Can-Am Crown races start today Cannan oversees event for last time

FORT KENT – Rita Cannan, president of the Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races, is overseeing the running of the 16th annual races this weekend for the last time.

Only the second president of the 16-year-old classic, Cannan is turning over the reins to a new slate of officers after 11 years as president of the nonprofit corporation. She will be replaced by Peter Sirois as president of the volunteer group.

Michael Levesque was president during the first five years.

In the meantime, Cannan on Friday was overseeing last-minute details of the event, which starts at 8 a.m. today. The race starts on Main Street before 90 teams, competing in three different races, head through the northern Maine woods in search of a share of the $40,000 purse.

Friday afternoon, Cannan was at the Lonesome Pine Lodge where teams from across Canada and the northern tier of American states came to complete their registrations and go through veterinary examinations of their teams of dogs.

Later Friday, Cannan was overseeing the mushers’ meetings at the Fort Kent Town Office. Friday night, volunteers were laying a covering of snow on Main Street where dogs would rush from the starting gate Saturday morning for the quarter-mile start of the race.

“Things are going well,” Cannan said, taking a break late Friday afternoon. “We are getting snow on Saturday, but that is something we can deal with.

“It may make the races a bit longer, but that’s the name of the game, challenge,” she continued. “It’s a challenge for the teams of mushers and for the volunteers making sure things go right.”

Saturday morning, nearly 1,000 athlete dogs and some 90 mushers take to the trails through the heavy forests of northern Maine. They will be competing in races of 30 miles, 60 miles or 250 miles.

Mushers competing in the 60-mile race will begin leaving starting gate at 8 a.m., in two-minute intervals. Those in the 30-mile run hit the starting line at 9 a.m. and the 250-mile competitors will begin hitting the trail at 10 a.m.

Governor John Baldacci and Sen. Susan Collins are expected to be in Fort Kent for the start of the races Saturday. People from throughout the state and beyond take part in the opening.

Crowds of up to 5,000 people have witnessed the athlete dogs each year as they jump to the ends of their harnesses at the starting gate. The downtown is turned into a carnival atmosphere where spectators watch the start of the race, get souvenirs, drink coffee and hot chocolate and eat pastries and lunches outside.

Teams in the 30-mile race will start arriving at the Lonesome Pine Trails finish line in midafternoon Saturday. The 60-mile teams will arrive in late afternoon and early evening.

A mushers banquet for the winners of these races will be held Sunday morning at the Lonesome Pine Trails Lodge.

The 250-mile race competitors will run through the day Saturday and Sunday and usually start arriving in Fort Kent during the early hours of Monday morning. These competitors have checkpoints at Portage Lake; an Irving lumber camp at Rocky Brook, about 40 miles into the woods from Portage Lake; at a second lumber camp, Maibec’s, not far from the Quebec border at St. Pamphile; then on to Two Rivers Lunch at Allagash, the fourth checkpoint; before they head for the finish line and the gold at Lonesome Pine Trails.

The mushers banquet for the 250-mile race winners will be held Tuesday night at the ski lodge.

Irving Woodlands sponsors the $20,000 purse for the 250-mile race. The Willard Jalbert Memorial 60-mile Race is sponsored by the family with a purse of $7,000, and the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company sponsors the $4,000 purse for the 30-mile race.

Cannan said the race would be impossible without the hundreds of volunteers that work during the year through the end of the races. She said volunteers take care of anything that is thrown at them.

“These volunteers, some of them are people you would not expect, call and want to help,” she said. “Only in Fort Kent can this happen.

“Every year we kind of panic,” she said. “Then the volunteers come together and make it all happen.”