Handler heaven
Dawson City is where the handlers take charge. It’s one of the reasons they are so important in the Yukon Quest.
After mushers leave Circle in Alaska, handlers jump back in their trucks and drive to Dawson. It’s our 1,000 mile race because we have to get to Dawson to set up camp for the dogs before the dogs arrive. In all, I figure handlers will put at least 2,000 miles on our trucks, and the price of gasoline in the Yukon is almost twice what it is in Fairbanks. The exchange rate isn’t helping us this year, either.
The long trek to Dawson is also a reason a lot of handlers have a love/hate relationship with their dog trucks. We live out of our trucks for almost two weeks. The dashboard is littered with empty Coke cans and coffee cups, with a thick carpet of candy bar wrappers and potato chip bags (health food nuts, we are not). Sleeping bags and dirty socks are stuffed behind the driver’s seat. I drive a 1995 Ford Ranger with 208,000 miles on it. It’s a good, reliable truck (knock on wood) but it gets a bit too cozy after a few hours.
Once the handlers get into Dawson, we make sure all of our musher’s gear is there and start setting up camp, which is in the government campground across the Yukon River from the checkpoint. The dogs get their own tent, which is the biggest blue tarp available tied up between two trees. It has to be open-ended and unheated, according to Quest rules. The handlers set out picket lines to keep the dogs safe and separated from each other and spread out two bales of straw to keep them warm and comfortable. Then the handlers will set up a tent for them, hopefully heated, and move in.
Then the waiting begins. When a musher finally gets in, a handler will meet him/her at the checkpoint and ride the sled back across the river to the campground. The dogs are unharnessed and fed and checked over. The musher gets a ride back across the river to the hotel or billet, where they will spend the next 36 hours eating, sleeping, showering (hopefully) and getting ready for the next 450 miles of trail.
The handler stays at the campground, which is dark and quiet except for the crunch of boots on the snowy road, the scratch of a plastic sled sliding by or an occasional bark. There’s usually a breeze off the nearby river. And although Dawson is only a mile away, the lights seem very distant. The dogs are fed about every six hours. They’re massaged, walked, petted and praised and their feet cleaned and doctored. Most of all, they rest.
When his layover is done, the musher repacks the sled and the rejuvenated team heads back down the trail. Then the handlers get to clean up camp, go into town and find a beer, or three. Our job is over, until the next checkpoint.