2024 UP200 Powered by NMU Mushers - Upper Peninsula Sled Dog Association - UP 200

The love of the outdoors and the dogs.

Alaska, Canada, Lower 48

My best memories with my team come from times when we overcame tough trials. Like a proud parent, it’s the greatest feeling watching your dogs willingly rise to the challenge and overcome it. In bad conditions I usually find myself singing! My cue to them is that I’m relaxed and trust them to do what they do best. I’ve learned that in uncertain situations being “the calm in the storm” pays dividends.

It seemed like a fun way to spend some time in the woods with my dogs.

Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Montana

I have had loads of fun with my dogs. They teach me every time we are out on the trail.

My brother and I had sled dogs in High School. In 2019, I decided to get 6 dogs “just for fun” and here we are.

Beargrease 12, Midnight Run, CopperDog 150, Wolf Track, Klondike

In the Midnight Run, I had stopped my team and didn’t set my snow hook. I was adjusting gloves and the team did not want to wait. They took off and I was on my backside. Luckily Frank Holmberg was up ahead and stopped my team.

I fell in love with sled dogs after following the Iditarod in a homeschool project at 9 years old. It became my goal to live off-grid with a team of sled dogs and run the Iditarod. It has been and continues to be an amazing lifestyle.

Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Minnesota, Michigan, Maine, Saskatchewan, Yukon Territory, Alaska

My favorite race was the 2018 Yukon Quest. It was a cold (-30 to -60 below for 7 days) and tough race and it was an amazing adventure to share with my dog team.

I married a musher.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota

The 2022 UP 200 was quite spectacular. It was my first big race, and with the blizzard conditions and a team of mostly black dogs, I couldn’t see half of them! Thank goodness for leader lights. 

At the first checkpoint, the door almost blew off of our trailer. In the end, I was thankful to be driving the dog team and not the truck, although it did make the drive-through at McDonald's a little extra tricky. Just kidding!

I originally got into mushing from being a race volunteer at the Sawbill checkpoint at the Beargrease. To add to the excitement from that experience, my wife/kennel manager Cristen and I stayed with Deke Naaktgeboren on our honey moon where Deke gave us our first four sled dogs.

I have raced in 2 dog sprint races to 12 dog mid-distance races including the Beargrease 120, Jump River, the Knik 200, and the Wolf Track Classic.

My biggest claim to fame is getting the red lantern in the Beargrease120 and the Wolftrack in my first race year… it can only be up from there!

I enjoy the outdoors.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, Maine, Alaska

I'm looking forward to being back at the UP200.

Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Alaska, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Quebec

I had to spend most of the 2019 training season hooked to a snow mobile due to a concussion. We still managed to get the team ready for one of our biggest kennel achievements which was to run the Yukon Quest.

I began racing long distances in 1996 with the Labrador 400. I like to be in the wilderness and discover new territories.

I raced Can Am Crown 250 and won it 10 times. I have raced The UP200 many times and finished in second or third place. I like to be in wilderness and discover new territories. In 2003, I raced Yukon Quest and placed 6th. In 2022, I realize my dream in running the Iditarod and finished 21th.

In the 2022 Iditarod, my team and I were attacked by an angry moose. He trampled my leaders and charged me… I had to fight with him to make my dogs free. Luckily we escaped unscathed. My wife is actually writing a book about my life and experiences, hope it will be translated!

My dad had sled dogs when I was 11 years old.

Hudson Bay Quest 200, Canadian Challenge 300 and 200, Can-Am 250, Beargrease Marathon

I basically learned how to race while running the Hudson Bay Quest for the first in 2012. I was so inexperienced and I barely finished the race – a proud Red Lantern winner that year. I’m really excited and happy to be running the UP200 for the first time this year!

I am the third generation musher. My family was really involved in sprint races, but 22 years ago I decided to race in longer distances. My son is now racing with me and I am really proud of him.

Can-Am Crown 250, Up 200, PG Expedition 100

Every training is special with my dogs and my family. I really enjoyed doing all this training and finally got to race. It’s always a good time with my family and mushing friends.

I was born into a mushing family. I am a 4th generation musher.

Can-Am 250, UP200, PG Expedition 100

I raced the UP200 once and since then, I've wished to come back. I love this race.

I like to work with my dog.

Taïga 120 miles, Eagle lake 100 miles, Greenville 70 miles, Can-Am Crown 100-250 miles, Chicchoc 200 miles

My favorite moment is to watch my daughter racing. She is much better than me. She is the best and my handler.

Beargrease Hwy 2 checkpoint is a couple of miles from our house. After watching the dog teams we were hooked.

MN, WI, MI, ME, Canada

I will never forget Ero’s first 4-wheeler training run when he was in high school. We each had 12 dog teams and Ero went out first. About a 1/2 mile out, I come across Ero with a WTF look on his face as he has rolled his wheeler and 12 jacked up dogs screaming to run!

It just happened...

Mn, WI, MI, Montana, Id, WY, UT, ME, Ontario, Manitoba, Alaska 

It has always been great every time I come to the UP. Can't wait to get back!

I got into dogs back in 2008. I bought a dog from a musher and he invited me for a dog sled ride, I was on the runners within 3 miles and running dogs by myself the next week. It's all history after that.

Maine and Canada

I have to many too lists. I once hallucinated tree houses and bridges coming into the Allagash checkpoint during Can Am.

I got a siberian husky as a pet back in 2000 and was looking for ways to tire her out; next thing I know I was sucked into this madness called dog mushing!

New England, Quebec, Ontario, Michigan, Minnesota and Alaska

The very first time I ran the Beargrease Marathon it started on a track field of a Duluth school. It was fairly icy/hard conditions that year and a few hundred yards out of the starting chute was a 90 degree curve. The trail crew had put some straw bales up - I guess for us to bounce off of as we hit that curve at high speed? Meanwhile I had just picked up a new and flexible carbon fiber & aluminum racing sled that week but didn't want to try it out for the first time with a fresh team on a big race, so I opted to start off with my familiar old wooden (and unflexible) basket sled. My 14 dogs took off and as we went into the turn I bent my knees and leaned into it.... and one runner hit a patch of ice and down I went! I didn't let go of the handlebar - rule #1 in mushing - but unfortunately the handlebar let go of the rest of the sled. Off my team went without me, while I started running after them still clutching the handlebar. Thankfully the snowhook bounced out of the sled and grabbed not too far down the trail, but now I had a big problem: a sled and an amped team with no handlebar. I pulled the team to the side while I tried to get ahold of my handler crew to bring me my new sled (after clearing it with a judge), but they had already left to go to the first checkpoint. Luckily Ann Stead loaned me a sled to use. By the time she got there with the sled and I transferred my gear and lines and dogs over, not only had all the marathon racers gone off but so had most of the 120 mushers. I finally got back out on the trail but my confidence was completely shot; it didn't help that the drag mat on the borrowed sled was half the width of what I was used to so every time I went to step on the drag mat for the first handful of times I missed and fell to my knees. My legs were jelly as we navigated the many twists and turns and road crossings on the way to Billy's Bar and I was wondering whether it would be frowned upon to hook the team down at that first checkpoint and go in and get a shot of courage. :P Just then, I came across a rather rambunctious trail party where the revelers yelled out "Water or Beer?", holding up one of each. My response? "BEER!" That got such a loud cheer from the partiers that I suspect I may have been the only musher to opt for beer. Definitely a memorable moment in mushing!

I first got involved in sled dog racing my freshman year at Michigan Tech with the Mushing Club. When I first visited the kennel, I was blown away by all of the dogs, and I got hooked. Being a person pursuing Veterinary School, it was an awesome opportunity to learn more about animal care.

I have raced in the Beargrease 40 in 2022, and at the time of the UP 200, I will have completed the Tahquamenon Country Sled Dog Race 10 dog pro.

Over this past summer, I had the amazing experience of going to Alaska to run dryland dog tours the entire summer. It was a great experience to run the dogs that I run here in the UP every day, and to be able to mush other teams from around the country, especially the Iditarod kennels. It was also a great experience to meet mushers from around the country and to gain knowledge and experience from them. 

In 1987, during a free run chasing my Van, my three Siberian cross dogs disappeared after some deer. They killed Leon Wellman's chickens. He was an old retired musher and convinced me to try running them with a sled and harnesses that he gave me. After chasing me, running in front of them and stopping over and over, they rediscovered the "chicken trail" down a power line at the end of my road and proceeded to drag me to Leon's house. Several runs to Leon's for cake and coffee with him and Ma and back home got me hooked on recreational mushing and interested in the sport.  A sled dog camping trip in Cook County, MN, Jeffery Mann and the first UP200 in 1990 got me hooked on Racing.

I've raced in the Midwest and Ontario

I lost my dog team while running the Midnight Run around 2008 or 2009 and they turned around and came back to me after about twenty minutes