Husky News

Odin Jorgenson and his team are ready for the Beargrease.

This personable young man remembers going down to Duluth for the musher banquet when he was a young boy with his father, Arleigh, who ran the Beargrease nine times.

Odin was one of Arleigh’s dog handlers in those days. “I cooked the dog food, massaged sore legs,” he said. “It was a once-a-year ritual, like Christmas.”

But he really didn’t think seriously about mushing himself until a few years ago when he graduated from Carlton and came home to help his dad in his sled dog business.

Odin discovered a particularly talented sled dog whose pups take right after her. Her name is Loon.

“I’ve been training Loon for many years,” he said. “She’s good at taking commands on lakes. She’s tough and smart.”

Odin said Loon’s pups are also a talented group of dogs, and five of them are on his 12-dog team this year.

“The Beargrease is not just a measure as to who has the best dogs, but who has the best relationship with their dogs,” he said. “It’s your relationship with your dogs that makes you good.

“I’ve run Loon since she was a puppy. I can read her mind, she can read mine, if you can believe that. For me, it’s a special group of dogs, and I want to give them a shot at the big time.”

Photos by Joan Farnam
Odin Jorgenson and his sled dog Kia are ready to run the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, which starts at Ordean School in Duluth at 1 p.m. Sunday with a turn-around at the Trail Center check-point on Monday night. This is the first time that Jorgenson will compete in the Beargrease, and he’s excited about it. And big time it is. With 30 mushers coming from as far away as Australia to run the grueling 390-mile trail from Duluth to Trail Center and back again, and 48 teams running the Mid-Distance race, there will be a lot of commotion at the check-points in this race, not to mention the chaos of the start.

That’s the only thing that’s really worrying Odin — will his dogs be able to handle it?

They’re used to the wilderness, he said. They’re not used to the city.

“A big part of the race is bringing the dogs to an urban environment — their eyes are going to be wide,” he said. “They’re very used to people around them because of the touring business, but not the big city.

“My strategy —initially — is to have good runs and make sure the dogs are well-hydrated and fed, and make sure they don’t suffer too much shell shock from the newness of a big race like this.”

“My dad said: ‘There isn’t a secret to running dogs — work ’em hard and feed ’em good. If you do that on a regular basis, you’ll have a pretty good dog team.’”

Odin has actually been training his team for two years. He signed up for the Beargrease last year, but it was cancelled because of lack of snow.

His training schedule includes plenty of strength and endurance runs, but he also likes challenging them mentally.

Photo by Joan Farnam
Odin Jorgenson heads out with his 12-dog team on a training run earlier this week. “I like to ask my dogs to do things that are tough to do mentally for them,” he said.

“With our tour business, we run all the time — you can’t predict what the weather will be. The dogs get used to running regardless of the conditions. I think that makes them tough mentally.”

He said he and a number of mushers in the neighborhood, including Matt Groth, Mark Black, Robin Beall and Neil Rasmussen, have a huge area of wilderness trails to train their dogs.

From the back yard at Jorgenson’s, for example, Odin can run his dogs to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and beyond — if he wants to.

This makes for strong, well-conditioned teams, he said.

Odin said Black, who won the Beargrease in 2005, will probably be among the front runners from the very start.

Rita Wehseler of Tofte has a good team, too, he added, and did well at the Can-Am in Maine last year.

His strategy?

Slow and steady at the start, he said, letting his dogs find their own pace and keeping them healthy.

Then — if it looks like he’s a contender in the second part of the race, he’ll go for it, he said.

He will bring two sleds. He builds touring and racing sleds professionally and recently purchased Sawtooth Mountain Sledworks. He’ll bring one of his own and one he purchased.

“If I do well, I’ll come in on my own sled to the finish,” he said.

And that’s really the strategy here — to finish — to make a good showing in one of the top sled dog races in the country. Or, as Odin put it, “It will be exciting.”

Source: Cook County News-Herald