Ontario's Jesse Terry, 38, is the 10-dog winner in the Canadian Challenge Sled Dog Race. (Facebook/Canadian Challenge Sled Dog Race)

By Derek Cornet

champion

Ontario musher declared winner of Canadian Challenge

Feb 24, 2022 | 5:21 PM

A 200-mile (321 kilometres), 10-dog race over rough terrain and frozen lakes ended Thursday morning when Ontario’s Jesse Terry was declared the Canadian Challenge Sled Dog Race winner.

Terry completed the race in 43 hours and 28 minutes with eight remaining dogs. He arrived in La Ronge’s Patterson Park at 7:30 a.m. followed by New Brunswick’s Katherine Langlais an hour later. Saskatchewan’s Maxime Berthou-Queau took third at 9:22 a.m.

As the winner of the main event, Terry will receive $3,000. The entire purse sits at $20,000.

“I’m really happy with the experience,” he said. “It was my first win and it sure meant a lot to me to have my two kids there meet me at the finish line.”

Terry competed in the 2020 Canadian Challenge, which consisted of 12 dogs and nearly 500 kilometres. That year he placed second behind Aaron Peck of Alberta.

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This year, Terry had a strategy to be competitive from the very start on Feb. 22 in Elk Ridge.

“In the bid draw, I was the first musher to leave the shoots and I decided I wanted to try keep that position the whole race and I was able to do that,” he said.

Sled dogs rest during a mandatory eight-hour stop in La Ronge on Wednesday. (Facebook/Jesse Terry)

Terry believes he has good dogs in his kennel right now, but he explained there are countless hours of training and preparation that go into making a team ready to run in a race like the Canadian Challenge. He said races like the Canadian Challenge aren’t won at the event, but rather in the months leading up to it.

Mushers faced extreme cold on the trail to La Ronge with Environment Canada recording a temperature of -39 C without the wind early Wednesday morning. Thursday morning reached a low of -31 C as Terry made his way to La Ronge from Missinipe. He noted there are ways of dealing with the frigid weather.

“Lots of layers, lots of jackets on the dogs, making sure the dogs are comfortable and able to operate in that temperature and basically just keep moving,” Terry said. “I’ve spent a lot of time out in the cold and I am fairly comfortable in the cold myself. I feel once I am comfortable in an environment, I can spend more energy on the dogs and taking care of them and getting them down the trail.”

Terry, who is from Sioux Lookout, is in La Ronge with his family. His father is his handler and his wife, Mary England, also competed in the 10-dog race. As of 4:30 p.m., she had turned around with her team on the trail to La Ronge to return to Missinipe.

Those competing in the eight-dog race left La Ronge at Patterson Park and will return Friday around 6 p.m. The winner will receive $1,500 and, as of 4:30 p.m., Manitoba’s Mike Burtnick and Alberta’s Jillian Lawton were trailing each other in first and second place.

The mushers are wearing GPS and their progress can be tracked online here.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno