FORT KENT, Maine — Mushers are independent, competitive and far happier in the company of dogs than with most people.
But when the chips are down, I can’t think of anyone better to have on my side than another musher.
Unless it’s the entire global mushing community.
On June 14, a major wildfire tore through Willow, Alaska, the heart of the state’s dog sled community and start site for the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race.
Directly in the fire’s path were dozens of homes, scores of mushers and thousands of sled dogs.
Among them was Iditarod finisher and Can Am Crown Sled Dog Race veteran Scott Smith, originally from Camden who lost his home in the fire, though he and his dogs are safe.
“I’m fortunate, in a way,” Smith said by phone from Alaska on Thursday. “I was in the middle of building my house so what I lost were materials [and] tools, not 25-years of memories in the place.”
Smith said he was away on a rare weekend trip when the so-called Sockeye Fire came at his Red Dog Racing Kennel and the 24 dogs there.
Once he heard what was happening, he said he was on the next flight home.
“I was pretty confident my friends would get my dogs out,” he said. “But I also knew everyone had their own dogs to worry about.”
By the time Smith got back around 9 p.m., his dogs were safe and sound, though sadly the same could not be said for his dog truck.
“I had the keys for it with me,” he said. “But really, everything was about getting the dogs out, everything else is secondary [and] I’m really fortunate to have good friends.”
For a time, past Can Am and Iditarod racer Lev Shvarts thought his home was destroyed, too. But fire crews were able to save the structure.
Here is what you need to know about mushers: We don’t stand idly by and wait for someone else or some government agency to take action. We can’t. When we are out on the trail and things go wrong, we are often alone and need to step up.
If a musher is able to help another dog team in trouble, there is never any question about offering that help.
So it should come as no great surprise that within a day or two of the Alaska fires, fundraising and volunteer efforts were springing up around the world, all directed toward the Willow mushers and their dogs.
“I happened to be on social media last Sunday and one of my friends who lives in Willow was writing [about how] the ashes were coming down and he was leaving,” Rob Cooke, past Can Am racer and Iditarod finisher, said from his office near Whitehorse in The Yukon. “I saw other friends were having to evacuate and my involvement escalated from there.”
Cooke teamed up with fellow United Kingdom mushers to create the Willow Fire Support Group – U.K. and to set up an online auction to raise some funds.
From the get go, the bidding among mushers for items like signed Yukon Quest memorabilia, photographs, paintings, jewelry, mushing gear and even a used T-shirt was as frenzied as a pack of sled dogs going after the same frozen smelt treat.
“Where do I begin on the success of this auction?” Stacey Louise Pike, auction co-organizer, said in an email from her home in Wales. “It went from hoping to have 50 items and raise a few hundred quid to [more than] 540 items and raising thousands.”
By some estimations, the auction may raise close to $50,000 for the Willow mushers.
Lance Mackey, cancer survivor and the first person to win back-to-back Iditarods and Yukon Quests the same year, literally gave the shirt off his back.
The high bid on his self-described “sweaty T-shirt” was $1,200 as of Thursday.
That bid, along with numerous other winning bids, was placed by U.K. musher Martin Mitchell, who early on emerged as the lead dog of the auction.
By his own estimation, Martin figures he will have spent close to $4,700 in the auction, including on the Mackey shirt.
“I hope in a small way the funds raised [help] the situation a bit for the dogs and mushers,” Mitchell wrote in an email. “This is for Willow and now for some other areas also suffering in Alaska with the fires [and] it is fantastic to attain something for my memorabilia collection from one of the greatest long-distance [mushers], of course.”
Relieved that his own home was spared, Shvarts jumped into the auction by offering his handmade Iditarod sled to the highest bidder.
“The generosity of the mushing world has been amazing,” Scottish musher and online auction co-organizer Judy Wakker said in an email. “We know money cannot begin to put right the awful devastation the fire has caused, but we hope it can help just a little.”
Closer to the impacted area, Megan Ashe began the “Sockeye Doghouse Builders-Anchorage” group, figuring if mushers were homeless, then so, too, were their dogs.
Ashe, a veterinary technician who lives in Palmer, Alaska, started a GoFundMe page for the project and last weekend she and her team of volunteers built their first ever sled dog houses.
“We had numerous plans from numerous people who said it was easy,” she said by phone from Alaska this week. “No, it’s a lot harder than that.”
But she said she and the other volunteers learned a lot and those first homes will go to pet dogs whose housing requirements are not as specific as those for sled dogs. The latest constructions are much better, she said.
“We really wanted to do something for the dogs who don’t have a home to go back to,” Ashe said. “I’m a vet-tech and my love of animals is right through the roof.”
Countless other individuals, dog food companies and businesses like Underdog Feeds in and around Willow are all working to help.
Since announcing her project on social media, Ashe said her phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from people wanting to donate or to help.
She said the project should raise enough money and volunteers to re-house around 75 sled dogs.
“The mushers are overwhelmed with happiness,” Ashe said. “They will be able to bring their dogs back to their lots.”
And there is little doubt the mushers will return, according to Cooke.
“Absolutely they will rebuild,” he said. “They are resilient and they are all strong.”
A second dog house building group, Sockeye Fire Aid Sled Dog House Construction – Fairbanks, will also be working this weekend to build houses for displaced dogs, including Smith’s, according to organizer Stephanie Crawford of Fairbanks.
“I have a musher from Minnesota traveling here to help this weekend,” she said in an email.
Crawford’s group — working off dog house plans provided by some major stars in the mushing world also will provide replacement straw, lines and other gear that mushers lost in the fires.
Smith, who does not use social media, was unaware of the magnitude of the fundraising, and said he is beyond grateful and humbled by the efforts.
“You know, we are pretty solitary as mushers,” he said. “We train all year to kick each other’s asses, but when it comes down to it we are there for each other when needed.”
In addition to the auction and dog house building project, numerous other fundraising efforts are underway with everything raised going directly to the mushers and their dogs. A list is available at the Dog Works Radio website: dogworksradio.com.
Julia Bayly of Fort Kent is an award winning writer and photographer, who writes part time for Bangor Daily News. Her column appears here every other Friday. She can be reached by e-mail at jbayly@bangordailynews.com.
