"sled dogs"

Next year, Denali’s dog program will celebrate its centennial, marking 100 years of using dogs in the park.

While Browning was first back in Kotzebue, a race champion has yet to be named: Race officials still must adjust teams’ times to account for different distances traveled during the weekend’s harrowing storm.

Kleckner and other local mushers started the Second Chance League, a nonprofit focused on finding homes for sled dogs turned in at the shelter.

Weak salmon runs this year compelled Fish and Game to halt subsistence fishing entirely in some parts of the Yukon River — leaving many mushers without their main source of dog food.

Husky Homestead had its best season ever last year, with more than 21,000 customers. This season, that number fell to just over a thousand — a drop-off of some 95%.

Hundreds of sled dogs are running across Alaska this week as the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race plays out over 1,000 miles from Willow to Nome.

There’s only one park in America with canine rangers: Denali National Park. The use of sled dogs is older than the park itself. In the summers, the dogs serve as ambassadors. During the winter months, they ferry park employees through areas closed to motorized vehicles.

Dog musher Mike Williams Sr. stepped outside his home Saturday evening to see his kennel falling into the Kuskokwim River and seven of his 60 sled dogs being pulled along with it.

Over the weekend, veterinarians looked over the sled dogs that will run the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in both Fairbanks and Whitehorse.