Sled dogs have plenty of encounters with each other and their human companions but they’ve also have occasional encounters with wild animals.

Wintergreen mushers were stopped by a moose on the trail several years back. He hoofed the snow and cast a few threatening glances but eventually sauntered off without incident.

Other mushers have not been so lucky with moose encounters. When the snow is deep, moose prefer existing trails — including the Iditarod trail causing hazards for racing teams. In 1985, Susan Butcher lost her chance at becoming the first woman to win the Iditarod when her team made a sharp turn and encountered a pregnant moose. The moose killed two dogs and seriously injured six more in the twenty minutes before another musher arrived and shot the moose. In 1982, three racing teams were driven into the forest by a charging moose.

On a Wintergreen trip across Ellesmere Island, we peered out our tent door one night just in time to watch a pack of arctic wolves pass through our campsite and visit every sled dog along our stake out line. They caused no harm and in fact there was no ruckus.  The dogs & wolves — canine cousins — just seemed to be benignly curious and sniffed each other without showing any apparent aggression.

This past March, a timber wolf came bounding out the woods, jumped right over the lead dogs of a Wintergreen team and kept on going.  Imagine the astonishment of the mom & dad driving that team and the two young kids riding in the basket!

Otter and Jewels

These special encounters are generally too fleeting to get photographed.  Except this one.  Wintergreen participant Ric Partis happened to have his camera handy when his lead dogs Jewels came nose-to-nose with a river otter poking out of it’s ice hole.

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