by ken anderson » Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:57 am
Diana and Tanglefoot,
Yes, I was born and raised in Minnesota. We lived in Brooklyn Center when I was young and then moved out to Forest Lake around the third grade. I was exposed to mushing as a child, going on winter camping trips into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area with the family starting at age three. We had a couple of malemutes that would pull a sled and we'd ski as well. I loved the trips and eventually got into weight pull competitions as an early teen ager. My heroes back then were mushers like Will Steger, George Attla, and Jamie Nelson, who was dominating the weight pulls and winning the Beargrease. I kind of got away from mushing as a highschooler when girls and other sports became more important. However, running the Iditarod was a promise I made to myself as a young child. I eventually met Arleigh Jorgensen from Grand marais when I was working up in the area during a summer break from college. I got a job handling for him and he was a great mentor that re-kindled my desire to run dogs. I moved to Alaska in 1994 and commercial fished for Dean Osmar and then handled for lots of other mushers over the years, trying to learn as much as possible. I worked for Jeff King, Susan Butcher, Ramy Brooks, and Curtis Erhart. I wanted to learn as much from different types of mushers with different types of dogs as I could. Eventually Gwen and I got together and started our own kennel mostly from Curtis' yard. Our breeding has changed some since.
As far as racing regrets go. It's easy to wonder "what if". The best way to circumvent that though is to absolutely give it everything you have. I'm known for crossing the finish line in a mess of sweat, throbbing feet and exhaustion. I had a rather traumatic experience wrestling in high school. My senior year I made it to the state finals. Me and this other kid were wrestling in front of about 10,000 people for the championship. I lost that match at the buzzer in a controversial call. In hindsight I knew I could have given a little more and the outcome would have been much better. It was a great lesson to learn and now I realize the pain you go through during the race is far less than the pain of realizing you may have left a little on the table. I've also grown up a little and come to better accept that you might not always be on your "A" game every race.
As far as superstitions at the start go, I like to have a clean sled, although it doesn't stay that way long. The other thing I always do in the starting chute is make sure every tugline and neckline is perfect; no half-wraps around the gangline.
I've made plenty of mistakes getting rid of puppies too early only to see them look really nice as adults. I generally keep all the pups until they're at least nine months old. And then there may be a few with glaring build issues that I'll find a pet home for. But I've seen pups at that age that didn't seem built right actually smooth out and look quite nice as adults.
Ken
P.S. I just sent a journal to Germany and it cost $10.00 I charge $3.85 for S&H to the U.S. If you're interested in a journal there is a paypal option on our site. I assume shipping would be similar to the U.K. as Germany, so $30 would be fine.