Back Tracking
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner notes that William Kleedehn is in line for the Dawson Award: “The Dawson Award, four ounces of Klondike placer gold, goes to the first musher reaching Dawson who then completes the race.” Kleendehn made a last minute pass on Jon Little to arrive 2 minutes ahead of him at the Dawson Check Point. Now he has to make it to Fairbanks.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner‘s reporter also explained the early Britten scratch:
Jean-Denis Britten didn’t care to continue with 10 dogs.
Britten said his three best dogs were submerged in water after breaking through overflow ice near McCabe Creek on Monday.
After determining in Pelly that he would have to drop all three of them, Britten instead scratched from the race, loaded his dogs in a truck and presumably drove home to Dawson City.
It is almost always about the dogs. Mushers will continue with all kinds of injuries, but you don’t risk your dogs. He couldn’t take the dogs inside to dry off because any dog taken inside is automatically dropped.
2 comments
It is almost always about the dogs.
as it should be.
more fun with dyslexia: i read dawson award as darwin award at first.
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I assume they were his lead dogs, the primary and two back-ups, the pack leaders. If you don’t have a leader up front the team won’t run at an even pace.
Actually in Yuka Honda’s case, they wouldn’t run at all, which was a major problem.
Kleedehn has back problems. Last year, Lance Mackey was frost-bitten. They continue on, but you can’t do that if the dogs aren’t interested.