Karen Ramstead

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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby Heidi » Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:17 pm

Best of luck to you and your dogs, Karen! So glad you're taking the time to post in here -- we fans appreciate it! Thanks! :D :D :D
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby Another UK Fan » Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:17 pm

News from Karen's hubby Mark, on website, is that Karen plans to take 24 hour at Takotna. ETA 7pm Ak time.
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby Breeze » Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:49 pm

good for Karen!

she needs a finish this year to offset last year's tragedy.

I'm so impressed with her focus and determination to GO WITH her dog's to their height of accomplishment.

Working dogs/ sporting dogs often have owners who just can't/don't/won't meet their dogs "out there" where the dogs want to go.

Karen takes her dogs seriously, from Iditatrod to Westminster. She is doing the amazing "dual dance", showcasing her dogs in their breed-specific nitch.

Go Karen, it may not be a first place finish, but I do understand what drives your bus~

Mush ON!

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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby Another UK Fan » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:06 pm

Breeze wrote:Karen takes her dogs seriously, from Iditatrod to Westminster.


:o Must get some sleep - read this and thought I'd missed seeing Karen and her wonderous dogs in the Houses of Parliament :lol:

It would be cool to see her in Westiminster UK......

Breeze, everything you said is spot on. What an inspiration she is.
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby RAIMIS2 » Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:23 pm

Seems like a nice lady. Hope she has a good race and all goes smoothly.
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby tanglefoot » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:36 am

i did an email interview with karen for a uk magazine she was so gracious and patient it took 4 days of back and forth emails...will see if i can post it here for you to read!
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby tanglefoot » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:44 am

bit of a long one....but.... i hope you dont mind me posting this karen...

Beaver Fever!

Interview with Canadian musher Karen Ramstead

The iditarod was still In full swing, Norway’s Robert Sorlie was leading the race over a week after taking the lead, but in a checkpoint called unalakleet, just after the mighty Yukon River leg, the only musher racing a team of pure bred Siberian Huskies was taking the hard decision to scratch, it was out of her hands, the dogs were still running strong but it was the musher that was fading fast.

Canadian musher (and club member!) Karen Ramstead, had caught what the Alaskans called ‘Beaver Fever’ a nasty bug that totally wiped out her strength and forced her hand in having to scratch.

Prior to the race starting I had emailed Karen offering up a good luck email. A couple of weeks after she returned home I got a reply with a thank you note. I chatted with Karen over the web and found out a little more about her race and her team of Siberian Huskies.

Karen is best known to many of the Siberian Husky club GB as someone that gets the very best out of her sibes and proves they are great dual purpose dogs. She is one of the only mushers to both successfully race and show her sled dogs. She has gained many top honours in racing, including 1st place in the 56 mile Canadian Quesnel race in 1994, she then got 3rd in the 120 mile long version of the same race the following year, 4th in the famous and gruelling 350 mile ‘race to the sky’ in Montana, she has completed the iditarod, often called the ‘last great race’ a huge 1049 miles across Alaskan wilderness with her team of Siberian huskies, including winning the red lantern.

In showing, many of the same dogs, having completed the iditarod trail, have gone on to win championship titles in many shows around Canada and the USA, she lives with her husband Mark at their busy kennels.

Here is a transcript of my interview with Karen about her time on and off the iditarod trail.

Hi Karen! ok first things first your not from the uk so where do you live

I live in Perryvale, Alberta, Canada. Which is about 1 hour north of the city of Edmonton, Alberta.

So, how long have you owned Siberians huskies and was it an ambition to own them or did it just happen.
We have had Siberian Huskies since 1989, when as a bribe to move from the city of Calgary to northern Alberta, my husband offered to buy me a purebred dog. I did a lot of research on different breeds and decided upon a Siberian.



And how many dogs do you have in your kennels now?

Around 56.

That’s a lot of husky hair!

What are the bloodlines you have in your kennels, any famous dogs we may have heard about over here?
Our first dog was from Meomar kennels – Meomar’s Miss Liberty. She was a mixture of old Canadian working lines, most going back at some point to the Alaskan/Anadyr lines. Our foundation litter from her was to multi BIS, BISS Ch. Chuchinka’s Shawn Boy SD. Shawn was a ½ similar lines to Libby and ½ Canadian show lines going back to Innisfree. Since then we have added a number of other lines to our kennels – including some Northome, Turick , and some pure Alaskan/Anadyr lines, but our base is still old Canadian lines like Atim, Chelyuskin, Kuchin, etc.

Many of my dogs have achieved some wonderful milestones and are famous in my eyes. Some of them are:

Ch. The Professor of NorthWapiti CD, SDU, TT ‘Spud’ – one of the few ‘triple titled’ Siberians in Canada.

Multi BIS Ch. Chuchinka’s Dance in the Wind SDX - #6 Siberian Husky show dog in 1996 and a finisher of many 200 and 300 mile races.

Ch. Kainai’s Anchorman ‘ Mannie’ – the 1st Canadian Champion show dog and only Group Placing show dog to have finished the Iditarod.

Ch. NorthWapiti’s Guy Smiley – the only other Canadian Champion show dog to finish Iditarod.


you often run sled dog teams comprising of both working and champion show dogs together, do all your dogs work and show?
No, it is required that dogs in our kennel work in harness, but if they don’t like showing – I don’t insist they go in the ring. Besides, it is far too expensive to show them all!
But we do ‘show what we work and work what we show’ – we don’t have separate show dogs and working dogs.

Many Siberian husky owners in the uk show and race their dogs, we don’t have the amount of trails for long distance mushing in the uk but we try our best, the racing season is now over till next winter in the uk and the show season has begun, do you think it is important for the show dogs you own to prove themselves on the gang line too?
I don’t own any ‘show dogs’ – all my dogs are working dogs that might happen to show as well. We are a ‘working kennel that shows’ not a ‘show kennel that works’.

So many racers in the USA use Alaskan huskies, you are one of the few to use a team comprising of Siberians to race long distance, why did you go down this route rather than the Alaskan huskies that most other kennels use.
There is no Iditarod/long distance racing for me without Siberians. My passion is the breed and it is their love of the sport that inspires me to compete. I want to honour their history and traditions on the trail!


Before entering a race such as the iditarod, how many miles do you put on your team, and when do you start training for the race
We, pretty much, train year round (last year I took three weeks in June off – this year, I’m not scheduling any time off). I zero the miles on July 1st of each year. My Iditarod dogs had 2200 miles of training on them prior to Iditarod this year.

Owning so many dogs is it a tough descion to make when deciding who will run in the team and which dogs will stay behind.
Yes, it is. This year I left some dogs behind that I felt could have completed the Race. It is really nice to have that kind of depth in our training pool!
The toughest thing is to use your head and not your heart to make cuts. Sometimes you want to keep certain favourites in the team just because they are favourites.

It’s always hard to have one but, who would you say is your favourite dog in your kennel, do you have any complete stars!
Not hard at all for me. My favourite is a dog named Grover – NorthWapiti’s Super Grover is his full name. He is my main leader and I think the sun rises and sets on him.

you look to be working hard on the sled during a race to help your team along, do you do much in the way of personal training your self before a racing season?
Throughout the summer and early fall I train 4 – 5 days a week on my exercise bike and with free weights. Later in the fall and winter, the days are just too short and the training runs too long to get my workouts in.

It sounds like you train hard all year round then!
when did you decide to start running long distance races like the iditarod and how long did it take you to get your first team ready?
It was a gradual process. In 1994, we tried our first ‘longer’ race – 54 miles. The next year we did a 120-mile race and in 1996 completed the 300-mile Race to the Sky in Montana.
We first started talking about Iditarod in ’97 and in ’98 made a lot of lifestyle changes that allowed us to start to seriously move towards an Iditarod goal.
In ’99 we went up to Alaska and ran my qualifiers – a 200 and 300-mile race and first attempted Iditarod in 2000.

what did you think of the change in trail for the race this year.I enjoyed seeing the new parts of the trail and visiting the villages of Nenana, Manley, and Tanana, but it was not a lot of ‘fun’ to do 600 + miles of travelling on the Yukon River. I much preferred the traditional routes – but I am pleased with the Iditarod Trail Committee for coming up with a route we could race on in this difficult year when so many races were cancelled.


From the comfort of my computer here in the uk the race sites kept mentioning one thing…the Yukon…how did your dogs cope with the monotony of the Yukon River and how did you keep them motivated to keep running?

There are two tricks to this – one, having a well disciplined team and two, keeping yourself motivated – as the dogs really feed off of their mushers mood. If you are motivated, they will be.

What is your favourite part of running a long distance race with a team of Siberians, is it just hard work that you don’t really enjoy till the race is done?

Oh no, I absolutely love racing. I love travelling through remote, beautiful wilderness with my team. It is such an amazing way to appreciate the wonders of nature.

With so many dogs in your kennel to train, how do you spot a good leader in your pack, is it instinct or endless hours watching the dogs running to spot the potential leaders of a good team?
I think every dog can be trained to lead to one extent or another. Out of the 16 dogs I started Iditarod with, 15 are leaders and all spent some time in front of the team on the Race.
We keep trying dogs over and over in lead. Every year, every dog tries his or her ‘paw’ in front. Some take to it quickly and easily – others take years to develop the confidence to be there – but if I only focused on the ones that took to leading quickly, I would have missed some amazing lead dogs.



You had to scratch from the race this year due to illness, what happened? And are there plans to race the last great race again next year?

I developed a case of Giardia (commonly known as Beaver Fever) in Eagle Island. By the time I got to Unalakleet, I was too sick to be able to properly care for my dogs and myself out on the trail.
It was very disappointing.
YES, we are going back next year! I can’t wait!

Sounds nasty! Glad to hear you are going back for another iditarod. Get well soon!
So, the race apart from consuming great amounts of time must also consume vast sums of money, how much does it cost to prepare and run a team in the iditarod.
Well, the costs of Iditarod itself are around $30,000 US – that doesn’t include what it costs us to maintain the kennel on a yearly basis.


WOW! The average UK race costs about £12.50 to enter and the only other costs are food and petrol to the race site dog food and equipment for training. so no where near as much as running just the iditarod... is there anyway our members can help you with donations towards next years race?
The purebred Siberian Husky community has been incredibly helpful. Without it, we would not be able to participate in the Race. Our website – http://www.telusplanet.net/public/musher - explains the different ways folks can help support and sponsor our Iditarods.

We read about teams dropping dogs off during the iditarod, how do you feel having to drop dogs during a race, obviously its for the dogs health but doesn’t it leave you feeling a bit sorry for the dog not making it to the finish in Nome with the rest of the team…is it true you finished in 2001 with 15 out of 16 dogs?
Yes, it is true that in 2001 I finished with 15 of my 16 starting dogs – the largest team to finish the Race that year.

That’s a real achievement considering most teams finish with around 8 – 11 dogs!
I hate dropping dogs. We are a team and I like to keep my team together as much as possible. I also worry about the dogs until they are back in Mark’s care, even though I know Iditarod does a great job of caring for them. I usually phone Mark as soon as I can after I drop a dog to let him know they are heading home and then follow up to make sure he gets them – if possible.

So what happens to the dropped dogs after you have left them at the checkpoint?They are constantly in the care of vets and vet techs. They are flown back to Anchorage, where a mushers handlers must pick them up within a few hours. A musher gives Iditarod names of folks before the Race that will be on call 24 hours a day to pick up dropped dogs.

Do you have a regular team of handlers at your kennels or is it friends and relatives that help you out?

No, we don’t have handlers. My husband, Mark and I do all the work in the kennel, although I do occasionally hire someone to shovel the yard for me when we are heavy into training.

What happens when you arrive home after a long distance race…do you have a favourite thing to do on getting back to the kennels? It must be one hell of a welcome from the rest of the dogs!!!

Well, I’d like to be running my young dogs right now, but my health and the weather aren’t allowing that this year!
It usually takes a month or more to catch up with the correspondence, bills, yard work, unpacking, etc.

The dogs must be tired after a long distance race, do you have to warm your team down after a race like the iditarod or is it just race over put your paws up and take the rest of the winter off!
They came off Iditarod keen and eager to keep working this year – and we would have except the trails are between being usable by either a 4 wheeler or a sled. Normally, I use the Iditarod dogs as ‘front ends’ for yearling teams, so they do work, but not as hard as they did pre race and during the race.

We get very little snow in the UK winters anymore, we also hear the weather has been strange this year in Alaska, with little snow around to mush on, do you use other means of training your dogs?
Oh yes, we did over 1500 miles on the quad (ATV, All Terrain Vehicle…. whatever you might call it).

So how did you find enough snow?

While in Alaska we trucked the dogs 3 hours to an area that had snow to train on.

That’s a long way to drive just to train!
Most people here will only drive that to race and have training fairly near by, I guess we are lucky in that respect.


In the uk there are a variety of races to run each year, if a musher chose to they could run 1 every weekend from October to February, do you have a series of races that you like to run each year to gauge your dogs improving performance?
For sprint racing, you could do that here in Canada, but with distance racing it wouldn’t be possible or wise to race the team every weekend. We normally do one 300-mile race prior to Iditarod and maybe one or two other, shorter races (100 – 200 mile range). Normally these races aren’t used to gauge the dog’s performance, but rather get some experience on the younger dogs and we usually run a fairly conservative race plan.


Any favourite races?
Iditarod, of course. I’m also very fond of the 350 mile Race to the Sky in Montana.

Well it had to be the iditarod!!!

With a full kennel to run, training, running, feeding (how long does that take?), shovelling etc, do you have any other interests or hobbies you like to pursue in your busy life?
Well, I do show the dogs during the summer and I do love photography (I used to make my living as a photographer).
Feeding takes about 1 hour. Shovelling takes about the same. Training, etc depends on how many teams I’m running and how far we are going.

What are your plans for the coming year, I guess a busy schedule of racing and showing?
Well, Iditarod will be the focus for this upcoming season. I’m judging an All Breed Puppy Sweepstakes next month, so probably won’t get in the show ring until June. I’m also planning on the US Nationals in September and the Canadian Nationals in November. Other then that, plans are still up in the air.


Do you and mark have any plans to visit the UK in the near future? I can assure you that you will be very welcome!!!

I’d love to. Many years ago I used to work as a store manager for Royal Doulton. The company had plans to take all the managers to the UK later that year and I was very disappointed when my husband got a new job and I had to quit to move to northern Alberta, missing the trip!


Ok, what’s the best thing about owning a Siberian husky?In my dogs, I’ve found kindred spirits to share my life with.

What’s the worst thing about owning a Siberian husky, as if!

I can’t answer that.

ha ha, I have to agree!

As a successful show dog exhibitor and long distance racer a what’s your all time favourite Siberian husky mishap!

Oh gosh, there has been so many. These dogs have such a terrific sense of humour and are always looking for trouble!

Mmm how many owners can relate to that one!

One last thing, can you give us sibe owners in the UK one tip from the years of experience you have of racing and showing Siberian huskies?

Start small and grow slow. I see so many kennels that pop up virtually overnight and then vanish just as fast, leaving a bunch of unwanted dogs. Building a kennel takes a lot of time and hard work. Don’t be in such a rush to get to your goals, enjoy the journey it takes to get there.

Karen, many many thanks! For your time and fantastic replies to all my questions, I and the rest of the Siberian husky club of GB wish you the very best of luck this year and we will be rooting for you again in next years iditarod, I hope the old ‘beaver fever’ sorts it self out soon and you will be back on the runners in no time at all, I’ve had a good read of your site and I must say I have a favourite dog…pirate! What a fantastic looking dog!!! If he ever fancies a break from the Alaskan winters and a little holiday in the uk…I’m sure my 2 girls would love to show him their favourite trails and take him on a good run in the woods!!!
Well, Pirate isn’t mine. He is the one dog in my kennel I don’t own – he belongs to Kathleen Kanzler, but will be living here for, at least, another year.






Since chatting to Karen she is recovering well from the old ‘beaver fever’ and is about to head out on the trails for a run with her team…as long as the trail has set! Mmmm makes this last few weeks of March sunshine seem like summer! I once heard a song lyric that went’ when its spring time in Alaska its 40 below!’ Canada may not be Alaska but when someone talks about heading out on a just set snowy trail as your sat in the Uk with temperatures too warm to run your dogs, you just cant help feeling a little jealous!

BIG Thanks to Karen for spending time chatting and answering my endless questions, lets hope you make it to the uk sometime and then we can talk to you in person about your fantastic dogs!


This interview was done via email over a week period, whilst Karen was recovering from her race during iditarod 31, Norwegian Robert Sorlie went on to win, in 9 days.15 hours.47 minutes and 36 seconds. A total of 1171 miles from the start in Fairbanks.


published in the siberian husky news, UK in 2004 i think?
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby BB Backer » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:53 am

I'm hoping someone out there can answer a question for me. A while back there were some beautiful necklaces being sold in honor of Snickers. It was a fundraiser for ulcer research in racing dogs. I've checked back at Karen's website and no longer see a link. :( Does anyone know if they are still being sold? If so, where? They are gorgeous and are for such a great cause. :)
Never mind. :oops: With the help of google and a little diligence, I found the answer. Thanks anyway.


On to Nome Karen and team...for Snickers!
Last edited by BB Backer on Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby fladogfan » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:38 pm

Oh Matt,
What a wonderful interview, thanks for sharing it with this side of the pond :D

See, I keep saying someone in Britain should hire you to report the Iditarod race, you make for a good read 8-) ;) :D
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Re: Karen Ramstead

Postby tanglefoot » Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:18 pm

thanks fdf!wish someone would hahaha but then again i dont ever write anything other than for you guys, tht artical was a one off for the sibe.husky club GB magazine.
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