THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
For more than 30 years, Kevin Antoniak has been a dog musher in Fort Smith.

Kevin Antoniak is applying to obtain a tourism operator's licence to allow him to offer dogsled excursions in the NWT. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

And for the past three years - since he retired as an instructor at Aurora College - he has offered dogsled rides in northern Alberta as part of his company called Nivek Ltd.

That works out to an average of about a dozen rides a year.

"Most of the business has actually been locums - the nurses or doctors at the hospital," he noted.

"They're up here for their Northern experience and that's part of the thing."

Antoniak said it was difficult to offer the rides before he retired from the college because the locums have short windows of free time, but he had to be at the college during the day.

"The odd person would go for a night ride, but most people are not that comfortable riding at night," he said.

Now, he is in the process of taking his part-time business one step further by applying for a tourism operator's licence to allow him to offer dog team rides in the NWT, which he hopes will happen this winter.

Antoniak was a recreational musher before he retired, but had not always offered tours to people, except to some friends.

"But once I retired from the college and started my own business, then I could get insurance," he said, adding the biggest change since he retired is the amount of time he has to dedicate to his business.

Antoniak, who is originally from Ontario, had been with Aurora College's Environment and Natural Resources Technology Program since 1981, including time as an instructor and head of the program.

After his retirement, he created Nivek Ltd., which is incorporated in the NWT.

"Nivek is Kevin spelled backwards, but it sounds so northern," he noted. "It's such a great sounding name."

With the company, Antoniak also does some contract instruction at Aurora College and also teaches other courses in the community. For instance, he is a federal firearms instructor. In addition, he does some environmental work, such as helping bring southern researchers out onto the land.

Now, the 59-year-old is trying to make dogsled tours a bigger part of Nivek Ltd.

Currently, he offers hour-long rides on a loop in northern Alberta, where all that was required to operate was insurance and a Fort Smith business licence.

"We've spent a number of years developing what we think is a really good route," he said.

Antoniak and his wife, Rita, live on property on the Alberta border - where they have 20 pulling dogs, along with another retired dog. They don't have to leave their yard to enter Alberta for a dogsled tour.

Obtaining a tour operator's licence for the NWT will allow him to create a different route and might increase the number of people taking tours.

"I'm going to give it five years," said Antoniak, adding he'll then look at the endeavour and decide if he wants to keep going.

However, he is not doing it for the money.

"If I pay for my insurance each year, I'm lucky," he said.

In general, the prime time for dogsled tours is February and March.

Antoniak, who is chair of the Fort Smith Tourism Advisory Board, is looking to expand the number of dogsled tours partly to help offer more for winter visitors to Fort Smith, which can include everyone from locums to government employees to private travellers.

Some people dream their whole lives about taking a dogsled ride, he said.

"It's very emotional for a lot of people we take out. I'm just surprised."

Antoniak recalled one woman from England who became particularly emotional while on the dogsled ride.

"She just started to cry a little bit in the sled," he said.

"She was just so ecstatic. It's something they dreamed about as kids."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.