Dog Sledding

The late Susan Butcher was a woman who raced the Iditarod, and survived. She raised sled dogs for decades and brings some of her dogs, by plane no less, to a remote snow glacier for some fun and a revealing education into the sport.

These are dogs that can follow their driver’s call and guide the sled around problems fetch a good price, sometimes more than $10,000. Meet some real sled dogs, which may not be the picture postcard sled dogs you are used to seeing. These are real runners, each with a personality and their own harness.

We journey to some high mountaintop snowfields in the middle of summer to give these working dogs a taste of winter, and demonstrate the skills that you need to guide a sled across the frozen tundra of Alaska.

Producer’s Notebook: …where does one go in the United states to film dog sledding in the middle of summer? Even in Alaska finding snow in mid summer was tough to find, unless you looked up. Up to the tops of the many high mountain ranges in the state…. read more.

Following in centuries old dog sledding footsteps, we harness up the dogs and find out what it takes to really go somewhere. It’s not all the dogs, and it’s not all the driver. But it’s 100% adventure, ready for the taking.
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