“It's huge”.
That's how Matt Paquette describes the number of dog race sledders who participated in the World Cup qualifier which was held in South River on January 20th and 21st.
It's the first time the South River event was listed as a world qualifier by the International Federation of Sledding Sports (IFSS) which holds the worldwide event, and the IFSS designation comes just two years after the sport was introduced in South River.
In total 58 people registered for the various events and 40 of them specifically raced in two, four, and six-dog races as well as one-dog and two-dog skijoring where dogs pull the person on skis. The remainder of the registrants took part in junior dog sled races and a kid and mutt 500-metre race for young children.
“For our first World Cup official race, this was huge,” Paquette said. “This was comparable to dog sled races that have been in the works for five, 10, and 20 years. We are really impressed with the turnout.”
Paquette and a small group of people brought dog sled racing to South River two years ago and promoted it as a Fun Run. Last year the Fun Run was repeated and the event was expanded to include time trials for mushers who like to compete.
The 2023 race attracted mushers from Ontario, Quebec, and a couple of American states. This year's race saw even more Americans show up from Buffalo, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania as well as numerous mushers from Quebec and Ontario.
Another key organizer of the local event was Jessica Switzer who among other responsibilities made sure the out-of-town participants had a place to stay.
Switzer says some mushers were billeted with locals, another group had area family cottages they could stay at but the majority stayed at the Caswell Resort Hotel in nearby Sundridge and the Algonquin Motel in South River.
Another key organizer and volunteer was Stephen Todoroff and in addition to helping out on race days, Todoroff helped with fundraising when the team learned the South River race would be a World Cup qualifier.
“We found out just before Christmas,” Todoroff said. “So the scramble was on to get the local community to recognize that this is a big deal and we needed some funding. There was a lot of door-knocking, we visited a lot of businesses and organizations and they came through”.
Todoroff says $3,000 was raised in two weeks and most of that money will go towards improving the trail for the 2025 race.
“The locals were very generous either with money, materials, or product donations and we are very happy with that,” Todoroff said.
Todoroff added the organization SSASO, which is the Sledding Sports Association of Southwestern Ontario, which helped promote the local event and also provided prizes for the winning participants.
As much as Todoroff, Paquette, and Switzer are responsible for much of the heavy lifting to pull off the dog sled event, Switizer says there were more people behind the scenes.
“We had amazing volunteers for the entire weekend,” she said.
Switzter says 12 adults and students from Almaguin Highlands Secondary School were a major factor in helping to make the South River race a big success.
One participant who backed up that claim is Luke Siertsema from the Village of Blyth near London, Ontario. Siertsema took part in the Fun Run two years ago to “check out the trail” as he put it. He was aware the locals were trying to turn the event into a big race and he “really liked the work they put into it”.
Siertsema says he was happy to come back and to also be part of the inaugural World Cup qualifying event. Now 33, Siertsema has been racing competitively for a little more than 15 years. But he's been involved with sled dogs all his life thanks to his dad. Siertsema, his wife, and dad go to as many dog sled races as they can each winter.
Many are in Ontario but the family also heads to Quebec which Siertsema says “has some really nice circuits and good, fast sprint races”.
He also regularly competes in Michigan and Wisconsin and sometimes takes his dog teams to Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.
Siertsema races four and six-dog teams. He last raced in a World Cup event in 2017.
Since then he retired his race dogs and has a new set of younger dogs he's been “working on to build them up and giving them lots of racing experience and (exposing) them to crowds”.
As a result, he wasn't trying to pick up points for this year's World Cup qualifier in South River but expects to do that in one or two more years.
Siertsema says dog sled racing is a very unique sport. On one hand, it's highly competitive but it's also a sport where competitors help each other out.
“Everyone is always so willing to help each other to make us all better and improve our times,” he said.
Siertsema sees many of the same participants at various events but “despite the competitiveness, there is also a lot of camaraderie.”
Spectators can expect to see Siertsema again very soon because he plans to be at the upcoming Kearney Dog Sled Races February 10th and 11th.
Kearney is celebrating its 30th anniversary of dog sled racing and like South River, most of the Kearney races are qualifiers for the IFSS World Cup.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the North Bay Nugget. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
