Mushing the Jamaican way:
Jamaica Dogsled Team musher sets sights on the Yukon Quest, among world's most demanding races
Phil Couvrette
CanWest News Service
Monday, August 20, 2007
Maybe it's the heat that makes them do it. A sun-kissed athlete from Jamaica is about to take the Great White North by storm again.
In a project reminiscent of the Jamaican bobsled team's participation in the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games, immortalized in the 1993 comedy Cool
Runnings, the owner of the Jamaica Dogsled Team announced that his lead musher would be training with a former champion to take on one of the
most demanding dogsled races in the world.
That's dogsled, not bobsled.
"Ninety per cent of the time I have to correct people, it's not bobsled, it's dogsled, they always mix it," explains head musher Devon
Anderson in a phone interview from Jamaica.
Anderson will train with three-time race winner Hans Gatt for the 1,500-kilometre 2009 Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race that connects
Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse.
To get there he'll have to prepare for 300 and 450-kilometre qualifiers, starting this fall either in Canada or Alaska.
"It's in the making!" he said.
Relatively new to the sport, Anderson visited Canada last year to follow the Yukon Quest and even mushed on Lake Laberge. He'd seen snow
before, but never this much.
"It blew me away: the people, the snow, the landscape, it was like living in a storybook," he said.
Anderson said he'll have to practise being around the dogs and spending extended periods of time in the cold to be ready to tackle the first
qualifiers.
"We're not talking about winning, but competing, it's an endurance race," said team owner Danny Melville, a tour adventure company owner on the island nation. "This is not just a promotional move, we take mushing seriously and Gatt agrees; otherwise he would not be wasting his time
with us."
What started like a tour company gimmick turned into serious competitive training quite unexpectedly.
In spring 2005, Melville was shopping for dune buggies in Edmonton when he spotted a crazy-looking dog sled and had an "epiphany" about
starting a dogsled team.
Initially created from mixed breed dogs found on the street or through the Jamaican Society for Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, The Ocho
Rios-based team is now big business with sponsors that include singer and songwriter Jimmy Buffett.
"We're talking about a Jamaican entering the Yukon Quest and hopefully completing it," Melville said. "That in itself is an achievement."
There'll be no need to wait for the movie, Palm Pictures' documentary feature Sun Dogs, chronicling the struggle to make contenders out of Jamaica-bred street dogs in time for the 2006 Dogsled Championships in Scotland, already premiered at Toronto's ReelWorld Film Festival in April. © The Vancouver Sun 2007
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The following letter to the editor was written by the SledDogWATCHDOG Advocacy Group in response to the aforementioned Mr. Danny Melville using sponsorship of the Jamaican SPCA to legitimize his exploitation of the dogs he uses for racing and for his Jamaican sled dog tour business. The letter to the Whitehorse Star (a major Yukon Quest media sponsor) was not published by the editor.
'Sled Dog Margaritaville'
I would like to thank Mr. Danny Melville, owner/founder of the Jamaica dog sled team, for his response (Star, July 30th) to some questions and concerns I had addressed in my letter (Star, July 23rd) about his interview with CBC Yukon radio on Friday, July 20th. Mr. Melville sets a good example for Yukon Quest ‘spokespeople,’ who practically never respond in a serious manner to public questions or concerns about the treatment of Quest dogs. They only offer up the same handful of tired catch-phrases (“our sled dogs are treated like members of the family” being one of them). The Quest is quick to throw out this tried-and-true line for media and public consumption, even when dogs are injured and killed in the Yukon Quest ‘doggie meat grinder’.
As it was not made perfectly clear in the CBC interview or the related CBC news stories (radio and online versions), Mr. Melville’s response made it clear to me that he and his employee/prospective Quest dog musher will not be exposing Jamaican dogs to potential injury and death, but will only be subjecting borrowed dogs supplied by an Atlin-area Quest/Iditarod veteran, to the dangers of the Quest trail. This arrangement does not surprise me as sled dogs appear to be mere ‘tools of the trade’ to many Yukon Quest mushers, which is evident from the yearly ‘Quest dogs for sale’ ads in the local newspapers after each Quest race.
About Mr. Melville’s philanthropical reasons for founding Jamaican dog mushing, I read his statement in the July 23rd Star’s ‘Sports’ article (‘Jamaican musher sets sights on 2009 Quest’) hyping the Jamaican dog musher story (this article should have included a disclaimer stating that it was an advertising piece for the Quest by one of its major media sponsors – the Star). His statement: “This is not just a promotional move, we take mushing seriously and it has become part of our tourism offering in Jamaica. We’re dead serious about this. It’s not a joke.”
I then looked on the Jamaican dog sled team web site and noticed there was a rhetorical question referring to what Mr. Melville “was smoking” (there was also a comment on the page about Mr. Melville, “between gulps of Margaritas,” bringing musician Jimmy Buffett on board as a team sponsor) when he founded dog mushing in Jamaica. (Ref. http://www.jamaicadogsled.com/history.htm)
Speaking of such, has the Quest organization taken action to (at least internally) deal with published allegations of marijuana use by Quest mushers during the race [‘Yukon Alone’ book about the 1998 Quest race, by author John Balzar] and “several race officials” being “less than discreet in consuming booze at checkpoints” [reported by Yukon News on March 3, 2006, quoting complaints made by Quest musher Hugh Neff]? It sounds like we’re talking here about a veritable ‘Sled Dog Margaritaville.’
I will not contest that 10% of his sled dog tour business profits (which are mostly earned by the labours of the dogs) going to the Jamaican SPCA, is helpful to that organization and the animals it cares for. The Yukon and Jamaica, besides sharing a love of dog mushing, also share ‘third world’ standards with regard to animal welfare (74 dogs shot by a ‘dog hoarder’ near Dawson in 2006 – no charges laid; Beaver Creek cat colony still suffering; population of unwanted domestic animals out of control in Whitehorse and other Yukon communities, etc.).
Regarding his “dead serious” statement, I would certainly hope Mr. Melville is not breeding dogs who will be used for racing and sled dog tours in Jamaica. Is he aware that ‘a spectre of dead and discarded dogs’ hangs over the world of competitive sled dog racing and the commercial sled dog tour industry? These branches of dog mushing are not regulated here or in Jamaica and we should pity the dogs who fall into the hands of the ‘bad mushers’ out there and the new ones who crop up hoping to make a living off the labours of sled dogs.
According to a veteran Yukon-based Quest musher interviewed by CBC Radio on February 9, 2007 (some rare but important, actual Quest reporting by them), “the Quest should admit that culling is part of the competitive racing world and take measures to discourage it.” 2007 Quest race marshal Mike McCowan’s reported response was that the dog culling methods [of Quest mushers] were “not our [the Quest organization’s] business.”
Were they to know of these unanswered allegations and the suffering Quest dogs endure, how could the Jamaican SPCA possibly be happy about their benefactor, Mr. Melville, associating with the Quest, or Jamaican musher Devon Anderson participating in the race?
To conclude, Mr. Melville, being such an effective communicator, perhaps you can get some of these questions finally publicly answered by your friends at the Yukon Quest. Hope you are having an enjoyable visit.
Terry Cumming
Web Administrator
SledDogWATCHDOG.com
Whitehorse
Background info: http://sleddogwatchdog.com/cbc_supporter_of_animal_cruelty.html