Husky News

Every afternoon, a group of 15 middle-school students in Tuluksak meets for class outside the school walls, especially after the snow falls.

This seventh-hour elective class teaches not a foreign language or how to work a sewing machine. In this course, students learn a subject native to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta: dog mushing.

The uncommon course began four years ago. After some notable successes in its short history at the school, the Tuluksak Wolverine sled dog team this winter may enter a storied Alaska race.

The All Alaska Sweepstakes sled dog race runs for just the 12th time this winter, and the Tuluksak school hopes one of its student mushers will be among those on the starting line in Nome when the race begins March 28.

“This is what we call a cultural component of the school,” said Mariah Thomas-Wolf, a longtime musher and Tuluksak principal. “Our particular school doesn’t have a lot of outdoor activities. We don’t have a hockey rink. We don’t have cross-country skiing.”

But it has a team of dogs – with a winning pedigree. Its core of 13 dogs came from Iditarod musher Martin Buser’s kennel. Five new pups have winning Iditarod blood, too.

With these dogs and a pool of young mushers to draw from, the school team has shown itself competitive. In the 2005-2006 racing season, student musher Robert Tikiun raced in the Junior Iditarod and the Bogus Creek 150, among others.

After a season’s hiatus, the school program hopes to reassert its position among the Delta’s sled dog racing community. To this end, students care for the team and train them even in the off-season: cross-country runners run with the dogs before the snow flies. With meager snow amounts so far this year, the dog team trains not with a sled but a four-wheeler.

“We’ve got good dogs, and the kids who run them are good mushers,” Thomas-Wolf said.

The program has operated with the help of a $5,000 annual grant from the diabetes program of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. and donations from outfits such as Prairie Bilt dog sleds of Luverne, N.D. The school team sells its own patches, baseball caps and beanie caps. Also, it’s looking for additional money for travel to Nome and the odd Sweepstakes race entry fee: $1,750 and an ounce of gold.

Preparing for long trails

The dogs need their preparation, but so, too, do the students. Serious races demand an experienced musher, and so the school’s mushing leaders watch to see who emerges as candidate mushers.

“We always keep our eyes on who’s taking good care of our dogs,” said the dog team’s caretaker, Fred “Moe” Napoka. “We’ll pick from those students who have more experience at running dogs and running in the bigger races. They’ll need to know how to take care of the dogs and can work on gang lines and taking care of the dogs that get sick.”

Tending to the dogs requires more than dumping kibble in a bowl. In addition to dog food donated by Eagle Pack Pet Foods of Mishawaka, Ind., the team subsists on the mainstay of Alaska sled dogs: fish.

In the case of the Tuluksak team, it’s sheefish, lush fish, chum salmon, king salmon and pike. Students mix it up in a pot, boil it hot, and serve it in a bowl – but with care. Napoka said students carefully pick the rigid bones from pots of boiled lush fish – it’s not safe until the bones are plucked out.

Napoka is a longtime musher who also works as a paraprofessional at the school. he hopes the school team will bring mushing back to the community.

“Dogs here were disappearing. After these snowmachines came, I guess people wanted to travel faster,” he said.

Thomas-Wolf, who is in her first year as principal at the school, is a former member of the Yukon Quest race board of directors. Former principal Vaughn Dosko, who now is at a school in Kenai, founded the sled dog program.

Thomas-Wolf said she imagines a league of school sled dog teams competing against one another. It’s fun sport, but something more.

“It builds, I think, school spirit as well as gives kids a sense of self esteem and accomplishment,” she said.

All Alaska Sweepstakes

The 408-mile All Alaska Sweepstakes sled dog race begins March 28. The winner of the race will claim a $100,000 purse. The course will take teams from Nome to Candle and back to Nome.

The Nome Kennel Club hosted the first All Alaska Sweepstakes began in 1908, but the race hasn’t run since 1983.

Thirteen mushers have signed up to race the Sweepstakes, including Jeff King, Lance Mackey and Sonny Lindner. Visit www.allalaskasweepstakes.org.

Source: The Tundra Drums