BLM Public Lands Host 2008 Yukon Quest Mushers

Each year competitors in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race cross three areas of BLM-managed public lands in their epic, 1000-mile journey between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.

This year one of those areas, the headwaters of Birch Creek, had to be bypassed due to insufficient snow on nearby Rosebud Summit. Mushers and their teams were instead trucked from Chena Hot Springs to Mile 101 on the Steese Highway, where they resumed their race by ascending the formidable Eagle Summit. After passing through the town of Central, mushers and their teams endured subzero temperatures on a lower section of Birch Creek National Wild River before reaching Circle, where the race course turned up the Yukon River toward Eagle. On the last section of trail before the race entered Canada, mushers and their teams passed through the deep valley of the Fortymile National Wild and Scenic River.

Fairbanks musher Lance Mackey won this year’s race, extending his winning streak to four consecutive Yukon Quests. Fifteen of the 24 starters made it to the finish line in Whitehorse.

Crowds braved below-zero temperatures to cheer Brent Sass of Fairbanks and other mushers at the start of the 2008 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in downtown Fairbanks. Sass, 27, finished fifth and won the Challenge of the North award for the musher who best exemplifies the ‘spirit of the Yukon Quest.’

Veteran Quest musher Bill Cotter of Nenana leaves the start of the 2008 Yukon Quest.

For a few days each February, Central is abuzz with dogs, mushers, support teams and reporters when the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and its shorter cousin the Yukon Quest 300 pass through town.

Jean-denis Britten of Whitehorse leads his sled dog team down frozen Birch Creek National Wild River between Central and Circle during the 2008 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.

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