Mushing at Fort Custer

By Jonathan Kleyer

For most of the day on January 9th, the woods around the campground area of Fort Custer Recreation Area were alive with activity as the Mid-Union Sled Haulers met and went dog sledding.

MUSH, a group of people who use dogs for sledding and skijoring—in which a dog pulls a person on cross country skis—was to hold a series of races both Saturday and Sunday that weekend, but the race was officially canceled on January 7th by its chairs, Jo Oostveen and Gary Loebrich.

According to Oostveen, MUSH rules for holding races requires the trails that will be used for the event to have a certain amount of snow several days prior to the event. Since the trails at Fort Custer did not have enough snow for the sled drivers to safely brake the sleds for hills and turns on January 7th, when Oostveen walked the courses with park supervisor, the race had to be canceled regardless of weather forecasts for more snow by the days of the event.

So instead, many of the mushers gathered informally throughout the day for something more akin to a fun run. The woods were full of excited, barking dogs and those mushers that were not currently exercising their dogs and running along the trails, were either helping the others set their dog teams up to do the same, or congregating in groups to chat like a reuniting family.

The trails the sleds ran along were set up for teams of three, five or seven dogs. The teams would take off through an open gate just yards away from a park sign that requested all park users to yield the trials to dog sleds. From there, a loop for each distance was set up so that regardless of how far out the team was going to run, it would set out and come back in on the same trails. Mushers directed the dogs on which way to turn by shouting “gee” and “ha.”

To top things off, musher Lee Bass kept a fire going and cooked up hot dogs and chili for the group to enjoy. By 5 p.m. most of the group started packing their equipment back up to head out, and even though the Mid-Union Sled Haulers’ first race for the year was canceled, the event seems to have been a happy success.