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A cacophony of 100 barking sled dogs is the first thing you
hear when you approach Cali King’s ’07 Alaskan home.
The spacious cabin, hand built by her Iditarod champion dad, Jeff
King, is nestled in the woods a mile off the highway, a stone’s
throw from Denali National Park. In the summer, the home’s
big windows look out onto a lake. Today, in late March when the
temperature stubbornly refuses to climb above six degrees Fahrenheit,
the lake is completely frozen and covered by a blanket of snow.
Out here in the Alaskan bush is where Cali grew up to become a sled
dog girl.
In the dog yard, dozens of barking dogs dance in a circle on the
hard pack snow around their wooden houses. For warmth, the boxy
dog shelters are raised off the ground. Each dog is tethered to
a lead that allows the animal to move 360 degrees around the structure,
leap onto its top or go inside.
Two sleds are anchored in the snow, tow lines strung out in front
awaiting dogs. Jeff, who has just returned from placing second in
the Iditarod, the Indy 500 of dogsled racing, scans the dogs in
the yard. He calls out, “Get Conan and Alberta. Take Jersey.”
Cali and her younger sister, Tessa, scramble to retrieve each
chosen dog and hook it, two abreast to one of the sleds. The girls
are dressed in thick boots and fur-lined parkas with the name Cabela,
one of their major sponsors, emblazoned on the front. They move
with sureness and practiced efficiency. Handling these canine marathon
runners is some-thing they’ve grown up with.
As the spots along the tow lines are filled, the barking, jumping
and lunging increases, each dog begging to be selected. These are
Alaskan sled dogs and there’s nothing they like more than
running sleds.
Two lines of dogs stand ready in front of each sled. Jeff conducts
a quick assessment of his daughters’ work, checking the lines
and ruffing each dog’s head and neck as he passes. Satisfied,
he steps behind the lead sled and calls out, “Ready?”
Tessa pulls the parka hood over her head and steps onto the second
sled’s runners. With a smooth motion, Jeff releases the claw-like
anchor and the dogs sprint off. Following close behind, Tessa’s
sled careens out of the yard. As she disappears around a sharp bend,
the howling begins. First one dog, then all join in a mournful chorus.
“They’re sending them off,” Cali says, grinning.
“It’s their way of saying goodbye.”
She should know. Cali’s an expert in Alaskan sled dog behavior.
Before she could even walk, she was cuddling and playing with sled
dogs. Each summer, she and Tessa name and raise about 30 puppies.
“There are pictures of us when we’re just a couple of
years old with the puppies,” she says. “The dogs are
all pretty friendly. They should be after putting up with being
dressed in our doll clothes all summer long.”
The breed is Alaskan husky – small, lean long-distance athletes
who have happy dispositions and few health problems. “The
AKC doesn’t recognize Alaskan huskies because they all look
different, but they’re not a mixed breed,” explains
Cali. In the summer, she leads tours around the King’s kennel
and gives talks to tourists interested in the sport of dog sled
racing. “Alaskan sled dogs are not mutts, but they can look
like border collies, Siberian huskies or German shepherds. Because
they’re not inbred like purebreds, they don’t have problems
like hip dysplasia, weeping eyes or hot spots.”
Cali loves the dogs and says working with them has taught her how
to live. “The dogs are really happy,” she says. “They
get along with their neighbors. They’re resilient and they
have a passion. They’re great examples for anyone.”
It wasn’t until she was a high school sophomore that she
became interested in sled dog racing. Cali attended Tri-Valley School,
a K-12 school with about 200 students, located 20 miles from her
home in the small community of Healy. She’d participated in
gymnastics, basketball, soccer, volleyball and dance before she
decided to give sled racing a try. “Being 5’3”,
I couldn’t really be a basketball or volleyball star and dance
wasn’t competitive,” she says. “I was at a plateau
as an athlete so I decided to take advantage of our excellent dogs
and my dad’s racing knowledge to enter the Junior Iditarod.”
The race is a two-day, mini-version of the original Iditarod Race
that traces the historic Anchorage to Nome route used to deliver
vaccine that saved hundreds of people from an epidemic. Open to
teens 14-17 years old, the Junior Iditarod is approximately 170
miles and follows the Iditarod Trail route from Wasilla to Yenta,
the first checkpoint, and back.
During the first day, Cali ran the dogs seven hours and then rested
the mandatory 10 hours at the checkpoint. On her return trip, she
left at 2:00 a.m., mushing through the darkness to come in seven
hours later at the finish. Although it was her first Junior Iditarod,
she came in second by a mere 34 seconds. In addition to promotional
prizes like hats and lanterns donated by local businesses, she earned
a $2,500 scholarship for her effort.
In her senior year in high school, Cali set her sights on the grueling
1,100-mile Iditarod. Unlike the two-day junior version, this race
can take mushers up to 15 days through some of the harshest conditions
in Alaska. Once she turned 18, she had to run at least 500 miles
of qualifying races sanctioned by the Iditarod Board. In one month,
she raced in two 300-milers to qualify.
That kind of performance is typical of Cali. She possesses the
essential characteristic of successful sled dog racers – determination.
“Once I decided I was going to race, I was going to do it,”
she says. “I knew if I started the race, I’d finish
it.”
Following a race-rest schedule she worked out with her dad, Cali
and 15 dogs raced through the Alaskan bush from Fairbanks to Nome.
(Snow was scarce so the start of the race was moved from Anchorage
to Fairbanks.) Because sun reflecting off the snow can overheat
the dogs, she often ran at night. “Darkness doesn’t
stop dog mushing,” she says. “Most of the top Iditarod
mushers run at night because their dogs run better in colder temperatures.”
At the 22 Alaskan village checkpoints, she bedded her team down
on straw and slept on the floor of churches or community halls.
“I’ve learned to sleep anywhere,” she says, laughing
at the memory. “You don’t get your own quiet little
room. People are milling around, going about their business, eating
and talking all around you.”
A couple of times during the race, she slept outdoors alone in
the bush. She says she wasn’t afraid. “I wasn’t
really alone with 15 dogs,” she says. To ensure she’d
wake on schedule, she tucked a small alarm clock inside her parka’s
hood. “You take your boots off and sleep fully clothed on
the sled. It’s very comfortable.”
The excellent conditioning of her dogs and her own ability to read
the dogs’ moods and needs served her well. She came in 32
out of 65 mushers who finished. More than a third of those who started
didn’t finish the race. Among rookies who finished, she came
in second.
Cali says completing the Iditarod made her more prepared for Willamette.
“Mushing teaches you to be serious about what you’re
doing and you have to be serious about academics at Willamette,”
she says. “In the dog mushing world, you have to be able to
go to people for advice and help. It’s one of the great things
about Willamette – you can go to your professors and classmates
for help.”
It has also made her a true sled dog girl. “I’m more
independent,” she says. “And I’m more comfortable
being by myself now.”
– Bobbie Hasselbring
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