No matter what you think of it, dog mushing is one of the toughest sports there is.
Which is why a victory of any sort in any distance means a lot to a musher and to Marcel Marin, his latest triumph was one of true underdog fashion.
Marin, who owns Underdog Kennels, made the trip to Fort St. James, B.C., earlier this month to compete in the Caledonia Classic. He lined up to race in the 100-mile distance race and ended up crossing the finish line first in a time of 19 hours and 54 minutes exactly, more than 12 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
photo courtesy of Mark Pokorski
Marin was the lone musher in that distance to break the 20-hour mark and said it was a surprising win.
“We've had a rough winter up here with a lot of cold days,” he said. “It's tough to train the dogs when the temperature gets down that low so when we went down, the temperature was no colder than minus-5. The snow was deep as well, which makes it tough for the dogs because the snow is packed here with the cold.”
The race was a staggered start, meaning the mushers took off in intervals. It was a continuous race with 50 miles to a checkpoint and 50 miles back to the finish line. Once the mushers hit the checkpoint, there was a mandatory eight-hour rest period.
Marin said the terrain was something his dogs had never experienced before: uphill and mountainous.
“We did the first 50 miles up a mountain and the dogs have never seen a mountain before,” he said. “The start line was at 2,000 ft. and it climbed up to 4,000 ft. and it was up all the way.”
Marin was second into the checkpoint and the first musher to leave after their rest, Eric Marsden of Revelstoke, B.C., left 15 minutes ahead of Marin, meaning he had to try and make up that time if he wanted to win.
“I was worried about the heat more than anything,” said Marin. “The dogs are acclimatized to minus-30 to minus-40 and it was cloudy and minus-5 but the dogs did their job.”
As soon as the eight hours was up, Marin was back on the trail chasing Marsden down. The final 50 miles was downhill and once it hit flat land, Marin caught Marsden and began putting distance between them, eventually beating Marsden with several minutes to spare.
Marin received the winner's cheque but he still doesn't know how much it was for.
That's because he gave it right back to the race organizers.
“The main guy who puts the race together spends a lot of money out of his own pocket to pay to keep the race going,” he said. “I just folded it up and gave it back.”
Getting the dogs ready for B.C. came with a bit of help from Ragnar Wesstrom, the owner of Trout Rock Lodge, said Marin.
“Ragnar dragged some training trails with his snow machine because the dogs are used to training fast,” he said.
Marin is back home now and back in training but he said racing at his age always comes back to nip him, especially after it's done.
“I'm 46 years old and I was racing against kids,” he said with a laugh. “I really felt it the day after.”