On the Yukon Quest Trail
Documenting a 450-mile sled dog race from Whitehorse to Dawson City, YT
My alarm goes off. I blink and momentarily forget where I am: an RV in a frigid parking lot outside the Braeburn Lodge, 150 km north of Whitehorse, Yukon. I’m leading a media team to document the 2023 Yukon Quest, a historic sled dog race that runs through 450-miles of arctic wilderness between Whitehorse and Dawson City, Yukon.
Someone has thrown a sleeping bag over me. I’m still wearing my snow boots. It’s nearly midnight. I refresh the live tracker app on my phone. A blue dot – representing Michelle Phillips and her sled dog team – inches closer to the Braeburn checkpoint.
“Michelle is 1.1 miles out,” I say to Crystal, a photojournalist from Whitehorse, sprawled out on the bunk bed above the driver’s seat. “We better hurry.”
We don layers and stumble outside into the twenty below night, boots crunching on the snow, trudging towards the checkpoint line where race and vet volunteers, bundled in parkas, are already gathered to record Michelle’s time and check the dogs.
A light flickers through the trees: a musher’s headlamp lighting the way for her team of twelve dogs. “Team coming!” booms Bob, the Braeburn checkpoint manager, as the light draws nearer. Crystal crouches down in the snow, focusing her lens on the shot.
A string of twelve dogs streams towards us, emboldened by the cheering crowd, their bodies steaming in the cold night, their pink tongues quivering from exertion. “Whoa! Whoa!” calls Michelle from the sled, buried beneath her hood lined with wolf fur. Her face is bright crimson from the cold, her eyelashes encased in ice.
Her face is bright crimson from the cold, her eyelashes encased in ice.
Michelle and her team are the first to arrive in Braeburn. They are the favourites to win the 450-mile race. She drives her team to the dog yard where they curl up and rest on beds of straw. Michelle’s devotion to her dogs is obvious. She ladles out hot water mixed with chunks of frozen salmon to each of her dogs. They’ll rest for four hours and depart before the sun rises when it’s cooler – and faster – to travel.
For our media team, it’s a different kind of devotion. Six sleepless days and nights, racing to get ahead of the action, positioning ourselves and our camera gear at checkpoints, and documenting the stories of mushers and their beloved dogs as they brave formidable Arctic conditions to reach the finish line in Dawson City.
For more reportage of the 2023 Yukon Quest, visit: https://www.instagram.com/officialyukonquest/
Photos by Crystal Schick and Weronika Murray
