Are Skijorers a Dying Breed?
By Hal Shepherd
Most winter mornings, you can find me on some woodland trail skijoring with my two dogs. There is nothing quite like the joy and exhilaration of being pulled along by enthusiastic canines in the quiet pre-dawn hours, with little to no other traffic on the groomed course amid the solitude of Alaska’s frozen landscape.
Skijoring traces its origins to prehistoric Scandinavia, where, using rudimentary skies and calling the practice “snörekjöring,” the skier was towed across the tundra by reindeer. Fast forward a few thousand years, and you have the Swiss, replacing reindeer with horses and renaming the sport “skijoring.”
With the popularity of dog mushing and skiing in Alaska, skijoring naturally caught on here, too. During her initiation as an official Sourdough, my wife spent 13 years living in Fairbanks, arguably the skijor capitol of the state. Being a dog lover, she participated in competitions that took place nearly every weekend throughout the winter months unless temperatures fell below negative 20.
Unfortunately, due to climate change or just plain reduced interest, skijoring appears to be losing popularity in Alaska. In Fairbanks, the Alaska Skijor and Polk Association now offers races every other month or less. And if you check the Facebook page for the Anchorage Skijor Club, you get a message stating that the Club has folded due to a lack of interest and the inability to obtain board members.
…And if you try to practice this method of winter recreation on the Kachemak Nordic Ski Club (KNSC) trails, the reception can be downright hostile. This appears to be due to an increase in incidents regarding dogs on the trails. The conflict has led the Ski Club to enforce a one-dog-per-skier policy, which is the primary limiting factor in using the trails for skijoring for anyone who has more than one dog. Just about every concern regarding dog incidents on the KNSC trails could be addressed by keeping dogs on a lead (including preventing your pet from wandering off to poop on the trail where the handler can’t see them).
Currently however, the Nordik Sky Club will not support such exception, likely due to a desire to appease a small but vocal faction of anti-dog bias among the Clubs membership. As such, among this group, the concern about an increase in dog incidents has developed into a type of hysteria leading to dogs taking the heat for everything from leaving poop on the trails (a realistic problem) to other skiers tripping over paw prints in the snow (just plain silly).
Last spring, for example, when I approached a group of Club members to discuss the one-dog policy, (in part due to the paw print crises) they suggested that, if I wanted to skijor, I could us the snow-machine trials. This was less than helpful advice, due to the obvious difficulty of skate skiing on snow machine tracks and safety issues presented by slower animal/human-powered recreation on trails used by machines sometimes traveling 50-60 miles an hour.
Then about a month ago I was coming back from skijoring Wolf Ridge with my two dogs who were both on leash at the intersection of Dragons Way and Christmas Tree, when I saw a tall man in a blue & black ski-outfit skating up the hill from the parking area. Aware of the controversy regarding dogs and attempting to be polite, I moved myself and the dogs off the trail. Both dogs were completely under control and did not make a sound as we waited for the skier to pass. However, as he passed us, he looked straight at me and in a loud and hostile voice stated: “Verbal warning! Only one dog per person on the ski trails! First Incident is a Verbal Waring! Next Incident is a yellow slip! Third Incident you’re out!”
When all efforts to get this person to stop and explain what he was talking about failed, I filed an incident report with the KNSC to discover that this individual had no authority to enforce KNSC rules and, in fact, the three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule he threatened me with does not even exist. As such, this was simple harassment from another skier who simply does not like dogs or their owners being on the ski trials.
To their credit the KNSC Board appears to be taking harassment on the ski trails seriously (this, apparently, is not the first time the individual I encountered was involved with harassing other skiers). Without putting a security force on the trails, however, the rules are pretty much un-enforceable, and this can only be accomplished through social pressure from other skiers. For my part, I meet with the Board of Directors at their last meeting to discuss how best to address future harassment issues.
The KNSC website states that “Kachemak Nordic Ski Club …is dedicated to promoting Nordic skiing in the Kachemak Bay area in a respectful and inclusive environment on our ski trails and during our events. Kachemak Nordic Ski Club welcomes all to enjoy the delights of winter skiing in a safe, fun, and positive atmosphere.” When it comes to use of ski trails in a state like Alaska, it’s difficult to imagine that such a commitment to skier inclusivity would not include skijorers.
Not only is it our responsibility to keep our excellent ski-trails open to ALL skiing user but at the same time maybe we could help to re-invigorate the ancient and inspiring sport of skijoring in our State!