On a win: Can Am 100 Recap
‘We aren’t there yet,’ I kept saying to myself and the dogs, as the darkness settled, the cold drew closer, and the headlamp behind us diminishing and then disappearing. I didn’t let myself accept our lead, our first place spot, until we crossed the last driveway, less than half a mile from the finish and that short cruise down the ski hill, when I burst into tears.
We had won, won our first big race, won a Can Am race, the Can Am 100.
Start line. Pete Freeman photo. Aurora and Gemma’s faces are fierce, but look at little Spiller right behind them, and Flora’s oversized confidence.
Tracing that moment back, in the past few weeks, it is tough to pick out the singular instance, the single moment that was a turning point. The entire season has been one of building stronger and stronger, a freight train of power and love and confidence. While I can admit, now, that winning the Can Am 100 had been a silent goal and hope all season, this was in no way a done deal. The first run was November 10th. We lost a lot of runs to trail conditions. Moving between two properties during this transition year was a challenge at times. The week before the race, Aurora my main lead dog had developed a pulled muscle in her back and I wasn’t sure she’d make it to the start line. And yet while I saw the consistency in the team, in training, until we showed up to race, to really race at the first and last big race of the season at Can Am, I had no honest idea of how the dogs would perform. How I would perform.
It was a steady strong flow of positivity the day before the race. Chuck made me breakfast before we left his house. The first dog drop stop at Dysarts in Bangor led to a hand-delivered sandwich and a post on their Facebook page. Driving through flurries around Mt Katahdin Nate Gratton’s truck whizzed past us at high speeds, and I hoped that would be the only time Nate would pass us all weekend. At every dog drop stop, the dogs were playful and happy. I was driving solo up to Fort Kent, Elissa catching a ride with friends Matt and Erin, so I had only my own thoughts, visualizing each step of that trail I knew so well, breaking it down in miles and landmarks, anticipating the average speed based on what I thought trail conditions would be like.
I’ve traditionally driven to Fort Kent the day before the race, which means we get to Vet Checks at the very tail end of the day. It’s a little bit stressful, especially with the 100 mile race meeting taking place at 4:30 and me showing up at registration at 3 p.m., but coming after the rush meant that all the vets had time on their hands. Both the 100 mile team and Sean’s 30 mile team were checked out in record time, vets moving quickly and names flying around. I re-familiarized Sean and Amy with the dogs, and with the 6 dogs Sean would be running in the 30: Ariel, Jasmine, Fauna, Swing, Hawkeye and Inferno. At vet checks was the first time I was really grateful to have Sean and Amy as expert mushers, as they handled shy and friendly dogs and got them in and out of the truck and directed the vet team.
Amy was the first one to point out to me that almost all the dogs were earning body condition scores of 4-5.
‘Oh man, you’re kidding me,’ I said.
My friend Erin Altemus had come to visit and stay with me in-between the UP200 and the Can Am 250, and it was when I looked at her dogs, race ready and tuned up with about twice as many trail miles this year….that I realized how fat my dogs were. Fat dogs in distance mushing is sometimes a good thing, but entering the 100 mile race we were basically entering a long-distance sprint race. Fat dogs aren’t always a good thing. But, the day before the race, there’s not much we can do. The dogs were happy and that’s what mattered. A few of the vet team assumed I was in the 250, and said they’d see me deep in the woods at Rocky Brook and Syl-Ver, and I said ‘see you there in 2022.’
The mushers meetings are the one place where everyone sees each other, the 100 and 30 mile meeting taking place at 4:30 and the 250 at 5:30. It was there, that the news came out that Rico, our most competitive and capable musher in any class he enters, has shifted from the 100 to the 30. Objective analysis from this year of training had me thinking we’d do well, maybe even putting the heat on Rico, but the previous performance in races in the past few years still haunted me: scratching in two races last year, finishing 11th in the 100 two years ago, running a team to finish not to compete. I was running more or less the same team, with some young dogs that had aged in: only three dogs in the team were new.
I was running the same team of fat dogs that had come in the bottom third in races in the past two years. Maybe top 5? Maybe top 10?
After the meeting the time for guessing was over, and it was time for dinner with our host family the Audiberts. Laura and Don have opened up their home for me since 2012, and Friday night dinners are a fun affair of catching up, humorous tales of Laura’s chicken escapades, and amazing food. I am so grateful for the warm and generous home and hospitality. And just as the dogs were playful, I think I can say that our Friday night dinner this year was one of the most raucous, playful, and laughter-filled one yet.
I usually don’t sleep well the night before the race, and this year was the same, tossing turning and fitful with the starting rushes of adrenaline. I woke at 4 a.m. The thought that kept me restless was this: am I here to race? What does that look like on a slow race trail? With Rico out of the picture, can I actually win this thing? Can we win this thing?
Parking at the race start, as usual we were one of the last trucks there. I pulled down the race sled, my Gatt sled that I had not yet run this year. That sled is the one brand-new form of transportation I’ve purchased in my life (all my cars, truck, ATV, trailers, all having been second hand). I take precious care of the sled, only running it in races, storing it under wraps, and washing it after every trip on top of the truck. I had debated using a borrowed sprint sled on the race, but I was glad when I decided to stick with the sled I knew best.
I looked up to see friends Denis and Julie pull up and park in front of me. Denis and Julie are good friends, and I was so happy to see them. Denis joked that he had moved down to the 100, a joke I believed until he told me otherwise. Like a rookie, I insisted on having Denis check my runner plastic, unchanged from the last time the sled saw trail in March 2019, before determining it was brand new and good to go.
Amy and Sean were there to help Elissa and I put sled and dogs together. I gave Sean the harness sizes for his dogs, and tried to prepare him as best I could for what they’d do. He was running a team of 5 veterans and one Fauna, but I knew they were in more than capable hands and would have a good run.
As second out of the chute, Can Am had us more than over-ready to have the dogs hooked in. I could see the start chute from the truck, and we didn’t have far to travel. But yet I hooked in the dogs far too early. As the team lined out next to Denis’ truck, I asked him what he thought.
‘They are…..’ and he held his hands far apart in the universal musher code for ‘your team is looking fat.’ Denis quizzed me on my feeding plan on the checkpoint, and approved it, one last piece of reinforcement for the plan I had for them.
Julie held out the leaders, Gemma growing more and more frenetic the longer we waited. In training, Gemma is a calm and mild-mannered dog at hookup, standing patiently whether she’s in lead or in team. I saw at the Blue Mtn races in Grantham just how race-competitive Gemma can be, and I saw it coming out again as we waited. Gemma started chewing the neckline that connected her and Aurora, and I asked Julie to just remove it. Handling a pair of leaders without a neckline is not easy, and I’m glad Julie was up to the task.
Screen grab of the start video.
In the start chute, the team was the most amped up I’ve seen of any team I’ve run in recent years. Spiller bit my hand, something you can see in the live feed of the start. Loki and Oriana were beasts, and young Flora was still pausing in-between her barks of excitement to look around.
And then there was Gemma and Aurora.
In watching the video re-play, Gemma and Aurora’s feet are not on the ground. I tried to give one last piece of reassurance to them, but they both literally pushed me out of the way. They didn’t need anything else from me. I’ve given them all they needed and it was time for me to get out of the way and let them do their jobs.
I got the five second warning, and ran to the handlebars just as the last horn blasted. My helmet was hanging loose, the drag mat was up, and my gloves were off. We tore down Main Street in a fit of chaos, my head feeling the cold wind as Aurora hugged the right hand side, the hard pack ridges of snow threatening my balance.
A familiar face blasted through—none other than Terry Eddy. Pete Freeman’s camera caught that exact moment. After that moment, I grinned and resolved to get the helmet on before the bridge, and the rest could be figured out on the railroad grade.
The exact moment I saw Terry Eddy
The first 7 miles of the race is flat railroad bed, the snowmobile trail leaving Fort Kent. In all other races, I’ve held them back on that railroad grade, back to 9-10 MPH. Thankfully, my friend Al talked me out of doing that in this race. ‘Any dog team that is well conditioned for that race should have no problem traveling at 13 MPH’ he said. I started them at 12, and let them creep towards 13, finishing that section at 13.1 MPH average.
It was on the railroad bed that I expected Eric Chagnon, who was the team 2 minutes behind me, to pass me. It was also on the grade where I expected to catch Mark Patterson. My expectations were wrong, and neither of those things happened: Mark was 4 minutes ahead of me and I never saw him, and Eric loomed a dark smear of a team behind me but not passing me. We turned off the grade and onto Can Am trail, the dog-team only trail that we would be on for the next 30 some odd miles.
I was not prepared for what I saw when we reached the Can Am trail, after popping quickly up the short steep bank that connects the grade to the road network of the Can Am trails.
Greeting me was only a white expanse, windblown snow with only markers and the runner lines of the single team ahead of me. While back home we had picked up wet heavy snow that compacted like concrete, up in Fort Kent they had picked up 10-14” of dry powder. The trail crew worked hard to break out the trail, an Aroostook County windstorm that followed drifted in their efforts, rendering the always-soft Can Am trail into a slow punchy mess of drifts and soft-hard-packed sandy snow usually halfway up the dogs legs.
As second out of the chute, trailing Mark’s team whose dogs train in soft snow and who were truly breaking trail, we weren’t far off from breaking trail ourselves. There are a few sections of the Can Am trail where you can see over a mile ahead of you, and I finally spotted Mark’s team. Using my watch and landmarks, I tried to see where we were in relation to each other, and every time I measured that distance he had gained on us. Nice job, Mark.
I didn’t think of this at the time, but when I’ve done trail breaking runs with Aurora in lead, she seems to enjoy the challenge and seems to know exactly how fast she needs to lead her team. Perhaps it’s an experience she learned in her two Iditarods, or from training for so many years in the deep snow of Michigan’s UP, but either way Aurora is never fazed by trail breaking.
Trailing just behind us the entire first leg was Eric Chagnon, always within sight (although thankfully disappearing around mile 25 so I could get a pee in), and I never quite knew if he was drafting me when I looked back and saw him working just as hard as I was on the hills. Maybe he was using us as a speed motivator. I thought about stopping to get him to pass, but in a 100 mile race timing can be razor-thin and I didn’t want to give up any minutes, any edge we might have. I didn’t drive the dogs hard at all in this leg, allowing Aurora and Gemma to set the pace in that trail, the traveling pace we had seen the few runs I had taken them out in soft snow.
Finally around mile 37, we come off the Can Am trail and onto snow machine tail. Eric had passed us just before this point, and Eric and I traveled at about the same speed on the packed hard trail. We started moving at 10-11 MPH, and I still couldn’t tell how indicative this was of the second run. They were moving better, but had that slow soft leg been too much? We were running a tough race with half the miles I’m used to seeing on the dogs by Can Am. All my sense of measurement was off. During this entire first leg, when the pace slowed from 13 MPH on the railbed at the start, to 6-7-8 MPH on the soft snow, all I thought was ‘well, maybe we can be in the top 10, maybe I can be the first woman.’ There was no question about the return leg, only about how fast or slow it would be.
Crossing the road after being timed into the checkpoint, me trying to make sense of where we would go next. Photo by Veronica Jones
The last mile coming into the checkpoint is all downhill, sweeps and turns that jazz up the dogs. We trailed Eric by about 30 seconds, and we came in, volunteers brought us to our park spot, brought us straw and water. My brain shifted slowly and inefficiently to checkpoint routine, for the first time all year: open the bin, leader hook, dog bowls, booties, straw, jackets, ointments and wraps and heating therapeutic vests.
Gathering booties, bedding down everyone, the moment before wrapping and jacketing. Photo by Terry/ Connie Eddy.
Teams came in behind us at the checkpoint. Nate Gratton flying in not far behind us, and then mushers trickling in with dogs in their sled bags. I focused on the dogs, as I massaged Aurora’s back, checked wrists and shoulders and stretched out Rocky’s tight right shoulder, stretched out Foxtrot’s back end that can tighten up, and wrapped everyone in jackets. Everyone drank what I prepared for them, picky Willie needing some work to get some hydration into him while Flora and Spiller knocked each other over to get to the bowls. The pros bedded down, Oriana and Loki’s ears pointed in my direction listening at every crinkle of plastic bag and every move of the dog bowl as I coaxed water into Willie. For some of the dogs in the team, this was their first checkpoint, having not done any checkpoint training this year. But we were in a good spot, well away from the distraction of other teams, and it wasn’t long before everyone bedded down. I waited with them, not wanting to rush into the checkpoint, not wanting to leave the team, but I was thirsty and hungry and I needed to take care of myself.
Talking with Mark in the checkpoint, chicken stew gripped in my hands.
The Allagash checkpoint building is the former school building reclaimed as the Town Offices. Volunteers take over the kitchen, providing the uniquely Acadian meal that I get exactly once a year in this race, which is hot chicken stew with ‘ploys’. There were a lot of hugs from volunteers, and piles of cookies that were shoved into my pockets. Elissa showed up when I was eating, having done the superwoman job of taken care of the 30 mile team and made it to the checkpoint. We sat with Mark Patterson, and Elissa caught me up with the antics of the 30 mile team and how their race went.
Mushers began trickling in, and the energy turned in the room. Turned inward, turned outward, turned backwards and forwards. There was a lot of sourness. The trail was soft and challenging. Dogs were sore. Teams were scratching and dogs were being dropped. This was not a fun run, but a real tough race. I had been one of those mushers before, most notably in the Eagle Lake 100 in 2018, where the team’s performance seemed out of sync with expectation once the trail became unexpectedly tough: ‘but they go faster in training.’ I had no interest in talking about the run we had, no interest in internalizing or empathizing with other musher’s expectations about their own teams, only focusing in on the run home.
We were scheduled to leave the checkpoint in fourth, something I found surprising and something that I wasn’t sure how it would play out. When we leave the checkpoint in a 100 mile race, our start time differential is figured into the rest so when you hit the trail it’s a literal race to the finish, the first across the finish line the winner. In 100 mile races in the past, I’ve been passed in the second leg, or failed to catch mushers even a minute or two ahead of me. Sometimes it takes teams time to come together in the second leg, after a slow first leg, especially as the trail starts with a mile of uphill. I really didn’t expect the trail to get faster, and expected our own speed to get slower. I told Elissa to expect a 6 hour run or longer, a 10 PM finish or later. With the trail conditions, it was anyone’s guess as to how the actual race would play out.
I went out to the dogs 40 minutes ahead of our leave time, and they were relaxed and calm. I checked on them, stretching and squeezing and walking a few dogs. I rubbed cream into their paws, working my way up the team into the front end. All of the dogs stayed down in the straw, Flora lying on her back for belly rubs and Spiller sound asleep with snow flaking her ears. Kneeling in the front end of the team, surrounded by Aurora, Gemma, Spiller and Flora, I still didn’t know what to expect other than the love I was feeling for them at that time.
This was the only photo I took myself the whole race. Sitting among the front end of the team, there were snow flurries moving around with this amazing bright clear light. The way the four of them were sitting felt so appropriate to their personalities: Flora slightly goofily lying on her back waiting a belly rub, Gemma calm and watchful, Spiller sound asleep like a good sled dog, and Aurora waiting the command to go.
Mark Patterson, who was scheduled to leave in first place, came up to me, obviously in distress. He was having headlamp problems, I tried to help but was only able to diagnose the problem as just as bad as he thought. I had time to help him, we weren’t late. Unable to fix the problem, I suggested that he try to get a headlamp from another musher (eventually he borrowed one from Gavin Baker, who had scratched). Mark was not going to leave on time, which meant we would be leaving in third.
The volunteers did not give us much direction on how to leave the checkpoint, and had indicated that they did not want us leaving on our own. I used Eric and Nate as my timers, as they were ahead of us and I couldn’t leave our park spot until they did. I began clipping dogs harnesses back to the line, the first to start whining being Willie and Gem, followed by Loki and Oriana, with Flora and Spiller pure energy ready to roll.
When the dogs were all hooked in, they all exploded with power the second I stepped onto the sled. They felt the energy shift, my presence joining the team, and they responded. We were late getting to the chute because of this weird communication set up, and we blew right through. We knocked over most volunteers on our way out the chute, and the team flew up the hills at 12-13 MPH, Gemma leading with a wild grin that I could see from the sled. Gemma was here to race.
The first 6 miles of this leg home was that snowmobile trail again. These first 6 miles, strategically, was one of the few places where I knew we’d have speed to pass teams, speed to keep our own time competitive. I let them go, and the dogs were strong, moving at their traveling pace for speed. I saw no need to hold them back.
As third out, we had Eric’s and Nate’s team ahead of us. Both Eric and Nate were teams that I had identified as our competition, based off their performance in the race in years past. Nate had dropped to 9 dogs, Eric still had all 10. I saw Eric’s team within the first few miles, right when we finished the sweeping climb, my brain not fully understanding how we caught his team that had left four minutes ahead of us. Coming around a corner, a snowmobile that had pulled over said to me ‘he’s not that far ahead of you’ and I cheered ‘I know it!’ We passed Eric’s team like they were standing still, his dogs unable to give chase this time around.
A few miles later, we caught Nate’s team just as quickly, coming around a corner to find them going uphill. The speed of the chase blew us past him, and the speed of the chase kept his team fairly close to us for awhile. He didn’t ask to pass, and when I looked back his team was different lengths behind us, but usually further and further behind. I looked back occasionally, and the dogs surged forward. We were officially in first place, with still 40 some odd miles to go and nothing but open trail ahead.
And then, it was time to for the race trail to leave the snowmobile trail and enter the Can Am race trail. Nate was still fairly close behind, and as we turned onto the trail I braced myself for a drop in speed, a change in efficiency, the mental shift to a constantly working effort to maintain a slight edge ahead in that slow trail.
None of those things happened. The trail had firmed up as the air cooled, and the dogs took off at their traveling speed of 11-12 MPH. This was not a burst of energy, this was not an early-run surge, this was the team I had trained, doing what they had been trained to do. I was speechless. Breathless. My eyes widened. We left Nate’s team behind. This was all possible.
It was cold that night, single digits. I had not added a layer as I knew I’d be working on every hill, frost and sweat and damp breath. In stop-start winter activities, I’ve always had to strip down because I just sweat so dang much. The layering system I had on was the same system I’d honed from 15 years of winter hiking, not the heavy insulated layering system from distance racing at single digits. When I took off my outer jacket later that night, frost tumbled out like snowflakes, frost of my own sweat. My gloves were frosted on the outside with my own sweat and the breath from the dogs, the gloves hardening with ice as the run went on. In stripping down my sled I had removed my handlebar mitts. I was so focused on the trail I didn’t miss them, until just now as I wrote this paragraph.
There was a list of hurdles in my head, hurdles that could cost us time if we didn’t execute them perfectly. These hurdles were intersections with other Can Am trail directions, intersections where we’d be the first team blazing our own scent trail.
Aurora and Gemma were running without necklines in this entire race. Running without necklines is a hot button topic with mushers in races, myself included. I do it a lot in training, but less so in racing because of sharing the trail with so many other teams and the difficulty of volunteers helping a dog team without necklines. In this case, it was a strategy I’d developed because Aurora always dove behind Gemma when we’d stop and the neckline would tangle behind Gemma’s harness. We didn’t have the time to spare for me to walk up there and untangle them.
Without necklines, Aurora and Gemma sometimes had a hard time communicating with each other. Two strong personalities with their own ideas, I sometimes found them leading the team in opposite directions at road crossings or intersections. This would be a hurdle, as we had two significant intersections and multiple short and significant road crossings, road crossings that I know teams had gone down themselves and cost time.
At mile 13, with Nate’s headlamp still in sight, a sharp uphill left hand turn presented the first hurdle. This is a trail junction with the 250 mile race, and the option was to go forward towards Portage (the first checkpoint of the 250), or turn left and uphill and home. Volunteers had marked the trail clearly, for us and for the 250 mile race that would travel the same trail home two days later. Aurora and Gemma tried knocking over the trail markers to get to the trail to Portage, before finally seeing the uphill trail to the left. We were all a little bit amped up, after all.
After this turn was the first and only time I stopped the team. Flora and Spiller were in point, just behind the leaders, and they were not on the sides that they prefer. Flora was on the left, a position in which she consistently tries to pass the dogs in front of her, and Spiller prefers the left so as Flora veered out Spiller moved under the main line to push further left. This persistent shifting was a nagging white noise to Gemma and Aurora, I could tell. We had gained enough distance at this point where I stopped the team, moved Flora to the right hand side, made sure Aurora was still on the right to keep us on the right on snowmobile trail, and pulled the one hook.
The cold pressed in. The night grew dark.
After mile 20, I no longer saw Nate’s headlamp behind me. We were past the point of a slight error meaning he’d gain on us, but a major error could still mean we’d be caught. I also didn’t know if there were any other teams behind us who would be able to travel at the same speed or faster.
I just focused on the trail ahead, monitoring the team’s power and energy. I had no music other than a single Beyoncé song stuck in my head, the song stuck in my head growing quieter as the unspoken voices of connection, of the team and myself grew louder. We were a team that was winning a race, a tough race.
We passed the second hurdle, which is passing the trail we came out on to travel onto brand-new trail that would connect us to the 30 mile trail and home to the finish. Gemma and Aurora tried to take the left hand turn, to follow the dog scent home, but it was a split second correction and we continued on straight ahead. Markers greeted us, the Can Am trail being one of the best marked trails I’ve raced on. There was a single snowmobile track ahead of us, footprints at every marker. I could see that single volunteers trip in the wilderness, adjusting and placing markers, I could see it so well because we were on a solo trip ourselves. It was one of those moments, those invisible moments, that make the race possible.
The trail became softer, as no teams had traveled on this the same way as the trail we had been on. We slowed a little bit, but I didn’t sense any major problems. I worked harder and more often on the hills. Still no headlamp glinting behind, only darkness when I’d glance back every few miles. I never assumed our first place was secure, there were a lot of teams behind us and they could be traveling faster than us, could catch us, as dog teams speeds can change a lot during a run.
The presence of the Maine Warden Service marked our entrance onto the 30 mile trail. In a bright stream of light, a confusing intersection, where I hollered only ‘I can’t see where I’m going’ in the blindness of the headlamps of a dozen snowmobiles. One of the wardens told us we were making good time. On what, and against what, I didn’t know or care.
‘Things are going to get interesting,’ I said to the dogs. The last 10 miles of the trail is a mix of snowmobile trail, open field, and single track, and populated with the last few steep hills we’d see.
We almost missed the turn off the snowmobile trail onto the potato fields, my sled at the turn when I saw what had happened. I was able to call Aurora and Gemma onto the trail. Third hurdle passed.
Our speed went up and down a lot in that last 10 miles. We had held a steady 10-10.2 MPH average for most of that leg, until that last 10 miles. Thinking about why and how is the lesson still to learn from this race, maybe it was that speed in the first 6 miles on snow machine trail, maybe it was that some of the dogs were starting to get splits on their feet from not wearing booties. At times we were running at 11 MPH on the potato fields, and at times we were running 6-7. It was here that I started to get nervous—likely adding to the wavering confidence with the speed.
We crested the top of the ridgeline of the unnamed mountains that ring the valley, the lights of Fort Kent below in the darkness, impossibly far below. We were maneuvering the steep downhills and single-track turns at speed with a strong team (hurdle four), but still weren’t done yet.
Coming into the finish. Aurora is the one with the purple light, and that’s Spiller’s total focus just behind her. You also can’t miss Rocky’s ears, Foxtrot’s hefty head, and Willie’s look-around as he sees the Can Am finish line for the first time. Photo by Veronica Jones
Right before the finish we cross a series of plowed roads, barely more than driveways. I have had teams try to take us down the road, like Inferno in the 250 in 2017. I knew of another team that had taken that turn downhill at one point, losing a place in the 100 themselves. Having seen Aurora and Gemma struggle with the commands I gave them at road crossings, something that has made me think a lot since both of them can cross roads and our training trail crosses our own driveway, this was it: the fifth and final hurdle.
Aurora and Gemma blew straight ahead, not even considering taking that driveway downhill. A volunteer parked just past that crossing said ‘Nice job Sally’. It was there, less than a mile from the finish, when I started crying.
We came into the finish screaming fast at a full lope, and while all teams enjoy that hill before the finish line the speed continued when we hit the chute itself, blowing past the line with Oriana still whining to continue. I wish I could have seen a video of that charge, of that beautiful team loping into the finish line in first place.
Our pace was so much faster that we surprised our superstar handler Elissa, who had been told by Can Am to not expect us for another hour. The finish line was quiet and barely populated, and I said hello to Allan Dow, who would check our required gear, as I walked up the team, who were rolling in snow and wagging their tails. Aurora and Gemma dug into my chest. I dug into theirs. The enthusiastic Julie Albert was there in the finish chute, my dear mushing friend who was the first one to declare us the champions. ‘It’s your turn!’ she said.
Aurora and Gemma. Photo by Veronica Jones
The goal this year was to train a fast strong team with a strong work ethic, designing a new training schedule from the bottom up. It was amazing to see that come together, in this race. The tears that come on a race like this, the tears I have now as I write, come from love. Love as power. Love as strength.
Aurora and Gemma were the leaders, the most competitive racing leader pair I’ve had. Gemma is a speed demon who comes alive in a race, and had spent most of the year running in the middle or in point, only leading in the past few weeks. Gemma is a strong personality, and it took time for her and I to trust each other, and for her to become part of the team. Aurora has the speed with a modicum of reason, and more than any other dog she knew that we had won the race. In the start chute, those two were so ready to race that they had no interest in one last pep talk with me, Gemma actually pushing me out of the way to get to the trail.
Behind them were Flora and Spiller, two year olds I had raised from puppies. Photos of Flora show her supersized with confidence, the two of them serving as the afterburners for the leaders in front of them, and Spiller retaining her title for one more race as ‘the undefeated Spiller.’
Foxtrot and Rocky served in the middle, strong serious loping boys who were the power on the uphills, with Foxtrots work ethic helping focus Rocky’s. Foxtrot came from Sylvain and Manon and it was really special to see his experience in a checkpoint race at last.
The team coming into the checkpoint, photo by Mackenzie Renner. This shot made it onto the Can Am Facebook page as the winner of the photo contest.
Gem and Willie Jr were behind them, a BFF pair who run together often and who quietly and perfectly executed their jobs this year. Willie and Gem were the two leaders who had led our 250 last year, and I’m glad I could show them the trail in a different way.
In the back of the team were Loki and Oriana, two Canadians who vibe off each other when they are paired up. Loki had spent most of the season on the slower trotting team, all of his runs being 22 miles and only had one 35 mile run before this race. Loki does not do well at high speed, but I knew this would not be a fast race and I needed him on the hills. Oriana was the 11th dog, joining the team when the 10th was slightly sore, and joining the team when I knew it would be a tough race because Oriana shines when things are tough.
Half of the team were on the team last year when we scratched on the same trail. To take the same dogs out and blow past that spot, the kind of spot that can stick in a dogs memory, was the moment when I knew we were a different team. I didn’t even list that spot as a hurdle, the only indication of that spot being Rocky lifting his tail slightly. I am so proud of these amazing dogs.
While Can Am is a tough race to follow as a spectator, and a tough race to run as a musher, it is a unique race of its kind in the lower 48. As volunteers stuck cookies in my pockets, greeted me with open arms, and helped me make sense of the timing chart, I was reminded of how special this race is and why. I think of that one snowmobiler who’s footprints I saw on the trail home. Among the hundreds of volunteers who make this race possible there are so many little lives and moments like that, many of whom are invisible on race day, all driven for a love of community, and for this race that is a celebration of winter and of the mountains and people of northern Maine. I say this often, but the numbers of dog racing make no sense, there’s the half-dozen mushers and the hundreds of volunteers, but in pursuit of a bigger bolder vision, it’s not about numbers, it’s about love. This race is precious. Thank you all.
It was also a treat to race with a different group of mushers and teams than the usual suspects of the 200 mile races. The last time I raced the 100, Nate Gratton was so far ahead I never got to interact with him, nor see his team on the trail. Nate is a great musher with dogs related to mine, as he has Inferno’s siblings Flame and Arson, and I hope to one day see him in the 250. I also have not raced much with Eric Chagnon, who displayed gentlemanly behavior even amid his brief statements to me: ‘do we need a cooker?’ ‘I will pass now’ ‘Same Speed’ ‘Where did you get that dog?’ And while I’ve shared the trail a lot with Mark’s wife Ashley, as well as spent a lot of time with both at races, it was great to see Mark really racing and performing well. Mark has an upbeat and generous personality, perfectly suited to his role in the world as a wilderness guide. His team looked amazing in the checkpoint, and had the third fastest run home: the future looks bright for that kennel. I enter races for competition, but also to share the trail with good sportsmanship and a love of the sport. Thank you, boys for a great race.
Elissa, me and that hard earned trophy.
The list of humans who make it possible for us to get to the start line is long. It includes our fabulous and unbelievable team sponsors, the Eddys who came to their first Can Am race, the hardworking Ryan Surette of RMS Ironworks, and our dear friend Chris Garby who has been there from day 1. The list is far longer than that, for all the families and friends who connect to the team and support the dogs. The human capital that plays into the ecosystem of the lifestyle is bright and shining as well. Without Chuck Johnston’s patient and generous emotional support of myself and the puppies left behind, I know we wouldn’t be on that podium. Brianna and Wes are our superb dog sitters, and Jeff and Whitney took care of the Shelburne house and my siblings all winter, even taking on puppy care at times. And lets not forget the best Can Am handler ever: Elissa Gramling, and our family in Fort Kent the Audiberts.
In all my years Can Am racing, I’ve never been close to the top 3, and never imagined that a win could ever be possible. This might be only once, and that’s ok, and I couldn’t think of a better year or time.
For the dogs.
‘I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing [the divine] is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.’—Vincent van Gogh, writing to his brother