RHINELANDER (NBC 26) — A Wisconsin sled dog club is hosting its first race on snow since 2023 this weekend, as a lack of snow wiped out its 2024 season and the first race this year.
- A local musher says dry-land and small-team options have grown more and more popular statewide
- Wisconsin is hosting the dry land sled dog championships in October, and an organizer says the United States Federation of Sled Dog Sports hopes to bring the winter championships for the sport to the Badger State in the future
- The race this weekend in Gleason features a range of races, from eight-dog sled teams to single-dog fatbikejor and skijor competitors
- Read on to meet two mushers and their teams
(The following is the full transcription of the web story, with additional details added for web)
For most of 2024 there was not enough snow on these trails for any sled dog racing — but now, in 2025, the snow is back, and so are the mushers, dogs and skijorrers.
Watch Karl Winter's full story here:
"This is my puppy pack," Elisabeth Jeske said to her crowd of Siberian Husky dogs.
Elisabeth Jeske has been with her puppy pack — currently totaling 18 dogs at her mentor Donna's kennel — for nine years and counting.
"I see them more than I see my family, usually," said Jeske. "They are my family, truly."
Jeske trains the dogs with her sister, and the Oconto County native and full-time veterinary technician has seen the sport grow, along with her love of it.
"When I first got into dog mushing, dry land racing was, like, kind of a new thing," she said, "and now, it's super popular, because we don't have the good winters anymore, typically."
But this year is a happy return to winter — and no one is more excited than Jeske's huskies, and Niina Baum's hounds.
Baum helps organize and promote sled dog racing around Wisconsin, as the secretary of the Wisconsin Trailblazers Sled Dog Club, and the secretary of the United States Federation of Sled Dog Sports.
She also does everything from four-dog sledding to fatbikejorring with her five hounds at her home in Rhinelander.
"We're so excited to have snow again this year," Baum said. "Last year, we had to cancel almost all of our races. So the fact that we're able to host them again this year is absolutely awesome. The dogs have been dying to get out. They're just going wild, so the dogs are probably the happiest ones."
Baum and Jeske say the sport has grown in recent years, and Baum adds that the dry land world championships are coming to Minocqua in October, for the first time.
"We'll have over 400 competitors from over 20 countries around the world coming here for that event, and it's a week long of racing, which will be really cool," she said. "And then the next step would be to bring the winter world championships here as well."
Baum and Jeske say the sport is easier than ever to get into — all you need is a dog that likes to run, and a few pieces of equipment like a harness and bungee cable.
"The biggest area of change and growth that I seen is with the smaller class sizes," Baum said. "It's hard to have a lot of dogs, so more and more people only have a couple, but they want to still go out and be active and do something with them."
"It's easy to get into the sport with just a couple dogs," Jeske said. "The hard part is to just stay with a couple dogs, because it's a lot of fun, and it's a lot of fun with a lot of dogs."
The races here in Wisconsin are "sprints," ranging from 2-to-6 miles — far different than the grueling Iditarod race in Alaska, but Jeske says some of the same challenges apply: cold, team chemistry, and running into other fauna during training or racing.
"I put try to put myself in a position where I can always try to fix the problems that we might run into on the training trail," she said.
Jeske says she's ready to compete this weekend with her team of six huskies, at one of the Midwest's first races on the snow in more than a year.
"I do have some personal goals that I'd like to achieve," she said, "and goals with the kennel and the dogs, but overall, I just love that it challenges me to grow and to adapt, and that I get to work with my dogs."
The Wisconsin Trailblazers have their first race of the season Saturday and Sunday in Gleason, and another in Rhinelander the following weekend.
