Last
week, the Open North American Championships or ONAC, the most prestigious
sprint or speed type dog sled race in the world capped off the spring break
festivities in Fairbanks. The
temperatures for the race were back down to more seasonally appropriate levels
ranging from 5 degrees to perhaps a high over three days of racing of 20
degrees.
I
asked a number of the racers, both past and present winners, why they race the ONAC. The answer came back the same each time
I asked, “bragging rights!” According to the folks who have run this race, the
Fairbanks course is designed with speed in mind. It is laid out and groomed to be fast; faster than any
similar race including the famous Anchorage Fur Rondy.
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| Arleigh Reynolds championship winning team takes it first step of a 30 mile run on Sunday morning. |
This
year, the race also served as the IFSS World Championship Open class race, so
the winners of this year’s event can truly brag that they have the fastest dogs
in the world, at these kinds of distances. (One could have a lively debate about which dogs are truly
the fastest in the world because the average speed of these big open class
teams is actually a bit slower than the limited class sprint teams that run
substantially less distance than the open class dogs.)
After
having heard so much about the fantastic ONAC course, I had to check it out for
myself, albeit sans dogs. Yesterday, I set out to see the course
by fatbike.
The
course starts out on 2d Street in downtown Fairbanks.
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| Waiting for the start on Sunday |
This neighborhood is perhaps the most “gritty” section of a
rough little city. Although the
downtown start brings out truly large crowds of people packing the sidewalks, a
fur auction, a traditional parka parade and has a real “spring break” feeling,
it is the least scenic section of the race. The 2nd Street section crosses several streets,
which remain open between racers and are shoveled with fresh snow each time a
car crosses the trail.
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| Racer pushing towards the finish line a block and a half away. |
At the end
of the street, the trail goes up over a significant hump as it turns down to
the river. I seem to recall that the
1995 and 1996 ONAC Champion Amy
Streeper said she actually went down going over that hump but somehow managed
to hold on and keep going – and she was pregnant at the time.
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| Making the turn at the bottom of the ramp onto the river. |
The
trail takes a sweeping left turn onto the Chena River where fans line the racecourse
and play in the snow. After a
short stretch of river, it turns up a creek or “slough” for several miles. This meandering slough winds its way
through an industrial section of town with the usual graffiti on walls of
bridges that cross above the slough and, sadly, a bit of trash careless tossed
on the frozen creek surface. The slough continues into several pleasant
neighborhoods, giving the folks who live along its banks a great place to watch
the race. One of the race officials
said that he had used the slough, as many others do, as a snowmobile road into
the heart of downtown before the race.
After
about 4 miles, the racers leave the slough – at the end of the race, they will
return to 2nd Street via the same slough – by crossing College Road
and entering Creamer’s Field. College
is a major four lane cross-town road with plenty of traffic. The police hold the traffic as each
team approaches and crosses the road.
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| Team crossing College and entering the slough on the return leg. |
Cars are permitted to proceed between teams. Again, to keep the “trail” race worthy, crews pack snow back
on the road after the cars and before the next team arrives.
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| Traffic on College between teams. |
Creamer’s
Field is an historic dairy farm and migratory waterfowl refuge in the middle of
town. The spectacular barn and
buildings have been preserved and are open to tour. To see these fabulous buildings watch the video tour. Tour of Creamer's Field Buildings
In the summer, the area offers nature trails, migratory waterfowl
habitat and a more than occasional moose sighting. In the winter, Creamer’s Field turns into a series of
groomed multi-use trails for X-C Skiing, skijoring, biking, walking dogs on
leash or pretty much any non-motorized use. The trails are marked to indicate ski-joring loops and other
uses.
From
Creamer’s the trail heads out through beautiful black spruce forests and
through what looks like an old gravel pit area before hitting the golf
course.
While I did not ride
around the golf course, I picked up some of the Alaska Dog Musher Associations
trails used in the ONAC. The ADMA track
offer local mushers a place to train their dogs throughout the season on
groomed trails through the forest.
The trails are marked with distances and directions offering mushers a
choice of how far to train on any given day. Area also has a reputation as playing host to a number of
moose, so mushers have to be on alert for animals that have a superior
right-of-way over all other trail users.
Dog teams are next in order of priority. My lowly bike pulled on to the very edge of the trail for a “pass”
with ONAC musher Mark Hartum.
The
ONAC track is just one of many fantastic trails that wind in and around
Fairbanks. The sheer number,
accessibility and condition of trails through meadows, forests and rivers right
in Fairbanks is hard to imagine. Dog mushing to snow machining are all possible
without having to travel for miles to a safe place to train or play. Sprint mushers from outlying areas
sometimes come into town just to train on the ADMA track. The University of
Alaska maintains miles of XC ski trails that are closed to other uses. Still
others may be found behind a warehouse or shop where a musher keeps a dog team.
There are trails for just about every taste.
Fairbanks
may not be the most visually appealing city in the U.S. or even in Alaska, but
it is easy to understand why it is so appealing to mushers, fatbikers, X-C
skiers, skijorers and anyone else who enjoys a trail through beautiful country.
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