Sunday, March 01, 2009

Fur Rondy 2009

I love these three weeks of the year in Alaska and this year so far, the weather has been exceptional. Yesterday, it snowed all day long - a light, fluffy fairy tale snow. (Of course we had to shovel it later but it was worth it!) The temps were perfect for outdoor events - 26 to 28 degrees. And BEST of all, Iditarod starts Saturday!

We spent about 4 hours out and about yesterday taking in the Fur Rondy activities. There were some beautiful pelts to be had and some were going for low prices - the economy has hit the fur trade. We bid on a couple of beaver pelts but lost out on them. It was tough to let the silver fox fur go by. They had some lynx also but those were going for close to $300 and we didn't need one that bad.

This is a wolf pelt.


We also watched some of the sprint dog races. The dogs are so amazing. They pull up to the starting line and jump, bark, yap, etc., the announcer counts down and they're off. It is perfectly quiet. All you hear is the sled runners gliding across the snow. The dogs are running - concentrating on going as fast as possible loving every minute of it.



We ended the day at the dog weight pull. Once again, these dogs are amazing. The smallest one we watched was 37 lbs and if I remember right, that dog pulled 570lbs if not more. The largest dog there was a 210 lbd St. Bernard. We didn't see his final pull as we left before the end of the competition but we did see him stroll across the finish line attached to 740 lbs as if it didn't exist. I am sure the winning weight for the large dogs was well over 1500 lbs and it is possible it was a lot more.

This little Australian Shepherd was amazing. Look at how low to the ground she is. I think this was her last successful pull of the day.


Another smaller dog showing fine form.


This dog, Yeti, looked like a giant teddy bear.


Here is Riley - this is one of the dogs we have seen the last 3 years.


And then there was this dog who didn't want any part of the weight pulling stuff. It would take 7 minutes 13 seconds to hook him to the sled and 4.3 seconds for him to pull the weight. As soon as they pointed him toward the sled to hook him up, he went down and either rolled over or dug in. It was hilarious!





Payton - the big, 210 lbd boy...


Today's excursion is... The Running Of The Reindeer! I can't wait!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

At every sporting event, there is at least one clown within the competitors. Unfortunately this time Mufasa decided to be it. He wanted to pull for that is his job. However, like most of us, he did not want to go to work and demonstrated that fact. But once at work, he did fine. I got to agree, most days I do not want to go to work either but I have to feed him. Oh well we had fun the whole time. Thank you for the pics and comments.

Anonymous said...

The pictures are hysterical! The dog reluctant to be hooked up belongs to my cousin, and I heard the full story...just wish someone had a cam corder for that event. It would easily win the prize on Americas Funniest Videos.

Former Novice Alaskan said...

What a fantastic dog Mufasa is! I truly enjoyed watching him!

Anonymous said...

Fairbanks loves Mufasa...we enjoy him when he wants to 'clown' around, but he always does his work very well.
Congrads to Mufasa at the World!!!