Anne Ledwidge, this year’s mail carrier, leads off the race

Welcome to the March 26, 2004 online edition of the Klondike Sun, reproducing a selection of the articles and photographs from the March 23 newsstand edition.

As you can see, this issue contained some key developments in the events which led to the dissolution of Dawson’s council. It’s a fascinating story.

The Sun has only recently been updated on the web after a hiatus since the January 16/04 issue. 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.

Anne Ledwidge, wearing bib #2, is handed the mail by Postmaster Lambert Curzon (at right) and his RCMP escort. The cancelled envelopes are sold to raise money to support the race. Photo by Dan Davidson

Trail Fast for the Percy this Year, but the Wind is Drifting

by Dan Davidson

Just before ten o’clock they began to gather on a frosty, sunny Thursday morning, lining the boardwalks on both sides of King Street beside the Old Post Office and the Palace Grand Theatre, a picture perfect setting for the start of the last great dog race of the 2004 season, the 28th annual Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail Race.

Elementary school students arrived with their teachers and some parents (the high school was writing examinations this year) while kids filed in from the daycare, and lots of people simply took half an hour out of their day to see the 19 teams head out.

The dog trucks lined the streets in every direction from the intersection of King and Third. Straw spilled onto the snow which had been trucked in to pave the route the teams would take west to the dyke, north in the direction of the ferry landing, over the dyke, across the Yukon River and off on the 210 mile round trip to Eagle, Alaska, the end point of the traditional mail route followed by Percy DeWolfe in all seasons through the 39 years that the Iron Man delivered the mail.

Nobody spotted the man himself, as team #1 was announced and made its way out of town at 10 a.m. sharp. Team #1 always manages to sneak onto the trail first. The rest of the dogs were yelping and leaping in their traces as their handlers moved them to the chain which marked the starting line. Maybe they can see what humans can’t.

Team #2, somewhat more corporeal, and headed by Anne Ledwidge of Dawson City, left just a few minutes later, after receiving the official mail sack of commemorative envelopes from Postmaster Lambert Curzon and his RCMP escort. Anne was cheered on by a cluster of primary school students waving signs, her own children among them.

After her at two minute intervals, came the remaining 17 teams: Marcus Ohm (Ft. St. James, BC), Blaine Walden (Whitehorse), Ed Hopkins (Tagish YT), Gerry Willimitzer (Whitehorse), Craig Houghton (Ft. St. James, BC), John Douglas (Ft. Fraser, BC), Deb Bicknell (Juneau, AK), Catherine Pinard (Whitehorse, YT), Terry Houghton (Ft. St. James), Hans Gatt (Atlin BC), Robin Harvey (Yellowknife, NWT), Solomon Carrier (Cumberland House, Sask.), Michael Salvisberg (Haines Jct), Saul Turner (Ottawa, Ont.), Daniel Vetsch (Bezanson, AB), John Samdal (Norway), Dieter Dolif (Fairbanks, AK).

There were no serious problems with the start. One team did miss the markers leading to the dyke and headed for the ferry landing instead. Another early team got off the track on the river, but after a number of teams had gone by there was probably a scent trail to follow, and the rest seemed to figure it out.

With no Brian MacDougall (the winner of nine races, and last year’s champ) or William Kleedehn (last year’s second place) in the running this year, it’s hard to say what might happen out there on the ice and in the bush. Perhaps the race will belong to Ed Hopkins, who came third last year and won the race in 1999, and whose name is often in the top five.

Last year’s record breaking time was 18 hours and 46 minutes, but the race is usually run in around 24 hours, not counting the mandatory 6 hour layover in Eagle.

It had been -24°C when the race began, but it was warmer later in the day. By mid-afternoon Bridget Amos at the Dawson checkpoint was saying that the trail was fast, but a wind blew up later, and drifting was reported along the Fortymile stretch by a snowmobiler arriving in Dawson. Certainly, in town, the wind was kicking up sharp spicules of crusty snow that stung the cheeks.

Ed Hopkins was the first to reach Fortymile, arriving at 14:52, but Hans Gatt, another Percy veteran, was close behind and actually left there before him. Everyone had reached that marker by 15:30.

Meanwhile, back in Dawson, the Junior Percy, an overnight race to Fortymile and back, took from with a mass start on the ice bridge at noon. This is a 110 mile race with overnight camping at Fortymile. The racers begin their trek back to Dawson at 10 a.m. on Friday morning. Between them and those in the Memorial Race, a steady stream of dogs should be visible from the dyke most of the afternoon.

By 9 that night Carolyn Turner was reporting from the checkpoint that all the Juniors were in Fortymile, led by 17 year old Kiara Adams of Whitehorse, who ran the route in 5 hours and 2 minutes.

The final race in the weekend’s triple play is the Klondyke Challenge, a 10 mile, mass start race held on the Yukon River on Saturday afternoon as part of the weekend’s Thaw di Graw spring carnival.