Yukon musher hoping to finish 2019 Iditarod with happy dogs

Marcelle Fressineau says she's looking forward to hitting the trail with her dogs in Alaska this weekend.

This will be the Whitehorse musher's fourth and final time competing in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, an annual 1,600 kilometre race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

Fressineau said she competes for "the experience, the adventure and to share this with my dogs."

Fressineau, who runs the adventure outfitting business Alayuk Adventures, has also competed in the Yukon Quest three times. She said both races are difficult, but she prefers the Iditarod as it takes place a month later, allowing more training time, and it has more checkpoints along the trail.

"I train the dogs as much as I can." she said, noting they've completed about 5,000 kilometres in preparation for this year's race.

"I think they are ready."

Fressineau said she hopes the conditions on the trail will be better than in previous years. She said she pulled out of the race around 480 kilometres before the finish line last year because deep snow made the race more difficult and her dogs were tired.

Fressineau's goal for 2019, she said, is to finish the race with a happy dog sled team. 

"I hope it's really beautiful to travel with the dogs to Alaska. I hope everything will go well."

New rules around dog deaths

Saturday will mark the start of the 47th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which hails itself as "the last great race."

Fifty-two mushers from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Norway and France are set to compete. And they will have to follow a number of new rules.

The 2019 Iditarod rule book states that any musher who has a dog die during the race must voluntarily scratch or be withdrawn unless the race marshal determines the death was due to an "unpreventable hazard." This includes risks of wilderness travel like a moose encounter, the nature of the trail or a force beyond the control of the musher.

Fressineau said she's in favour of the new rule, as she would be too upset to keep racing if one of her dogs died.

"I think for me it would be normal to stop if you have a dog that passed away."

Other new rules include that a musher will be disqualified if a dog's deaths is due to "musher neglect, cruel, inhumane and/or abusive treatment." 

All dog's deaths will also be reviewed within 30 days of the end of the race. A dog care panel will then issue a report to the board on the cause of death "in order to gain insights that may help shape future race rules or protocols to achieve zero deaths."

Last year, one dog, a five-year-old male named Blondie, died during the race. A necropsy determined the dog's death was consistent with aspiration pneumonia, or from inhaling food, stomach acid or saliva into its lungs.