When asked about her goals for the 2024 Yukon Quest’s mid-length race, first-time participant Crystal To delivers a blunt assessment: “To survive. I mean, it’s definitely a challenge for me. You know, like, 250 [miles] is gonna be the furthest I’ve ever ran, the most like consecutive camps I’ve ever done.”
To, who has been in the Yukon for less than a year and hails from the Vancouver area, is among 19 mushers from Canada, the United States and Europe who are registered to participate in the three races of the 2024 Yukon Quest.
According to race organizers, this year’s Quest, which kicks off at 2 p.m. on Feb. 3 at Suncatchers Inn Cattery, marks the race’s 41st year.
Like the past two Yukon Quest races, this year’s race route will not venture into Alaska and end in Fairbanks. Before the havoc of COVID-19, the Quest alternatingly started and finished in Whitehorse and Fairbanks.
In 2022, due to the pandemic-induced closure of the U.S.-Canada border, the Quest in the Yukon comprised 100-mile and 300-mile races, with the longer course starting and finishing in Whitehorse, with the turn-around point located south of Carmacks. Two races were also separately held in Alaska.
The following year, the Yukon and Alaska races remained split, although disagreement over mandatory rest stops was to blame, not pandemic-related disruption. Three races were held in the Yukon in 2023: a 100-mile race ending at Braeburn, a 250-mile race ending at Pelly Crossing and a 450-mile race that finished in Dawson City.
The 2024 Quest will follow the same three-race format as last year. Seven mushers are competing in the 100-mile race this year, four in the 250-mile race and eight in the 450-mile race.
The mushers participating in this year’s Quest are a mix of veterans and newcomers. To and Silas Godber are among the first-time Quest participants, and both will be tackling the 250-mile race.
Newcomers and rising stars
Twenty-nine-year-old To tells the News that she has been mushing for three years and was first introduced to the sport during a work-away program in Saskatchewan that involved experiences with sled dogs.
Since being introduced to the sport, To has gained experience as a guide. She says she’s been preparing for her upcoming 250-mile slog from Whitehorse to Pelly Crossing by getting out for sled cruises and overnight camping trips on the land around Carcross, where she is currently based.
“It’s actually been alright. I think the hardest part is actually sleeping. Like, I can get into a sleeping bag and get all cozy and feel relatively warm, but then the sleeping part is difficult because we’ve got all that adrenaline,” To says, speaking to her overnight training excursions.
She adds, “I think on the actual Quest trail, the difficulty will be waking up after you fall asleep. So actually, I went out and bought an alarm clock because I’m worried that my phone will die in the cold and then my alarm won’t go off, and I’ll actually sleep 12 hours and miss everything.”
Since this is her first time participating in the Quest, To plans to ease into the experience by sleeping at checkpoints when she can. She’s realistic about her prospects in the race, stating that she wants to have fun and finish the race in one piece.
“I know that this year, the field for the 250 isn’t huge, so that takes a lot of pressure off as well. I just want to get out there have some fun. Survive. Don’t hit my head,” To says.
In the 250-mile race, she’ll compete against Godber, Louve Tweddell and Ed Hopkins — all Canadians.
To is a member of the Elevation Pro Mushing Team, along with other Quest newcomer Godber and experienced musher Mayla Hill.
To says her dog team will be comprised of dogs owned by Hill and Elevation Sled Dogs owner Aaron Peck, as well as one of her own dogs. She anticipates her leads being Chase and Marshall — dogs whose names were inspired by the Canadian animated television series Paw Patrol.
Twenty-year-old Hill came in third in the 2023 Yukon Quest’s 450-mile race and will compete on the same route this year.
Hailed by the Quest’s executive director, Benjamin Smith, as a future leader in the sport of mushing, Hill boasts considerable mushing experience.
Hill tells the News that she started running dogs while living on a trapline in northern British Columbia, four hours into the bush north of Fort St. James, when she was “around 13 or 14 years old.” She started racing in her late teens before moving to Alberta to get involved with Elevation Sled Dogs to learn more about competitive racing.
Like To, Hill has lived in Carcross for less than a year. In addition to running and placing third in the Quest’s 450-mile race last year, she participated in the 300-mile race in 2022, also finishing third and earning the Rookie of the Year Award.
Due to a busy schedule of taking tourists out on dog sledding adventures, Hill says her training regimen has been less intensive than she’d like. Although, like To, she’s making time to get out for training runs and overnight trips.
“Pretty much every day after tours we go for a training run. You know, it’s been kind of on and off — whether we can or not. We try to not burn the dogs out as much as we can, you know, because they’ve got tours the next day. So, it’s always a balance between that,” Hill says, adding that she thinks her lead dogs will probably be Wayfinder and Junior.
The challenges that Hill expects her dogs and herself to face are perhaps unsurprising to veteran long-distance mushers: extreme cold and sleep deprivation.
“Those can be major challenges. I’d say sleep deprivation — only getting, like, an hour every day pretty much — that can definitely weigh on you,” she tells the News.
Speaking about her expectations for the 2024 Quest, Hill says she hopes to clinch the top spot in the 450-mile race.
“I do have certain expectations. We’ll see. Of course, I’d hope to win it, but we’ll see if that’s a realistic possibility this year. What I’m racing this year is two-year-olds, but they were yearlings in last year’s race, and they did okay. So now we’ll see in their second year what they can come up with,” Hill says matter-of-factly.
Return of the champ
In her quest for a first-place finish in the 450-mile race, Hill will be up against some tough competition. Participants in the Quest’s longest race are American mushers Kailyn Olnes, Cody Strathe and Paige Drobny, Czech-American musher Misha Wiljes, and Canadian mushers Connor McMahon, Normand Casavant and Michelle Phillips.
Ask most Yukon mushers, and they’ll tell you that 55-year-old Phillips is a force to be reckoned with. Over her quarter-century mushing career, the born-and-raised Yukoner has done nine 1,000-mile Quests between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, participated in Alaska’s iconic 938-mile Iditarod race more than 10 times and run in numerous other races, including the Percy De Wolfe and Copper Basin 300.
In the 2023 Quest, Phillips finished a strong first, 12 hours ahead of second-place finisher Mille Porsild. And while someone out there might have chosen to retire from the Quest while on top, Phillips is not that person.
“We’ve got a nice group of dogs, and we really enjoy racing, and we enjoy training and racing dogs. So, we decided to sign up again,” Phillips says of her reasons for participating in the 2024 Quest.
She tells the News that December was a big training month for her dogs and herself.
“Usually, our hardest training month is in December — that’s when we put our longest miles in. Then we kind of taper in January, and then we’re ready to race in February,” Phillips says, adding that she takes her team for weekly 150-mile camping trips.
Phillips will have “a few” lead dogs this year, and she name-drops Lambo, Cleo, Maggie, Astro and Banshee. Lambo and Cleo were her lead dogs as she crossed the finish line in Dawson last year.
Phillips doesn’t say much when asked what her goals and expectations are for the 2024 Quest’s 450-mile race, simply telling the News, “It’s a race, so we’ll see what happens.”
Trail conditions a wild card
It’s no secret that this winter has been warmer than usual for parts of the Yukon. On Jan. 28 to 30, just days before this year’s Quest begins, temperatures swung well above the freezing mark in Whitehorse and surrounding areas.
According to weather data recorded by the Canadian government, the mercury eclipsed 4C in Whitehorse on Jan. 29, while a temperature of 7.6C was recorded in Carmacks on the same day.
This downright balmy weather (by Yukon-in-January standards, anyway) has raised concerns among some that the quality of Quest trails could be compromised.
“I do have concerns about the trail being okay after all this rain, because if you’ve ever run a dog team — 14 dogs is a lot of power — and if it’s super icy, that could be very challenging. So yeah, that is a concern for sure,” says Phillips about the impact of warmer weather on the trail.
When asked how she prepares for potentially unfavourable trail conditions, she says, “You can’t really prepare for it.”
Hills says that if there is extreme jumble ice on the trail, it’s going to be an unpleasant experience. Jumble ice is a rough surface of fractured ice that can form on top of frozen rivers.
“Extreme jumble ice, it’s going to suck for anybody, whether it’s snow machines or dog teams. It just sucks,” she says.
However, Hill remains optimistic that the Canadian Rangers, who break the trail, will “do their absolute best” to create a good trail for mushers.
“As long as it’s safe, as long as I’m not falling through the river, I don’t really mind how challenging the trail is,” Hill says.
The Quest’s executive director, Smith, tells the News that the potential impact of warmer weather on the race route this year is not unique to the Yukon.
“We’ve seen numerous races down south get cancelled this year because of lack of snow. Rivers, lakes that are normally frozen over, people are waterskiing on, we’ve heard,” Smith says.
He adds that Yukon Quest organizers are vigilantly monitoring the conditions and receiving regular trail reports, and route adjustments will be made to avoid dangerous areas.
“I think just past Pelly, there’s a jumble ice issue that, you know, is a little more than what we’ve seen previously. So, we’ll divert down part of a farm road or something like that, you know, to get the trail to go. So we’ll make these little transitions here and there to ultimately have the race go through,” Smith says.
Concerns about trail quality drew wider public attention on Jan. 31, when the Yukon Quest’s Facebook page posted that the start location of the race was being moved from Shipyards Park in downtown Whitehorse to Suncatchers Inn Cattery, near the Dawson Overland Trail. The move was attributed to “extremely icy” conditions at the park and the fact that “transitions to the river were deemed unsafe as well.”
“This is not a decision that we came by lightly, and we tried every avenue to make the Shipyards Park location work. This decision was made in the interest of safety,” reads the Facebook announcement.
Smith tells the News that ensuring safety is a top priority for the organization. He says, “As an organization, safety is first and foremost the most important thing. And we, as an organization, want to make sure that what we’re doing gives the safest possible outcome for our race. We don’t want to knowingly put anyone in danger.”
Contact Matthew Bossons at matthew.bossons@yukon-news.com