MARQUETTE, Mi. — As the winds howl off of Lake Superior, Michigan’s upper peninsula will be howling back... with dog sled teams!
"Everybody always remembers the story of Togo and Balto and everything." said Sarah Kimball, a coordinator of the Midnight Run Sled Dog Race.
The famous Alaskan serum run, from Anchorage to Nome, saving the town from Diphtheria ... that trail still exists today and is known as the Iditarod.
Reversing to our roots, the earliest evidence of man using dogs to pull a sled, dates back to Siberia over 6,000 years ago.
Even after the airplane was invented, dog teams continued to be widely used for local transportation and day-to-day work, especially in native villages.
"It's a tradition, it’s celebrating a tradition of using sled dogs in the U.P. for all kinds of things. Even mail used to be delivered in parts of the U.P. with dog teams, a long time ago." explained Darlene Walch, President of the U.P. Sled Dog Association and former musher.
Although traveling by sled dog is no longer a necessity, it has become a hobby and a sport.
In fact, dog sledding was almost added to the winter Olympics in 1994.
But for now, history hits hard on the race to the Iditarod, which is just two weeks away.
And the UP200 in Marquette, Michigan is grandfathered in as a qualifier for that race.
"I was a spectator at the very first one in 1990 and I was enthralled. I thought it was just spectacular. So, I volunteered, I got on the board and started running my own dogs.” said Walch.
Mushers do not take part in this for money or fame, because there is very little of both in sled dog racing. But it always comes back to the one thing... The dogs.
