Diane - thank your for writing about this. I too have a difficult time watching such shows. The exploitation and cruelty depicted in this series apparently goes way over the heads of most of the Discovery Channel's audience. I did send a document to the Yukon opposition parties as I stated in the letter. There was never any response by either opposition party, spineless bunch that they are.

This is a letter which was published in the Yukon News on March 26, 2008.

'Public support for dog abuse'

Monday evening I watched, for the first time, a re-run of the Discovery Channel’s Out in the Cold TV series episode about the evacuation by air of several injured and exhausted Yukon Quest sled dogs during the 2007 race.

It is absolutely bizarre to me that Yukon Tourism and Culture, a major financial backer of this series (also aided by the Yukon Film and Sound Commission), would see any beneficial tourism spin-offs for the Yukon Territory from the heart-wrenching scenes of traumatized dogs, which have been run into the ground by our wonderful Quest heroes.

At least one of these dogs appeared to be not much more than a puppy (some Quest mushers use 18-month-old dogs). Footage included a scene of a musher arriving in Scroggie Creek puffing on a cigarette.

I would like to forewarn Tourism and Culture Minister Elaine Taylor that she and her fellow governing party members will be receiving a series of pointed questions regarding their annual monetary support (approximately $230,000 in 2008) for the Yukon Quest.

These questions (which have previously been asked in public) will be submitted to the opposition parties in hopes that they will get some comprehensive answers in the Yukon legislature (all Yukon political parties are complicit in providing easy money to the Quest over the years the race has been run).

It is highly embarrassing to me as a Yukon resident to have this Out in the Cold series (by association) cast Yukoners as a bunch of stupid yokels who apparently get off on seeing dogs subjected to exploitation and suffering — this for a quarter century!

In closing, one little news tidbit I had not seen covered by Yukon media was the story about Quest/Iditarod musher John (J.T.) Hessert being charged in Montana for abandoning his 33 faithful companions “without food, water, or shelter,” according to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

It was reported that “a veterinarian examined the dogs on February 2nd and determined that they were all well below normal health and had not been fed enough food.”

Also mentioned in the article was that “one of the dogs had a collar embedded in its neck and other dogs had frostbite, according to court records” — more testimony of the special bond between a musher and his dogs.

I contacted via e-mail a Montana reporter who covered the story to see how these dogs are doing as there was no mention of their current situation. I have not yet received a reply.

Terry Cumming