The seeds of Wild Root Kennel were planted deep. Surrounded by family dogs growing up, I have always rested in their companionship and enjoyed their company on adventures both far ranging and close to home. As a preschooler star-naming with my dad in the deep nights over central Texas cattle country, a teenager learning to traverse the mountains, jungles and reefs of Java, and a college student falling in love with winter travel and survival in the forests surrounding Lake Superior, the power and draw of wilderness has woven its way into wherever life has taken me. Soon after deciding to put down roots in Alaska, I discovered that my two great loves come together with a perfect synergy in wilderness travel by dog team. There was no looking back.
Running Down A Dream
After watching dog teams at race starts and on the trails around our neighborhood outside of Fairbanks, I finally finagled a chance to try standing on the runners behind a friend’s team in 2008. Within a year I had managed to pull together a little three dog team of inexperienced yearlings and borrowed an eight foot long toboggan sled that was built in the 80s and held together with hockey tape, hose clamps and hope. But it was a start. I learned a lot those first few years running a small team on trails in Goldstream Valley north of Fairbanks, then began exploring further with a bigger team of foster and loaner dogs before leaving the state for a few years to pursue a higher degree. During that hiatus from Alaska, I returned for part of a season to handle for Jodi Bailey of Dew Claw Kennel as she trained for the 2015 Iditarod. It gave me a chance to try my hand with bigger teams, longer runs, and the ins and outs of what operating a competitive sled dog kennel might take. During the rest of those years away, I spent as much time as possible handling or volunteering at local midwest races and working at sled dog tour outfits. Returning to Fairbanks in 2018 to establish Wild Root Kennel, I have been encouraged and supported by friends and family, and many members of the mushing community who have reached out with advice, support, assistance, and a few select dogs to help get the team rolling down the trail.
To read more about early days on the trails before Wild Root, check out Overflow, the blog I kept during those first years.
Building A Team
Dogs first! Wild Root is committed to the health and wellbeing of each individual dog and the team as a whole as we learn, grow, and explore together. We will continue to adventure together as a team and alongside friends to hone winter travel and survival competence through camping trips and expeditions. We will support and connect with the wider mushing community by volunteering at races and events and positively representing the sport wherever we go. Next season (Winter 2023 - 2024) we will begin offering dogsled tours and custom expeditions with the goal of connecting people to the particular grace of dogs and the wilderness to inspire awe and joy, to heal and to empower.