Dog musher puts in 1,200 km training run ahead of Nunavut Quest
CBC
There's nothing like an 1,200-km warm up for a 400-km race.
Jovan Simic, a dog musher living in Iqaluit, ran his dogs from the capital to Igloolik as a training run before running them through the Nunavut Quest — itself a demanding journey of over 400 km — later this month.
The Nunavut Quest is an annual dog sled race across sea ice and tundra. Sledders take days to finish and camp along the way. The Quest changes routes each year. For the upcoming race, mushers will begin in Igloolik on April 11 and end in Arctic Bay on April 17.
Simic said he's feeling refreshed after 19 days of travel to get to the Quest's starting point, his dogs however, are a little tired.
"They did most of the work," he said.
For the first 16 days of the journey it was just Simic, his partner Annie and their 10 dogs.
After that some friends met up with them and travelled the final three days to Igloolik.
"Finally meeting people and hearing skidoos approach our tent was kind of surreal because it's — well for me — it feels like middle of nowhere, and then you just see these familiar faces show up. That was very exciting," Simic said.
To pack for the journey he said they carried about 771 kilograms of dog food in addition to fuel and food for themselves.
Simic said that he's been drawn to the west side of Baffin Island and Nettling Lake for a long time and experiencing the area for himself is what pushed him to do the trip.
Simic said he's done sled trips before, but none as long as this.
This is also the first trip where he said he hasn't been able to get GPS tracks.
Although he said lots of people have travelled from Iqaluit to Igloolik he wasn't able to find GPS tracks to follow past Nettling Lake.
Simic said he and Annie spoke with elders and some others who had done the journey and drew out maps of their routes with landmarks.
