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INUVIK
She placed 10th and was the only woman to finish one of the world's most challenging sled dog races. Now, Inuvik's Marie-Anick Elie is back at home taking a well-deserved break.

Rookie Marie-Anick Elie of Inuvik rounds a corner near Goose Lake on the final day of the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race on Feb. 26. - Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News photo

The race, the Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Races, held in Anchorage, Ala. from Feb. 24-26, is an open race, allowing racers to tie as many dogs on the line as they want. It is also an obstacle course through an urban landscape of downtown Anchorage – through culverts, foot bridges, and over highways on pedestrian bridges and down roads bordered with crowds.

Elie started dog sledding in 2000, a few years after she moved to Inuvik from Quebec City, and has been preparing for the Rondy, as the race is called, training and building up her kennel, for the past three years.

Elie and her team – she brought 25 of her 30 dogs to Alaska – got some practice participating in the Alaska Sled Dog and Racing Association ExxonMobil Open sled dog race before the big Rondy. Elie said the team had to overcome a few obstacles to get back on track such as fighting a dog flu as well as acclimatizing to the 8 C and 12 C days in Anchorage versus the -30 C temperatures the dogs had been training in back home in Inuvik.

At the Rondy, Elie used 17 dogs during the first race day, 14 on the second and 13 on the third. The race was spread out over three days, with 25 miles for the dogs to sprint each day. Elie said finishing 10th, with the best sled dog racers in the world, was unreal.

"That’s fabulous for me. I was not expecting to finish so strong … It's the toughest race in the world. I finished before people I see in magazines, people I have lots of respect for," she said.

"It's something I wanted to do at least once in my life and I've checked it off. I want to do it again but at least I know I did it once."

Physically testing

She said the race was testing physically but also mentally. It was set worlds away from the quiet, crisp lakes and trails of Inuvik but in a downtown core where people lined the streets a few metres from the sled, cheering her name.

"Knowing that it was one of the toughest sprint races in the world – and it's tough because you end up going downtown in a city, under culverts, under bridges, over bridges, there's traffic, there are people everywhere and cheering for you and calling you by your name – to actually be able to participate, nevermind place 10th, but saying OK I have a team that I feel can finish that race, for me was a big achievement," she said.

Being able to mingle with the wealth of knowledge congregated in Anchorage, conversing about breeding, feeding, training, was also a major highlight for Elie.

Susan Duck, executive director of the Rondy, said she was honoured to have Elie racing this year.

"She was a great competitor and showed skill and grace during the very challenging race, as well as throughout her time in Anchorage," wrote Duck in an e-mail.

Now, Elie is back home taking care of her strong team of dogs, toying with the idea of entering the Muskrat Jamboree races, but said she needs to think of her team first and foremost.

She said the years she participated in the Jamboree is a really big reason why she was able to take part in the Rondy this year.

"Without that experience, it would be very difficult for me to go and race," she said.

From getting on her first set of runners 15 years ago to starting her own team, to acquiring tips and hints from the welcoming community of mushers in Inuvik and the surrounding area, and slowly building up to the strong troupe she has maneuvered through the Rondy, Elie is sitting quite comfortably in the company of some of the world's most acclaimed racers.

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