Locals Support Team Dawson in the Yukon Quest

by Dan Davidson

If the old saying is correct, that “it takes a village to raise a child”, perhaps we could adapt it here in the Yukon to says that it takes a town to run a race.

The race in question would be the Yukon Quest, And Dawsonites turned out in healthy numbers to a fund raising auction at the Sourdough Saloon in the Downtown Hotel on the evening of January 30 to make sure that its mushers had a good financial platform from which to launch their bids to win this year’s Quest.

Peter Ledwidge will be making his fifth attempt at the race this year, while rookie Agata Franczak will be trying it for the first time.

Franczak says that it costs at least $20,000 to run

Auctioneer Dominic Lloyd wearing just one of the many hats under which he has served the community over the last five years.

the Yukon Quest, so she appreciates anything that anyone might do to “help us pay our Visa bills.”

Financing the race, she said “uses up everything, Visa, MasterCard, whatever you have, which means we are all in debt.”

Peter Ledwidge says that he would probably still be in the hole even if he were to win the top prize of US$30,000. He isn’t in it for the money.

Many items were donated for the mushers’ auction. Photo by Dan Davidson.

Franczak has been mushing for 12 years now, two years after arriving in Canada from Poland and almost immediately after she moved to the Yukon following a period in Toronto.

“When I saw the Yukon it was like, oh this is really my place. I really want to be here. The year after I came here I immediately had a dog team.”

Her long distance experience is limited to the Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail Race, in which she came in seventh place last spring, but she says she’s been told by others that the bigger race is a lot of fun to run.

“My dogs are ready; I am ready. We just have to go and do it.”

The very cold weather in Dawson has slowed up her training regime so much that she’s heading up to the Whitehorse area where the warmer weather will be kinder to her dogs and give her more training time before the race.

Peter Ledwidge hadn’t been certain that he would run the Quest again this year. He had thought it might be his wife’s turn. Anne, it seems, knew his mind better than he did. In the Ledwidge family, it’s a team effort; Peter trains the dogs, while Anne and the kids help in the dog yard and she organizes the finances.

Anne also runs dogs; she ran the Percy last year and will probably do so again this year.

“It’s our lifestyle now,” says Ledwidge, who grew up as the son of a university professor in Nova Scotia. He recalled his low point in last year’s race, when the weather closed in as the teams were leaving Dawson.

“‘Why am I doing this’? I thought. My family’s here. Why am I being stupid and going out in this snowstorm, on the river. By the time I got to Circle I told Anne that this was my last one. She didn’t pay any attention to me.

“When I crossed the finish line in Fairbanks it was, ‘Okay, what am I going to do next year?’ This has become who I am, part of my identity now.”

The kids love the dogs as well and the Ledwidges make the Quest into the family holiday each year. Both Anne and Peter run a new business, The Doghouse, in the summer and both are working geologists as well.

Anne Ledwidge said that they really considered not having another fund raising auction this year, but she rapidly discovered it was like it was expected of them.

“We weren’t going to do it this year, but it was amazing how all our friends said ‘No, no, you have to do it.’”

This year, with two of them running and participating in the same auction, it seems more like an event for Team Dawson.

“It really takes the pressure off to have them both running, Peter and Agata. It’s kind of nicer that the Dawson mushers come together and do it together. I’m glad to be helping Agata and doing it for her, too.”

Anne said that when she began to canvas for items for the auction, she met no one who debated whether to donate something to the table. It was more a matter of what to donate. Everyone seemed very happy to be involved.

“It’s amazing. Everyone in Dawson is so generous,” Anne said. “People come up to us an just offer stuff.”

On the night of the event, in fact, one local decided on the spot to donate a rack of antlers for auction, and headed home to get them in the -40°C weather. He was back 20 minutes later.

Even the politicians get into the act, with Mayor Glen Everitt donating an evening of celebrity bar service time, as he often does for these events.

“You see an item worth $100 going for $150 or something like that,” Peter said, “and you know that people aren’t necessarily here to get a deal. They’re here to support their mushers - and that makes me feel pretty good.”