DAWSON CITY, Yukon — They are four Germans and an Austrian, close friends now who never knew one another in their homelands.
They currently hold four of the top six spots in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, while the fifth just won the Quest 300.
They are William Kleedehn, Gerry Willomitzer, Sebastian Schnuelle, Thomas Tetz and Austrian Hans Gatt. Get any of them in the same room and the stories and laughs just fly.
Tales from the trail
“I think it’s just a coincidence that five of us have chosen such as small place (to live). None of us had dogs before in Germany,” said Schnuelle during the pre-race vet check while his dogs were being examined in Fairbanks.
Kleedehn, 47, now a Canadian citizen, is the clan’s patriarch.
He read about the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race while growing up on a German farm, then emigrated to Canada in 1981.
A few years later, Kleedehn got into mushing.
“I kept my eye open whenever I saw a dog team,” said Kleedehn, of Carcross, Yukon, at the start banquet in Whitehorse.
He has a good eye; Kleedehn, one of the Quest’s most respected and well-liked mushers, is running for the 11th time, and is in position to land in the top 3 for the fifth time.
Willomitzer, 37, from Bavaria, got his start through Kleedehn.
“I came here to Dawson in 1996 and opened a restaurant. Then somebody recommended I could become a handler for a winter, so I ended up handling for William Kleedehn,” said Willomitzer before heading to the mushers’ meeting at the Dawson City checkpoint on Wednesday. “I got my first dogs there and got into racing.”
Willomitzer, now a log home builder in Shallow Bay, Yukon, has moved up in the Quest the last three years, a trend that will continue if he holds onto fourth place.
Gatt, 48, of Innsbruck, Austria, is the only one of the group who mushed in Europe before heading to North America.
“I decided I wanted to do that for a living. I wanted to turn professional and decided to move to Canada. That was 17 years ago,” said Gatt, the only three-time Quest champion with titles in 2002-2004.
His German buddies drive south occasionally to train dogs with Gatt in Atlin, British Columbia.
Tetz, 42, of Carcross, moved from southern Germany to Calgary 22 years ago. Then he headed to Ontario, where he first learned of the sport by reading mushing magazines. In 1991, Tetz got his first dog from Susan Butcher.
Quest 300 winner
Tetz got hooked on racing and came to the Yukon seeking a more competitive mushing environment and longer races.
He went to Carcross and Atlin, found out where Kleedehn and Gatt lived, and arrived unannounced on their doorsteps.
“I just showed up,” said Tetz at the Dawson City checkpoint on Wednesday.
He said Kleedehn and Gatt advised him not to get involved in racing dogs because there was little money in it.
“A couple years later I was racing with these guys,” said Tetz, who no longer has a kennel but raced Gatt’s dogs to victory Tuesday in the Quest 300.
The wild-haired Schnuelle is perhaps the most eccentric of the lot.
He came to Ontario as an environmental engineer.
“I didn’t even like dogs,” said Schnuelle, 37, of Whitehorse, who was sixth in the Quest last year and currently holds that same position.
He’d befriended another European, Roland Waldispuehl of Switzerland, who handled for him one winter and now returns annually to do a several-hundred mile race. Waldispuehl was second in this year’s Quest 300 and maybe someday will become the sixth member of the dog-loving German-speaking competitive mushing club.
“We all have the same disease,” said Schnuelle, who spent this winter in Alaska for the first time, training out of Paxson.
Contact staff writer Matias Saari at msaari@newsminer.com.
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