ROYAL OAK, Mich. (WXYZ) — The iconic Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an annual long-distance sled dog race that brings in competitors from all around the world and this year, Royal Oak’s very own Dane Baker is participating for the very first time.
Baker graduated from Royal Oak High School in 2018 and with time, found his love of dog mushing in what has now become his passion.
“Dog mushing is taking a group of dogs, whether it be two dogs or in my case, 16 dogs… and you’re running on some snow,” Baker said. “I just wanted to do something a little different before I went off to college and just kept getting good opportunities and stuck with it. We wound up in Alaska and call it home here now.”
Baker now works at Alaska Husky Adventures, where he trains and races with Alaskan Huskies. He credits the company for helping him get the opportunity to race in the world-renowned race.
He had to qualify and has been hard at work training every single day racing and camping.
“We’ll head out maybe 40 miles. We’ll stop for maybe four hours on, feed the dogs a meal, put them on straw, let them sleep, let them take a little nap, give them a snack and then head out again and do another 40 miles in quick succession,” he said. “I will be (racing) about a hundred miles in 24 hours. So, you have to get them used to doing multiple runs in quick succession.”
The winning mushers typically finish the race in about nine days, while others finish in 11, 12 or 13 days. Baker is just hoping for a good, safe race his first go around and doesn’t have too many expectations. The one thing he is hoping for is to make his hometown of Royal Oak proud.
“When I’m out there and I’m cold and I’m like man, this might not be fun right now, I think of all the support and all the people that are cheering me on back at home and it does mean the world to me,” he said. “It does keep me going when I have a moment of doubt or something like that. I definitely don’t want to let anyone down.”
If you want to follow Baker on his nearly 1,000-mile journey, his sled and all the participating sleds will have GPS trackers on them and you can see his trip in real-time on the Iditarod website come race day on March 2.
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