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UPDATED WITH LATEST 2009 SCHEDULE AND PURSE
And 2009 Spring Race Results
and will have a 2009 video coming up when done

We had 13 mushers for the 2009 Open Championship race this year. This was one heck of a race again this year with an excellent trail. Below is a video of 13 mushers passing through the 3 mile checkpoint on the Yukon River race trail during the 2008 race and will have the 2009 one posted when done.

large file (50 MB) so best to download by - right click on link and select save target as)

Click Here for Race Video

     The Yukon River Championship Sled Dog Race got its start back in the 1930’s when the Tanana Commercial Company challenged the rival Northern Commercial Company to put up a purse for a race from Tanana down the Yukon River. By 1959 the race had become an established 18-mile sprint race and the first real trophy was put out, still owned by Lester Erhart of Tanana. The association has in recent years sponsored a main open class 16-mile race on the Yukon River that draws many of the luminaries of sprint dog racing and has sponsored distance races from Tanana to Ruby, to Rampart, and to Allakaket in recent years. It currently also sponsors an 80 mile two day race down river to Folgers fish camp and back, a woman's race, an old people's race, a Cheechako race, as well as snowshoe races and junior races.

  2009 Yukon River Open Championship Sled Dog Race Champ
 Arleigh Reynolds (2nd year in a row winner)

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(race results on TDMA Race Results page)

     The Tanana Dog Mushers' Association sponsors the Yukon River Championship Sled Dog Race held in Tanana each year around the 1st of April. As a nonprofit organization we rely heavily on sponsors in addition to the money we raise locally with a variety of fund-raisers.

2009 Yukon River Open Championship Sled Dog Race 2nd Place - Jason Dunlap

     The town of Tanana has had a spring carnival with dog races as its centerpiece since 1934. It is the biggest time of the year in Tanana. Mushers come from all over the state with well known persons such as George Attla, Joey Reddington, Charlie Boulding, Marvin Kokrines, Curtis and Shannon Erhart and many others attending including our local but well known mushers, Lester Erhart, Pat Moore, and Francis Roberts

2009 Open Championship 3rd place - Tanana’s John Erhart

                Tanana Dog Mushers Association                
Box 55, Tanana, AK 99777
President- Patrick Moore
1ST vice-president- Stan Zuray
2ND vice-president- Francis Roberts
Treasurer- Thomas Hyslop
Secretary- Lois Huntington, Ruth Althoff
 

                             Dogs in Tanana

     Dogs are still part of life in rural Alaska. Small and large teams are used for in and out of town transportation to haul wood, water and run trap lines and hunt. They are raised and trained for racing in order to prove their abilities for sale and win races. Every non musher fish camp has at least one for companionship and bears.

     Years back an informal survey done by members at a Tanana Dog Mushers meeting counted 47 dog teams in the village of Tanana in 1977. Counted were teams as small 3 dogs and family yards consisting of 70 or more. One fall back then, which is the season of highest numbers because of summer pups, another survey counted 1500 dogs in Tanana and about 450 people. Today there are about a dozen teams and a couple of family yards of 50 or so (and 300 persons). Tanana is one of the places still holding on to the use of dogs. Times are changing but the low salmon runs of the past 10 years has had much to do with this decline which also has affected all areas of subsistence. With the runs hopefully rebounding now some more teams may return.

Play a Joe Bishop (Whitehorse, Canada) Dog Driving song called Mushing
click > MUSHING

Notes:

    - This is a new web site and we will be improving it regularly. Planned is the addition of more dog mushing pictures past and present and an archive of past race results going way back in the clubs history.

    - All pictures posted on the site are for your use and enjoyment. We don’t have restrictions on them. Any TDMA acknowledgment would be appreciated of course. Picture quality is somewhat reduced for web site use but we could provide the full quality version if someone needed it.

Thanks for visiting TananaDogMushers.com
 

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