Lake Minchumina — Some 60 years ago, during my first decade of life in the 1960s, virtually all the local trappers, along with a few other people in our tiny community, kept a dog team, not for racing or recreation or because folks necessarily even enjoyed mushing. They owned a team because at the time, before snow machines came into common use, sled dogs were the only way to travel overland faster than on one’s own two feet.

That all changed during the 1970s, when locals swapped out their teams for motorized power. Although a few other teams came and went with newer residents, none traced back to those original dogs born and bred for trapline trails.

It’s possible that when our brother began putting together a mismatched team in the mid-seventies that a few local dogs still hung on. If

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