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Young and Old Alike Find Beauty, Meaning in Dog Sled Racing

February 03, 2009 - BRIDGTON -- On Saturday, 14-year-old Kayla Bibber of Vassalboro was preparing for the four-dog sport competition at Five Fields Farm in Bridgton. Surrounded by barking and howling dogs eager to run, Bibber looked nervous. Last year she hit a tree on this course, she said.


For Bibber, dog sled racing is something that sets her apart from her peers. She’s the only person at her school who does it and people think it’s cool.

Alex Thomas, 13, of Blanchard came over to talk with Bibber as she got ready for the race. He had already raced that morning and said it went well, better than last year when he lost his team.

“I know everyone here,” Bibber said after Thomas left.

Many of the racers at Bridgton’s Mushers’ Bowl last weekend knew each other. The town has hosted dog sled races for 40 years, according to Mike Friedman, who helped organize the event. The Greater Bridgton Lakes Chamber of Commerce has built up 10 days of activities around the races, including a Biathlon, dodge ball tournament and a polar plunge to benefit Harvest Hills Animal Shelter.

The Down East Sled Dog Club runs the dog sled and skijoring races as part of a series across the state. On Saturday and Sunday, 56 racers of all ages competed in one- and two-dog skijoring – where the dogs pull a cross-country skier – as well as dog sled races with anywhere from one to eight dogs. Racers could compete in different classes, including junior, sport and pro.

Many of the mushing families who came to Bridgton Saturday and Sunday often drive long distances to race a different course every weekend.

“It’s real tight-knit,” said George Miller, vice president of the Down East Sled Dog Club. “It’s a really family-oriented sport.”

Bibber was at the races with her parents, Rob and Karen Bibber, and their dogs. Rob Bibber was the one who got the family hooked on raising and racing sled dogs after his wife got him a Siberian husky puppy one year. Finding that he couldn’t exercise her enough, the family got more dogs and started running them.

“By the end of that year, we had five. Now we have 20,” he said.

He said he thinks it’s good for his daughter to care for and race the dogs.

“It teaches self-reliance and sportsmanship,” he said.

His daughter, however, had other interests.

“I like going really fast,” she said.

Though some people think racing the dogs is cruel, Bibber said it’s not, because the dogs love to run.

As father and daughter hooked up her four-dog team for the race, the dogs barked and jumped in the air, tugging against their harnesses. The sled was tied to the family’s truck so the dogs wouldn't take off before Bibber was ready.

At the starting line, she stepped on the brake and her father held the dogs until she got the command to go. Then the dogs took off down a curving hill, with Bibber in tow. She stood behind the racing sled on runners, holding a waist-high handle.

You have to be somewhat athletic to race sled dogs, Bibber said before her start, and the course was especially challenging because of all the hills and turns.

Having sled dogs is a time commitment for Bibber, as she helps care for the dogs, including training them in the fall with a four-wheeler and running them all winter. She said she travels most weekends in the winter to race with the dogs.

A crowd of bundled spectators watched the dogs depart from the starting gate and then pass through apple orchards downhill from the viewing area.

“It’s wonderful,” said Pat Connell, who traveled from Boston to see the races.

Reggie Lee said he traveled from Westport Island for the races. He said he planned to take up the sport in a few years, after being interested since he was a child.

Another competition

Dog sled racers weren’t the only competitors in Bridgton on Saturday. Some golfers, too, were trying their hand at the first ice golf competition on Highland Lake.

Local high school student Shep Hayes, 16, organized the event to benefit Project Warm and the Bridgton Community Center fuel collaborative. Charging $15 for four holes of golf and gathering sponsors, Hayes raised $275.

Hayes said he was surprised by how much time it took to prepare for the event, including time spent corresponding with organizers of ice golf in Vermont, France and Greenland. They were the ones who suggested using tennis balls, Hayes said, and helped him figure out how long to make the course and which clubs would be best. The holes were made by sinking soda bottles in the ice.

Sen. David Hastings III (R-Fryeburg) came in with the best score of 15, including the only hole-in-one of the competition.

Riding behind dogs

Near the start of the ice golf course, dogs and sleds stood by to carry passengers.

Charging $25 for a half-hour ride, around five sleds brought passengers on loops around Highland Lake.

Waiting impatiently to run, dogs pulled on their harnesses and jumped in the air, yelping and howling all the time. With six dogs pulling four people on a sled, Andy Chakoumakos gave his dogs the go-ahead to start running. Under a blue sky, the sled slid over the snow-covered ice. The dogs quieted down into a rhythm of running in position through the biting wind.

Chakoumakos shouted commands to his lead dogs, Billy and Kalliq, to keep them in line. He raised all six dogs pulling the sled with his wife, Liz Como. They got started in 1989 and now have 20 dogs. Former Outward Bound instructors, the couple now runs a Lovell-based guiding company.

“The energy and enthusiasm (of the dogs) is pretty amazing,” Chakoumakos said.

While her husband took loops around the lake, Como was loading riders on sleds Saturday. She said it’s easy to get sucked into raising sled dogs.

“It’s like an addiction, or a virus,” Como said. “The dogs are just incredible.”

Mushers often have two kinds of stories they tell, Como said. They tell stories about broken bones and adventure, but also about being on crisp snow under the full moon when the dogs are running perfectly.

“There are times when it’s so beautiful,” Como said.

Como added that her relationship with her sled dogs is different than a typical relationship with a pet dog.

“I get to know my dogs more completely in some ways,” Como said. “I’m dependent on them and they’re dependent on me.”

By Julia Davis
Reporter - Lakes Region Weekly
Jan. 30, 2009


Lakes: Highland Lake
Regions: Sebago


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