A visit from Irvin Perry

One of the bigger events of the year in Jackson is the Dog Sled Race, especially noticable if your office manager is an ex-professional dog sledder, volunteers on the committee as race secretary, and generally kind person that cannot say no to anyone. This race started last Friday in Jackson for an evening short 4 mile kick off race. Then they tour around with a race in Lander, Pinedale, Alpine, Kemmerer, Evanston and Park City. 300 miles total. We went to the festivities on Friday evening and then volunteered to house a musher on the night they were in Alpine. That got us invited to an excellent pot luck (fun) and we were assigned to house Irvin Perry.

Irvin was travelling with his wife, Yoenne, and Dog Handler, Christie, and they were from Inuvik, Northwest Territory. If you don't know where that is, it is at the end of the road, literally, where the North American Highway system ends in the North. We stayed up late with them chatting and enjoyed a big breakfast before they were off to run the 60 mile leg Wednedsay. A very interesting evening and morning. Their 23 dogs stayed in the truck! (They left the other 22 at home.. and they do this "just for fun!").


I guess this race hosts the best dog sledders in the world. Irvin said there was no way to touch the top 5, but since up to 12th place pays out more than the $1000 entry fee, the other 15 teams were competing for those 7 spots. They were fairly disappointed with their showing so far.