin lift their dogs back into their boxes on the truck. Each box is filled with straw. The straw keeps the dogs warm. Twelve boxes line each side of the truck in two rows of six with chicken wire faces on each door. Tonight he'll rub the muscles on each dog until midnight. The next morning the race is delayed by two hours. An overnight snowfall wiped out parts of the track.
Beck relaxes in his truck beside his wife waiting for plows to clear the lanes. For the last three days he's lived on nothing but toast, coffee and orange juice.The race starts at 2 p.m. The snow stops falling and Beck says he's pulling out all the stops. He's sitting in fifth place, a little over three minutes behind third.
First place is virtually out of reach. Streeper is 12 minutes ahead of second place.
"I have three fresh dogs," says Beck, but sticks with the same leaders. Last race under grey skies. Gun shot. Dogs burst down the lanes, jaws snapping. Like a slow wave their barks crash at the point where all lanes converge. Some teams get tangled, the rest shoot through. At the race's hub in a trailer beside the finish line, Dave Bowles, vice-president of the dog derby, types interval times into the race's Web site, updated every three minutes.
Updates flood over cell phones connected to each of the nine check points. The third leg ends in a fight between Ken Anderson from Alaska edging out Craig Williams from Fort Nelson, B.C. on the home stretch. Streeper finishes in a comfortable fourth and takes the final talley.
Beck finishes ninth. One of his young leaders cramped up during the race. He shakes his head in disappointment back at his truck. "I should have seen he was stiff," says Beck. "I saw him walking around the truck but I didn't see him run around."
He finishes seventh and takes home $1,500.
Flakes of snow begin falling. A dog yelps from behind a chicken wire door. Beck's black hair is matted and sweat-soaked on his forehead. With his blue coat half-zipped and his hands in his pockets he takes laboured steps back to his truck. On the way across the empty, snow-cleared parking lot a pick-up truck pulls up, the driver rolls down the window and asks him how it went.
Even champions get the blues.
