How a pandemic gap year may have given the Yukon Quest new life
CBC
After the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the cancellation of last year's Yukon Quest sled dog race — a first in the race's 37-year history — some wondered whether it was the beginning of the end for the iconic annual event.
The previous year's race had already seen a smaller roster of mushers than years before, there had been some internal squabbling and resignations over race rules, and some mushers were not happy with the board's decision to cancel the 2021 race.
"There were some problems in the past. We all know that, and it sure looked like the Quest was going to go completely downhill," said Hans Gatt, a veteran musher from Whitehorse who now sits on the race's board of directors in Yukon.
Now, there's been some turnover on the board and the race is back in an entirely new form. Some say the pandemic offered an opportunity to rethink the event and make some necessary changes.
"As much as I hate COVID, it gave us the opportunity to try new things out," Gatt said.
"I think it is positive. There's no question about it."
Traditionally, the race is run over a remote and sometimes mountainous 1,600-kilometre trail between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, Alaska, alternating the direction each year. It's often described as more challenging than the more famous Iditarod in Alaska.
This year, there is no 1,600-kilometre race across the international border. Instead, there are four shorter races — two held in Alaska earlier this month (the 321-kilometre YQ200 and the 563-kilometre YQ350) and two in Yukon (the 160-kilometre YQ100 and the 482-kilometre YQ300) that begin Saturday afternoon in Whitehorse.
Bonnie Michaudville, the race's executive director in Yukon, said the decision to hold several shorter races was based on a survey of mushers done last year.
"There just weren't enough mushers to run the 1,000-mile [1,600-kilometre]. They had a hard time with COVID, some of their businesses, and also we didn't have enough qualifiers last year for them to run," Michaudville said.
The border crossing was also an issue. Organizers decided that it made sense to plan different events this year, on either side of the international divide.
"That way, if there were COVID restrictions going across the border, we would be fine and still be able to race."
Mushers still had the option of entering races on both sides of the border, and a few have — including Alaskan Brent Sass, who won the Quest in 2019 and 2020. Last week, he won the YQ350 and on Saturday he hits the trail against eight other mushers in the YQ300.
The Yukon race rosters are, unsurprisingly, dominated by Canadians. Of the nine entered into the YQ300, four are Yukoners and two are Albertans. In the YQ100, five of the seven mushers are from Yukon. The YQ100 roster is also dominated by younger mushers, in their 20s.
RCMP say a man who was reported missing near Key First Nation has been found deceased.
Christy Morin says life was never the same in Alberta Avenue after the fires began.
It's small things, like a cigarette or a pair of clean socks, Rachel Montour says, that can go a long way to make you feel more human when you’re out on the street.
Several dozen members of Windsor's Chaldean community and its supporters celebrated in the cold at the corner of Marentette Avenue and Wyandotte Street East Friday, as city officials gave a secondary name to the section of Marentette between Wyandotte and Tuscarora Street: Chaldean Way.
Allison Hill says she tries to make people’s experience at the Thunder Bay Food Bank “as pleasant as possible.”
Two years after a man went missing in Scarborough, Toronto police are renewing the investigation in hopes that the public will bring forward more information.
A musical instrument created in Guelph, Ont., has been thrust onto the international stage — or rather, screen.
More than 1,000 Maritime Electric customers are without power after high winds blew across the Island Friday night into Saturday.
The Supreme Court of Canada is deliberating a case that could shape the way sentences are handed down in cases where both the offender and victim are Indigenous, which some Nunavut lawyers say could have ramifications for the Inuit-majority territory.
A man barricaded in a former church in Welland, Ont., was taken into custody early Saturday, nearly 24 hours into a standoff that began over a fence dispute.
Peel police are investigating after a Friday night shooting in Mississauga left one person dead, police said.
Another busy construction season has come to an end in London, and the city is already looking ahead to next spring when a slew of new projects are expected to begin.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun to lay out publicly what he sees as boundaries when dealing with China, as his government wades into a new relationship with the economic giant.