After 250 miles of mushing, Martin Massicotte was the well-deserving recipient of plenty of attention in the minutes following his victorious Can-Am Crown Irving 250 run on Monday.

Fifteen feet in front of Massicotte and the throng of race officials and well-wishers, however, an emotional reunion was taking place largely unnoticed.

Marcel Drouin would have plenty of time to catch up with his friend, Massicotte. But first, he knelt and offered plenty of soft praise to a barely winded Alaskan husky named Diva.

“She’s a little black sweetheart of a dog,” Drouin had said the night before, explaining why he was eight hours away from home, in Allagash, Maine, watching a weekend of dogsled racing … even though he wasn’t entered in a race.

If you’ve followed the Can-Am Crown weekend in past years, the name Marcel Drouin may ring a bell.

Two years ago, Drouin was one of the stars of the Can-Am Crown, winning the 60-mile race. When he rode down the final hill toward the finish line at Lonesome Pine Trails in Fort Kent on that blustery Saturday, Diva was his lead dog, and shared in that glory.

Since then, life has changed for Drouin. He is focusing on building his Ottawa, Ontario, stair-and-railing business, and has given up on the time-consuming hobby of preparing a top-notch dog team for races held in remote locales across the U.S. and Canada.

Drouin downsized. He sold some dogs. And he moved on … more or less.

One dog went to two-time Irving 250 winner Bruce Langmaid, who finished second in the weekend’s 60-miler with Drouin’s Fonzie running lead. Two – Diva and Artie – went to Massicotte, and ran on the winning team in the 250-miler.

Some day … maybe … Drouin will race again. At least, that’s the hope.

“I’d love to bring [my business] up to having a few employees to make it easier to run when I’m not around,” Drouin said. “I could maybe get some more time off and get back to running dogs.”

But for now, Drouin is left watching dogs he used to own run for other men who share his passion for mushing.

“[When Langmaid finished the 60-miler with Fonzie leading], it was probably one of my proudest moments,” Drouin said, grinning broadly.

And when Massicotte arrived at the Allagash checkpoint at 1 a.m. Monday, after enduring a grueling 10-hour test through a northern Maine snowstorm, Drouin was there to greet him … and Diva.

Drouin immediately knew he’d made the right decision in returning to Fort Kent to watch the race.

“It was funny when she saw me when they ran into Allagash,” Drouin said. “I called her name and she looked at me.”

Then Drouin grinned and reinacted Diva’s reaction after seeing her former master deep in the Maine woods.

Oblivious to the throng of people around him, Marcel Drouin, once-and-future musher, began frantically wagging his tail.

Diva would have been proud.

If snow falls in the woods …

After a largely solitary trip through the northern Maine woods, participants in the Can-Am Crown Irving 250 sled dog race stop are required to stop for five hours in Allagash, the race’s final checkpoint.

The scene at Two Rivers Lunch is always hectic on race day, as various members of the Kelly clan pitch in to prepare for hungry mushers and their eager family members, along with a bunch of panting pooches and more than a few curious spectators who want to watch the racers ride into town.

Allagash – population 220 or so – may well be Maine’s “town at the end of the road.” You can continue your journey after you make the winding 30-mile drive southwest from Fort Kent, but most who do press onward plan on hunting, fishing or working in the woods.

Allagash natives – “Moosetowners” for life, whether they still live in town or not – take pride in their town, and revel in its remoteness. But they’re not above poking fun at the place they all still call home.

On Sunday afternoon, during a break in final preparations, Stacey Kelly (now of Fort Kent, but always a Moosetowner at heart) sat in the family restaurant and talked about the steady snow that was beginning to accumulate outside.

Most Aroostook County residents take their winter weather with good cheer, and most folks seemed aware that a snowstorm was forecast to begin on Monday.

But Sunday’s snow came as a bit of a surprise to nearly everyone, it seemed.

“How much snow are we supposed to get?” one customer asked no on in particular.

“I heard flurries,” another answered.

Then a grinning Stacey Kelly chimed in with a punchline that served to aptly sum up life in Allagash.

“You know, it could flurry a foot up here, and nobody would know,” Kelly said, eliciting laughs from Moosetowners and out-of-towners alike.

Later in the evening, as reports on the race’s progress filtered into Allagash via amateur radio, Kelly’s words proved prophetic: It did flurry a foot (though those in Allagash dealt with the weather by gathering around a bonfire and sharing tales) … and the mushers and dogs were paying the price.

The first casualty of the “flurry” was an unexpected one, and changed the entire complexion of the Can-Am 250: Race leader Keith Aili, who encountered difficulty on the 57-mile leg between Maibec and Allagash, decided to scratch after his young team had to break trail through mile after mile of fresh powder.

“It was pretty brutal. Tough race,” said Aili, a two-time competitor in the Iditarod Trail Race who knows a bit about tough races.

“You can’t ask your dogs to do that for long,” he said. “You’re wearing on their heads.”

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600