FORT KENT – Martin Massicotte of St. Tite, Quebec, won his fourth Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Race Monday afternoon, passing Millinocket’s Don Hibbs, who had been leading throughout the grueling 250-mile race, just 15 miles before the finish line.

Massicotte reached the finish line at 1:30 p.m., taking 35 hours, 32 minutes, 24 seconds to complete the race which starts in Fort Kent and ends there after winding through the rugged mountain and wilderness terrain of far northeastern Maine. The running time does not include 14 hours of layovers racers and their dogs were mandated to take along the way.

Hibbs, who had led from the outset, came in fourth behind Andre Longchamps of Pont Rouge, Quebec, who came in second just six minutes after Massicotte, and Matt Carstens of Whitefield, N.H., who finished third at 36:25:15.

Hibbs said his dogs, who had stopped eating their snacks about 100 miles from the finish, became listless and very tired. He said he was forced to carry in his sled one or two of his 12 dogs at a time part of the way from Allagash. During the final 45-mile leg from Allagash, the dogs just stopped because they needed rest, he said.

Hibbs joked that during that last part of the race, he went from being a tough musher to Mr. Rogers. He explained that he actually sang to his dogs and told them stories as they climbed all over him while resting along the trail.

Massicotte, a perennial contender in the Can-Am, had been in second or third throughout much of the race and was one hour and 41 minutes behind Hibbs at the third checkpoint, about 100 miles from the finish line Sunday afternoon. He gained 14 minutes on Hibbs in the 55 miles between the Maibec checkpoint and Allagash, leaving the fourth checkpoint still one hour and 27 minutes behind the leader.

Visibly tired and out of breath at the finish line, Massicotte took the time to pet and talk to each of the eight dogs he had left in harnesses before talking with anyone. Tears streaked from the corners of his eyes when he arrived, but it was difficult to tell if it was from the cold, from being tired, or from being happy with his victory – maybe all three.

“He’s right behind me. He nearly killed me,” Massicotte said of the team that had been bearing down on him at the end. “I thought he was going to push me to death.”

Massicotte said he had stopped to give his dogs a snack along the trail about six miles from the finish line when he saw a team approaching from a short distance. He took off, he said, not looking back to identify who it was.

“I did not know who it was, and I wasn’t going to wait to see,” he said, adding that he thought it was Carstens.

When the second place team arrived at the finish line, however, it wasn’t Carstens, but Massicotte’s best friend and training partner Longchamps. The men hugged, and Massicotte exclaimed to his friend in French that he had given him quite a chase at the end.

Massicotte, who promised to return and compete again next year, said he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish his fourth crown, matching the efforts of Andre Nadeau, a mentor of his until Nadeau stopped mushing six years ago. Nadeau won his crowns from 1993 through 1996. Massicotte, who also won the race in 1998, 2002 and 2005, becomes only the second man to hold four crowns in the “Iditarod of the East.” Hibbs won in 1997, 1999 and 2000.

Longchamps, also visibly tired and breathing hard, said he thought many times during the last 45 miles from Allagash that he couldn’t finish the race.

“I, my dogs and I, just did what we had to do,” he said in French. “This is the result of that.

“This was a very hard race, a big lack of sleep,” he said forcing the words. “When I saw the finish line, I forgot all that and I am overwhelmed to come in just behind Martin.”

Carstens expressed much the same sentiments when he pulled in some 47 minutes behind Longchamps.

“I’m really tired,” Carstens said. “A couple of hours ago I was having a really hard time.

“I imagine we all were because we are all going through the same thing,” said the 2006 crown winner. “I’m happy. I have good dogs.”

Some 22 minutes later Hibbs crossed the finish line where his wife Angel, daughter Fredericka and son Derek were waiting.

Knowing his wife would be worried when she saw others finishing ahead, Hibbs had passed along a message through Longchamps.

“Tell her I’m OK, the dogs are OK,” Longchamps told Hibbs’ wife through an interpreter. He also told her Hibbs said, “I’ll be along. I will finish the race.”

When he finally did cross the finish line, Hibbs said, “It’s good to be here, as always.”

This year’s finish for Hibbs was very similar to that in 2006 when he was passed by two mushers just nine miles from the finish line.

And though his hopes for a fourth crown were dashed again this year, Hibbs remained positive.

“This wasn’t a failure, I tried,” the veteran said. “This is the toughest 250-mile race ever, anywhere and I keep forgetting that year to year.”

Twenty-one mushers, each with a team of up to 12 dogs, started the race at 11 a.m. Saturday. The challenging race, made even tougher by the more than 12 inches of snow that fell Saturday through the day and night and by the strong winds that hit up to 30 miles per hour, took its toll on the mushers.

By late Sunday night, eight teams had scratched from the competition.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, six more teams were on the trail between Allagash and Fort Kent, and three teams were still at the Allagash checkpoint finishing five-hour layovers before hitting their final leg of the race.