Hiawatha Heritage Dog Sled Race, Part 2

Hi friends! We’re back with part 2 of our exciting weekend at the Hiawatha Heritage Dog Sled Race! Part 1 left off with all of us getting a few hours of sleep before the second 40 mile leg of Q’s race began.

As I mentioned in part 1, all the 80 mile race teams were allowed to have a pool of 10 dogs to choose from for each leg. For the second leg, Q swapped out Elmo and Dora for Blizzard and Waller. You may recognize Blizzard, as I’ve done several dryland events with him!

Also, the start times for the second leg were done differently than I had ever seen at a race. For the second leg, each musher’s start time was determined by the amount of time they finished behind the leader in the first leg. For example, Q finished an hour and 23 minutes behind the leader in leg 1 and the leader began their second leg at 7am, therefore Q did not start his second leg until 8:23am. I just wanted to explain that a little because there was a lot of confusion about it with people following the race virtually.

Anyways, we got the dogs hydrated/snacked/harnessed/bootied according to schedule, and Q and team were off on their second 40 mile run! One of the race organizers that we met the night prior offered to take us down the trail to watch the teams run through the woods. Since I had failed at getting photos in the dark the night before, I thought it was a great chance to see them running and get daytime photos.

However, right when we arrived at the trailhead to see the teams, a spectator drove a little off the side of the packed snow trail, and sank in fluffy fresh snow. We stopped to help, and tried pushing him out, but we couldn’t get him free.

The race organizer we were with called a friend with a kinetic tow rope. If you’ve never seen a kinetic tow rope in action, it was AWESOME. Basically, the truck with the kinetic rope attached to the stuck car pulled away slowly to where the rope was taut, and the kinetic energy in the line SLUNG the stuck car out of the ditch with ease!

During this ordeal, we unfortunately ended up missing all of the teams mushing by. Photo attempt #2 also failed. We ended up going back to the cabin to start working on the dog’s water and food for when they returned, and we watched the trackers. We were happily surprised to see Q posting photos during the race on Bluesky!

As teams drew closer to the finish, we went back to the race site to watch them come in. I walked down the trail a little ways to get photos of Q and team coming down the straight away to the finish. Alas, I was successful! Below are a few of my favorites.

After they passed by me, I ran down the trail behind them to help catch the dogs and get them back to the truck. We gave them their post-race water and snacks, and unharnessed and un-bootied the dogs. Q then went in to the musher banquet where he received the red lantern award. In mushing, the red lantern is given to the last musher to cross the finish line, “symbolizing perseverance, grit, and the determination to finish the race”.

He ended up 8th out of 10 in his race, after one musher did not start the race at all and another musher scratched the second leg of the race. It was a very tough field of competitors who were training mostly for sprint races. Q was more-so using this race as an opportunity to get new dogs familiar with races and build up more training miles for all dogs ahead of an even longer race a couple weeks later, which requires a slower pace.

When the race activities were over, we went to check out a nearby vintage snowmobile museum. It was so cool to see creative designs from the 1920s all the way to present day.

After the museum, we were all exhausted. We stopped for a midafternoon meal at a local restaurant call Moofinfries. It was recommended to us and it did not disappoint! If you’re ever in Naubinway, Michigan, definitely check it out.

We spent the rest of the evening resting, chatting, sorting dog booties, and watching mushing movies.

Well, part 2 is already fairly long, so we will leave off here for now. We will be back with part 3 of the trip soon, where WE WENT MUSHING!

-Hannah, Riley, Boo, and Pence

(PS - is anyone going to the UP200 this weekend? We will be there! Let us know if you’re there and come say hi!)