Maine's extremes test mush teams' mettle
FORT KENT, Maine - They spend days battling the numbing, subzero cold, often in the inky black of a windswept night, traversing a 250-mile course through dense Maine woods and across abandoned potato fields - places unreachable by car or truck.
There is a $29,000 purse for first place in the Can-Am Crown, the preeminent dog sled race in the eastern United States and a prelude to the Alaskan Iditarod. No one gets rich off the sport. Fanfare at the finish line involves a few dozen brave, bundled-up souls offering mitten-muffled applause.
So why do they do it? The answer can be seen in their windburned faces and heard in their voices when they talk about the spectacular scenery, the ferocious challenge, and the trailside camaraderie.
And always they point to one more reason for coming back time and again: the huskies.
"To be in the company of these dogs - they're my best friends," said Matt Carstens, a New Hampshire musher. "I love them. We live for it."
So does Fort Kent. The population of this little town doubled to 8,000 Saturday, the day the race started. It may be one of the only places on earth where these mushers are given occasional rock star status.
The town fairly erupted with excitement last week when Don Hibbs, a grizzled lodge owner from Millinocket, Maine, and the local favorite for this mini-Iditarod, arrived for the race. He has completed eight Can-Ams and won three.
"It's my obsession, that's what it is," he said, fresh off the first 67-mile leg of the race.
With his lumberjack's no-nonsense demeanor, Hibbs leaves the distinct impression he prefers the company of dogs to people.
That doesn't matter to the people of Fort Kent, including Rita Cannan, a local tavern owner and past president of the Fort Kent Chamber of Commerce. "He's a family man, he's wonderful," she gushed, then added: "His eyes are the same color as his dogs'. He's got nice, blue eyes."
Hibbs, 52, was up against a window installer from Quebec, a baker from Minnesota, a biologist from New Hampshire, and more than a dozen others. As a group, they respect one another but share little beyond a passion for racing and their dogs.
Many will hop off their sleds in the middle of the woods and run alongside their dogs for miles, feet burning.
The night before the race, volunteers erect a starting area on Main Street and trucks haul in enough snow to cover a quarter-mile stretch of the road. Then people line the streets, two and three deep, to cheer mushers and dogs as the 24 contestants leave, one team at a time, in a staggered start.
Peter Sirois, president of the race committee, and a dozen volunteers go without sleep for days to keep track of the 24 mushers.
"It's a poor man's sport," Sirois said in an interview. "They're a different breed, that's for sure."
The same could be said of the people who live here. Potato farming, once the lifeblood of the local economy, has disappeared. The local paper mill recently laid off 500 people. Last winter, more than 200 inches of snow fell, and when spring finally came, the melt put the town underwater and in a state of emergency.
Mushers like Christine Richardson, 43, from Canaan, N.H., embrace the difficult terrain, which is north of Quebec.
"I tried rock climbing," she said. It didn't stick.
She has been training for the Can-Am since September. A molecular biologist by occupation, Richardson keeps 38 Alaskan huskies at home. She invited dog handler Sandi Payne to live with her and help her prepare. Payne, a retired New York state trooper, has taken on the duties for free.
"I'll have seven or eight dogs inside my house while I'm cooking dinner," Richardson laughed.
Richardson faced stiff competition this year. There was Hibbs, as well as Martin Massicotte, a four time Can-Am champ from Quebec. Other mushers included Jason Barron, a professional musher from Lincoln, Mont., who has finished the Iditarod eight times.
A Globe reporter and photographer met the mushers as they stopped at remote outposts.
Barron said before the race that his talent is his ability to stay awake longer than other mushers. Mushers who nod off can get knocked off the sled by a branch or lose the trail. Barron told the Bangor Daily News he usually waits for other mushers to "fall apart" near the end of the race.
"We come along and pick up the pieces," he said.
In Allagash late Sunday, at the last pit stop of the race, it was Carstens who led the pack. And the 36-year-old dog handler from Whitefield, N.H., had a wild look in his eye.
He had just completed the most difficult leg of the journey, a mountainous 45-mile ride.
"You see nothing but trees and mountains. It's absolutely beautiful out there," Carstens said as he sat down to eat two hamburgers and french fries.
His 10-year-old daughter, Delia, walked over and draped her arms around his neck. "I tell you, I'm going to like seeing the Fort Kent finish line," he said.
Mushers in the Can-Am are required to make four pit stops for food, rest, and veterinarian check-ups for the dogs. (That includes random steroid testing.) Teams must stop for 10 hours, and five of those must be at the last stop.
The dogs, mostly Alaskan and Siberian huskies, sleep outside on hay in the snow. The field fills with rows of dogs, some asleep standing up.
The mushers, if they sleep, get thin mats on the lodge floor.
As Carstens resumed his trek in the dark, the temperature was minus 10. He was first to cross the finish line about seven hours later, just before 4 a.m. Monday. Barron came in a half-hour later.
Hibbs, whose dogs were so tired as they neared the finish line last year that they stopped in their tracks, finished fifth.
Seven teams scratched, unable to finish, including Massicotte, the four-time champ.
And Richardson, the musher from New Hampshire? Her spirits soared as she crossed the finish line Monday morning to take 10th place. Her time was several hours faster than last year's.
"This race is amazing," Richardson said. "It's not just you out there. It's you and the dogs."
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com. 
