OUTLOOK - The yips, howls and barks could be heard throughout town as the Outlook & District Regional Park went to the dogs on February 19 and 20.
Well, the dogs and their sled, if we're being exact.
Making an appearance in the community for the first time was Eagle Ridge Dog Sled Tours, comprised of Garrick Schmidt and his team of nearly two dozen racing dogs, who welcomed people in the park to get onboard and go for a ride around the camping area. Over the course of two days, many in the community jumped at the chance to go for a mush.
It was an opportunity for people to take in something very different that isn't offered in this part of the province, and learn about a sport that has deep Indigenous roots.
The race team - both the human element and the dogs, to be precise here - is from Kenosee Lake near Moose Mountain Provincial Park and hasn't actually been racing dogs for all that long, but it's the kind of sport where if you put in the work and you maintain a consistent training program, you will develop an instant kinship with the animals.
Garrick's first introduction to running dogs came when he was ten years old. A family friend had brought a team of dogs to his home in Lebret over the Christmas break, and the young boy almost instantly "just fell in love with the sport."
Schmidt, who is Metis, says while it may appear that the dogs represent different breeds, one breed in particular brings them all together.
"I've been doing this for close to three years now," said Garrick. "We brought 23 dogs here for a couple of days. They're all Alaskan huskies. Over the years, they're bred from Siberians, greyhounds and blue heeler. We have some that look more husky and that look real 'houndy', and then some that look like a blue heeler. Even our own male dog, he looks like a dalmatian!"
Garrick got his first dog, Kona, two years ago, and he trained her by driving on his quad and teaching her commands as she ran beside it. Today, he now has 24 dogs, the oldest one being 11-year old Federer. The team is capable of reaching speeds of 30 km/hr, but for tours and long-distance racing, Schmidt slows them down to approximately 12 km/hr.
Training the dogs is something that obviously takes time, as well as factoring in things like conditioning and climate to try and push these four-legged athletes to do their very best.
"It's long," Garrick said with a laugh, when asked about the training aspect. "We start in the summer, when it's cooler out, I'll take them off their lines and free-run them, and they'll just run beside me when I'm on the quad. As the temperatures get cooler, we'll run them on the gang line in front of the quad and we'll start with really low miles. As the temperatures keep dipping down, the miles increase and then when there's enough snow, that's when the sleds come out."
Schmidt says that typically, the dogs will be ready to run when they're just under a year old. When it comes time to look ahead to any racing events, he says that he likes to get a high number of miles under the race team's paws to ensure that they're ready to hit the snow hard. He was looking to have the team in top shape in order to compete in the Canadian Challenge on Thursday, February 24, the country's premier sled dog race. Schmidt and his team were set for the 8-dog, 100-mile challenge, starting from the checkpoint in La Ronge.
"Some of the pups are about ten months old, and they're really good to run most of them together, and some of them run really good with senior adult dogs," he said. "Normally, about early December they're getting close, and right now we're actually racing the Canadian Challenge on Thursday and Friday. I like to have about 500 miles in training with the dogs before we do a race, and after today and tomorrow, we'll probably be closer to 700 miles."
For Garrick, the best thing about doing this is showing people first-hand the fine art of dog sledding and sharing with them the relationship that's easily on display between canine and Master. To be able to bring people in to this experience by way of holding events in the Outlook park such as this is a great way to introduce them to perhaps something they never would've thought to pursue. The end result was seeing smiles on peoples' faces as they got off the sled.
"I think the best thing is to be able to travel around the province and share my passion that I have for the dogs, as well as the traditional aspect of it with a wider lense and wider aspect of people," said Garrick. "Honestly, not a lot of people do it anymore and not a lot of people do tours. It's something that you don't see every day."
