Volunteer labor key to success of races

FORT KENT – Allan Dow, a retired postal worker and former fire chief in Maine’s capital of sled dog racing, was the dog-traffic cop Saturday morning as 90 sled dog teams looked to get to the starting line in three events as part of the 13th Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races.

A 10-year veteran volunteer of the Can-Am, Dow has done many jobs, but Saturday he was ushering an estimated 780 sled dogs, 30 teams for each race, through the downtown where truckloads of snow had been dumped onto Main Street to create the starting track.

A dozen or more volunteers assisted Dow to get the right teams to the starting line at their respective times. Dogs howled, straining in their harnesses for their chance to race through the northern Maine woods.

It took Dow and his crew three hours, 20 minutes to run all the teams through the starting gate, one team every two minutes, starting with the Willard Jalbert Jr. Memorial 60-mile Race, moving on through the Pepsi-Budweiser 30-mile race and the Irving Woodland 250-mile classic.

“I do this ’cause it’s fun,” Dow, Fort Kent’s Citizen of the Year in 2003, said Saturday morning. “People show their appreciation by saying thank you, and that’s all I need.

“It brings people to our little town,” he added, looking at the thousands of people lining both sides of the racetrack through the downtown. “Isn’t this a great thing?”

The pride showed in his face, as he and the other volunteers moved the dogs through, right on schedule.

Volunteers have been the driving force behind the Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races since the event’s inception in 1992. Without them, officials of the organization admit the races couldn’t happen.

Scores of them work at the starting line, some create the Main Street racing strip during the night before the race, and others have been working on the 250 miles of trail for weeks. Still others are judges, handlers and food preparers at the five checkpoints in Portage Lake, Rocky Brook, Maibec’s Lumber Camp, Allagash and Fort Kent.

Some are timekeepers, radio operators, medics for the human athletes and veterinarians for the dogs. They prepare sites for the dogs and their mushers to eat, sleep and rest. Some drive through the woods constantly for two or more days shuttling injured dogs from checkpoints to the finish line.

Gallons of stew and chili, pounds of spaghetti, dozens of eggs with bacon and sausage, pies and cookies are cooked and baked at the checkpoints for the mushers and the volunteers. Piping-hot coffee, hot chocolate and Gatorade are always available.

Round-the-clock updates on races and travel times are constantly posted on the Can-Am Internet site.

“It’s a heck of lot more fun than being at the office,” Town Manager Donald Guimond said at the starting line where he assisted with teams Saturday morning. “This [volunteerism] is what Fort Kent is all about.

“Who would have guessed 13 years ago that we would have 90 teams of sled dogs and mushers here today?” he said. “When this is done, a bunch of these same people will volunteer for the biathlon competitions that will be going on for the next two weeks. They realize that in order to get something here, you have to give something.”

That sentiment seemed to be shared by all of the volunteers, ranging in age from 14 to 70 or more. “It’s like an addiction, I guess,” Raynold Theriault Jr., a volunteer at Rocky Brook, said during the wee hours Sunday. “Once you get involved, you want to continue doing this.

“It’s self-satisfying, when everything turns out well, and it does each year,” he said. “I look forward to this sleepless weekend all year.”