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A New Sled Dog Race in the Yukon Tries to Save a Fading Sport

The Yukon Odyssey offers a smaller, more sustainable model as long-distance contests struggle

A New Sled Dog Race in the Yukon Tries to Save a Fading Sport

The Yukon Odyssey offers a smaller, more sustainable model as long-distance contests struggle

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL COLE

Published 6:30, APRIL 2, 2026

My head is on a swivel. Ice clings to the dogs’ whiskers and snouts as they leap a metre off the ground, pulling against their anchored lines. Every fibre of their athletic bodies screams: LET’S GO! The dogs are long-legged Alaskan huskies, usually a specialized mix of Siberian husky, bred for endurance in harsh conditions, and greyhound, a high-intensity sprinter.

The mushers, ranging from thirteen years old to sixty-three, move incognito, bundled in parkas with fur-lined hoods that swallow their faces. They hurry to pack their sleds with mandatory survival gear, which includes extra harnesses, booties, a hand axe, and a knife. There are also two headlamps: the final eighty kilometres of the race will unfold in total darkness. Even for the fastest musher, it will take at least sixteen hours to reach the finish line.

Fourteen mushers from Yukon, Alaska, California, and Wyoming have traveled to Mendenhall Landing, Yukon, an hour west of Whitehorse, to run their eight-dog teams in the Yukon Odyssey, a new 100-mile sled dog race. The roster is a mix of 1,000-mile veterans with 100-mile rookies; for some, it’s their first race, regardless of distance.

“Five, four, three, two, one—GO!”

Snow hooks come free. The tension snaps. One by one, teams bolt forward at two-minute intervals, surging down the trail like fast-moving water.

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Sled dog races in North America are vanishing almost as quickly as the snow and ice that mushers rely on. Over the past five years, events have increasingly been shortened, rerouted, or cancelled due to inadequate snowpack or open water that makes trails dangerous. Climate change and rising costs—from housing to dog food to fuel—are all placing pressure on the sport. Kennels are downsizing as a result. Mushers say it’s getting more challenging to find the time and resources to train teams to compete in long-distance races—and it’s hard to find the races themselves.

Nowhere is this decline clearer than in the fate of the Yukon Quest. At its peak, the legendary 1,000-mile race—a gruelling route that followed the Yukon River between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, Alaska—attracted a roster of nearly fifty mushers. However, that halved into the 2000s. Since 2021, it’s completely unravelled. A dispute between Canadian and US race boards split the 2023 event into regional, shorter races. Then, warming winters forced organizers to shorten the race by 150 miles. The next year, it was rerouted inland between the Teslin and Ross rivers. By January 2026, former board members cancelled the competition altogether, citing volunteer burnout and mounting debt. In a Hail Mary attempt to save the organization, a new board of directors was recently........

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