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EAGLE LAKE – Boyd Wilson of McArthur Mills, Ontario, won the Irving-Eagle Lake 100 Sled Dog Race Saturday and Sunday, besting 15 other teams through the northern Maine woods.
It was a tight race between Wilson and Stephane Duplissee of Ste. Zenon, Quebec, with Wilson winning by a little more than 11 minutes with a time of 13 hours, 4 minutes, 36 seconds.
The race started at 1 p.m. Saturday, and Wilson came across the finish at 2:34 a.m. Sunday. His time included a mandatory six-hour layover at the Moose Point Camps on Fish Lake. Not counting the layover, Wilson did the nearly 100-mile race in a little more than seven hours.
His first-place finish got him $1,200 of the $5,000 purse. The $5,000 was donated by Irving. It was divided among the top 10 finishers.
After the first two finishers, it was about two hours before the rest of the field started coming in. All mushers were in shortly after 8 a.m.
Fort Kent’s Larry Murphy was the only Maine competitor and earned a fifth-place time of 15:17:50.
“It was an excellent race,” John Kaleta, chairman of the event, said Tuesday. “We had incredible volunteers, a small but skilled team.
“The weather was great, although trails were a bit icy,” he added. “Some dogs had foot abrasions, but most mushers kept their dogs well booted.”
The only musher injured was Stan Morgan of Ste. Michel, Quebec, who froze the corneas of his eyes. Dr. Paul Pelletier, an Eagle Lake physician, took care of the problem and Morgan was able to finish in 11th place.
Only one musher, Dennis Cyr of Fort Kent, scratched from the race. Kaleta said that was expected because Cyr had only run 20 miles in his longest training run this winter.
The major problem of the race was ice cover on Fish Lake, Kaleta said. Mushers had to be assisted on the lake because of slippery conditions. Some mushers got lost on the trail, but they found their own way back.
He said the race was seen by an estimated 800 to 1,000 spectators.
The 100-mile mid-distance race was run six weeks before Fort Kent’s CanAm Crown 250-mile sled dog race. Kaleta called it a training race for the northern Maine classic, which will be held during the first weekend of March.
The 10-dog teams ran through the northern Maine woods from Eagle Lake to the Moose Point Camps on Fish Lake and back to Eagle Lake.
Mushers took off from the Eagle Lake Public Beach on the town’s Old Main Street, crossed Route 11 and then raced down ITS 85 from Eagle Lake to Portage Lake. From Portage Lake, the trail turns into the woods for a nearly 30-mile run through rough terrain to Moose Point Camps.
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