Friday marked the start of among the most renowned occasions at the Fur Rondy winter festival in Anchorage: the World Championship Sled Dog Races. The three-day sprint mushing occasion brought veterans and novices alike, all contending for the magnificence and reward money in front of a jam-packed crowd.
Andy Huetten from Nenana was the very first musher out of the chute at midday as hundreds collected downtown to enjoy. Dogs whimpered, barked, bounded and ran throughout the snow. An overall of 17 groups removed every 90 seconds.
Race authorities Rick Cavens saw each group pass, in front of Fur Rondy head office on fourth Avenue and D Street. He said he’s the race’s Avenue Ambassador, a task he referred to as a “glorified parking attendant and crowd control.”
Mushers and their sled dogs will race 3 days in a row, continuing Saturday and Sunday, to complete for the fastest total time, and their piece of a $55,000 bag. Cavens said the groups will run the same 26-mile loop each day. They’ll go out on city bike routes prior to travelling through Far North Bicentennial Park and looping back to the start as they struck the Campbell Park Airstrip.
Cavens, a veteran musher himself, said as they return, mushers might wind up in person on the path.
“You can have head-ons, which can be a little stimulating when you have 16 or more dogs,” he said.
Though competitors is definitely intense with 14 veterans signing up with 3 novices on the path, Cavens said there’s a great deal of friendship.
As crowds cheered on their preferred mushers, Cavens beamed. He said the Fur Rondy sprint races precede the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and at a time it was the premier sled dog occasion in the state.
”It’s a sport substantiated of working-class dogs,” Cavens said. “These are ordinary men and women racing these dogs. Raising them, and just trying to put a little extra spin. You walk up to another guy’s truck and go, ‘I think I can do that better.’”
Cavens sees the Fur Rondy as a family affair.
He mushed dogs for 23 years, and all 4 of his kids raced groups also. On Friday, as he handled crowds, his spouse was timing the mushers.
“These are our friends,” Cavens said. “We love them, we’re going to support them in their endeavors, even though we’ve already picked up our lifetime quota of dog poop.”
At completion of the very first day’s heat, Blayne Streeper, of Fort Nelson, B.C., had the fastest loop time, with Salcha’s Gary Markley in 2nd and Germany’s Michael Tetzner in third.
The last musher to leave the chute today will lead the pack on Saturday. That will be Hugh Neff, a novice to the Fur Rondy sprints however a longtime Iditarod rival who was denied entry to the 1,000-mile race this year. Mushers will remove on the 3rd and last loop on Sunday.
The Fur Rondy enjoyable doesn’t stop there, with a carnival, parade and other celebrations keeping downtown Anchorage buzzing all weekend.
The 2023 Iditarod then begins next Saturday, March 4, with the ritualistic start downtown.
Read more about the occasions here.
