Greg and Denise McHale are behind those masks at the Arctic Circle during the Fulda Challenge. Photo by Chris Beacom.

Welcome to the February 27, 2004 edition of the online Klondike Sun, which reproduces a selection of the photographs and articles from the February 24 hard copy edition.

The Sun has not been updated on the web since the January 16/04 issue. At that time our volunteer webmaster, Richard Lawrence, finally ran out of time to keep this site current. We have been some time working out another way to get back online.

We have had many inquiries about the absence of current issues here, and we note that the site has had more than 1,000 hits since the last new posting.

As this new site develops over the next few months you will note changes in the format. We expect to be asking you to pay something in order to gain access to these files, and will be giving you an option of an issue-by-issue or yearly rate. In the time we have been online, since 1997, the site has had free access. We have tried asking for donations, and if the nearly 100,000 hits on the site had each generated a loonie, we’d be laughing right now, but it hasn’t worked out that way. We need to make enough money to pay for the existence of the site, and perhaps a bit more to help our bottom line.

See you again shortly.

Greg and Denise McHale were the golden couple in the Fulda Challenge this year. Photo by Dan Davidson

Dawson City Couple are Big Fulda Winners

by Dan Davidson

Yukoners Greg and Denise McHale were the big winners in this year’s Fulda Challenge Extreme Arctic Adventure. As Team Canada they captured the golden prizes and the glory in the thirteen event week long contest.

What is more, RCMP officer McHale took the prize for best male athlete, and fitness instructor Denise tied for second place as best female.

And what was particularly nice about all of that was that both of them currently live in Dawson and received their accolades at the closing ceremonies held in Diamond Tooth Gerties Gambling Casino. Talk about a great homecoming!

The Challenge, which began in Whitehorse on February 2, wrapped up with two events in Dawson City on Sunday afternoon. The ever-popular ice wall climb was done in broad daylight for a change this year, followed later in the day by an ATV race on the slippery Yukon River.

Other events during the week included car pulling in Whitehorse, a mountain run on snowshoes near the Yukon-Alaska border, a mountain bike race on the South Klondike Highway, car handling on an icy lake near Carcross, a snowmobile race, crossing Miles Canyon by rope, a cross-country ski race, hovercraft handling, a half marathon and a tire changing contest at Five Finger Rapids.

“I’d like to say thanks to Fulda for putting on a fantastic race,” Greg McHale said. “I think all of us as competitors had a great time and overall it was a great experience.

“The biggest thing to all of you guys,” he said, gesturing toward the other competitors, “is it’s a great race. We all, I think, had a good, good time. Everyone (of you are) just super people. There was no animosity between anybody here; it was a great group of people to race with.”

The Austrian team finished second, six points behind Canada's 166-point total. Italy was third, 26 points off the pace.

Austria’s Gitti Koeck was the best female athlete, finishing with 85 points — ten more than Denise McHale.