A dog sled racer from Virden, Carl Knudsen and his team of eight dogs recently ran in the Klondike Dog Derby in Minnesota to win second place.
Despite the less-than-ideal conditions for the Feb. 3-4 event, it was a great race for this musher and team. Knudsen finished the 38-mile race in about two hours and 40 minutes, “which is quite good considering the trail was soft [with] fresh snow and it was quite warm, about 0 degrees,” he says. “So, I was happy with the ride, second place out of 35 at the first race of the season.”
The Klondike Dog Derby is a world-class sled dog race and a huge attraction for spectators. The race starts and finishes on Water Street in the heart of historic Excelsior, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis. The dogs race along the snow-covered shores of Lower Lake Minnetonka, with a crowd of about 25,000 watching.
Knudsen knew his dogs and their capabilities. He made some key decisions to set the right pace throughout the race and finish with a second place, “as seven of the eight were charging hard up the final hill after 38 miles.”
Near the finish line there’s a big hill up off of Lake Minnetonka into Excelsior. Knudsen explains that the final effort and the finish line crowd can be a distraction for tired dogs. “At the end there, there’s a huge mass of spectators. Quite often dogs will want to slow down at the finish mark. But these dogs, they still had energy.”
He had to take the strengths and weaknesses of his team into consideration, or it might not have turned out so well. “I had one old leader on the team. Costco. He’s about nine years old. We thought he could make this run. He’s old and reliable, but I guess he’s just getting a little tired.”
Knudsen says he found the happy spot, allowing the younger dogs to use their power but not overpowering his old reliable.
“Quite often if they get too tired, you’ll have to load them in the sled. But, just from my experience, racing, I thought that if I just took it easy a little bit on the dogs, he (Costco) would make the run and I would have a better time than if I’d stopped and had to carry him on the sled. So, I made that decision.”
And it’s not over for Costco. “He’ll start maybe racing in shorter races, in six-dog… he’s got lots of experience and can lead that team to train them up for future racing.”
Early days
As a boy raised at Porcupine Plain, a couple of hours northwest of Yorkton, his family wasn’t into dog sledding. But young Carl wanted his dog to pull him in the calf sleigh.
“She didn’t like that very much, so I thought I could get a few sled dogs to pull me around and go and check my rabbit snares. I talked to an old musher, locally, and he showed me some things about raising dogs.”
By the time he had a three-dog team, he attended the Preeceville, Sask. dog race and got caught up in the thrill of racing. “Once you try that, it’s just like an addiction. I’m hooked now, racing professionally quite a time later,” says Knudsen, now 29.
Several years ago, Knudsen took on the poultry processing business east of Virden, formerly owned and operated by the MacDonald family.
He owns a large kennel of dogs with some 20 puppies this year, building toward strong racing bloodlines keen to run the long races. “You want to get the type of dog you can personally work with, connect with well… and hopefully be competitive with.”
His bloodlines include greyhound, German shorthaired pointer, and Alaskan husky which provides toughness.
The $7,000 US prize for second place will certainly come in handy for this professional racer who spends up to 16 hours per day, this time of year, with his dogs.
He’s thankful for good neighbours and credits a business sponsor, Strike Welding.
Next week, the Knudsen team is off to The Pas for the Northern Manitoba Trappers' Festival where he will run a 10-dog team on the 35-mile loop that makes up the World Championship Dog Race.
