Cresting a long, steep, dirt hill a few miles from the U.S. border in western New Brunswick, the sound of excited huskies fills the air. Howling, barking, whining as Lea Allen works her way around her property. She checks her gear, secures a dog sled to the top of her truck, then slides a ramp out of the bed.
One by one, she leads the dogs into a large wooden box separated into compartments on the truck. Daisy, Carbide, Jett, Stormy and Arlo all pile in. Then come Padmae and Venus. Allen has 15 dogs. She’s running 11 today, so some hop into the backseat of the truck before it moseys toward a logging road some 20 minutes away.
That’s the site of today’s training run. Allen, an English professor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle by day, steals a couple of early mornings each week to run her dogs when the trails are the quietest.
On this mid-February day, the wind whips snow back and forth across the trailhead as she untangles the gangline and harnesses each dog. Allen will run for about 22 miles in these conditions, then repeat that again later in the week.
Over the weekend, her team will head out for two 15 mile runs. She’s been slowly building up the mileage since the previous fall, all in the leadup to this weekend: the 34th annual Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races.
Held in Fort Kent, the Can-Am is the highest caliber race of its kind in the eastern United States. Allen is one of 20 mushers in this year’s Can-Am Crown 30, the shortest of the event’s races, which also include 100 and 250-mile iterations. It’s a qualifier for the Iditarod, the longest sled dog race in the world.
“I’m just doing the 30 miles,” she said in an interview. “The people that are doing the 100 and the 250, the amount of hours that they have to put in … there’s a lot of late nights for them and super early mornings. It’s really a sport that requires a lot of discipline.”
Allen, 48, grew up interested in arctic landscapes. The stories told by Farley Mowat and Jack London about wolves and cold, desolate lands.
A cousin in Norway had sled dogs. Allen convinced her parents to let her get a Siberian Husky when she was 15. She raced the Can-Am for the first time as a teenager with a team of mostly borrowed dogs. Then life took over. She went to college, then grad school, got a doctorate and began working.
She got back into racing about a decade ago.
“I was sort of resentful that I could work all the time and there was still more,” Allen said. “I didn’t sleep very well. So I realized that I need a physical outlet as well.”
Her family already went to the Can-Am every year. “My kids said, ‘Why don’t you try that?”’ Allen said. So she did. She was hooked.
“Once I did race, I really liked meeting the other mushers, this community or connection that you make, advice and friends,” Allen said. “But then there’s that competitive streak of, can I do better next year? Can I improve my time? Can I correct mistakes that I think I did?”
This will be her sixth Can-Am. Even just racing the shorter distances, it’s a time consuming, demanding pursuit.
“What makes it worth it? The love of being with them, working with them, and them being happy,” Allen said. “There are days where it would be a lot easier to stay inside, but you know they’re waiting for you.”
Sled dog racing shares many traits with other endurance sports. There’s the total adrenaline rush and chaos at the starting line; the dogs are raring to go, the crowd roaring. Then there’s hours of nothing. You and your thoughts — and in this case, half a dozen dogs.
For Allen, who said she is often too nervous to eat before a race, it’s a time for trail mix or Gatorade to gain the energy needed to maneuver the course’s hills. At the same time, she’s thinking about what’s next — a turn, another musher. Is she holding the right pace? Is she going too fast? How are the dogs doing?
“Not every dog is capable of going exactly the same speed,” she said. “You watch for the slowest, or see, can this dog go just a little bit faster, but not as fast as another one? It’s judging that line.”
On long solo training runs, there’s less analysis. The hours give her the opportunity to think about a future lecture or another task, or simply bask in the environment.
It’s not quite solitude, as Allen sees it. But it’s a unique way of experiencing nature.
“I’ll have moments where I’m crossing a giant potato field, and there’s big wind drifts [and it’s] like, ‘Oh, this is like my little mini Arctic for about 1/10th of a kilometer,’” she said.
Then there are the days where nature throws a wrench in that nothingness: a fallen tree, an unexpected beaver pond, moments where making quick decisions and not panicking are crucial. It’s changed how Allen approaches problems in everyday life.
Mushers and their dog sled teams participate in past Can-Am races. Video courtesy of Aroostook County Tourism. Edited by Leela Stockley / BDN
“There are times where you suddenly think, ‘Wow, that could have gone really sideways,’” Allen said. “Some of the other challenges in my life are more conflict of ideas. I might feel a little less stressed about that, because you kind of have time to work it out, or you’re not going to die over it.”
Overcoming those obstacles also helps the dogs, who learn to work as one as the season progresses.
“They’re all individuals with their own quirks and their own athletic ability. You can definitely see from the beginning of the fall to later on, it kind of clicks, and they become a team,” Allen said. “One of my favorite words is ‘tidy.’ It’s tidy. It all works. All the parts fit together.”
It’s been the same process for the other 48 mushers set to tear down Fort Kent’s Main Street on Saturday morning. They’re all hoping their teams come together as they venture into the woods of Northern Maine.
It doesn’t matter if they’re American or Canadian — the field is almost split 50-50. Dog sledding forges international connections. It’s not difficult to see, especially for Allen, who lives in Canada but works in the U.S.
“It’s definitely a way of bringing people together, no matter which side of the border you’re on or which politics you have, around something that is a shared love of the dogs and working with dogs and just the beauty of being outside with them,” she said.
The races will take off Saturday at 8 a.m.