The 2025 John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon was postponed due to unsafe trail conditions.
ELY, Minn. — Some business owners want people to know despite challenging winter conditions in some areas, the season is in full swing in other places.
Jack Hway owns a sled dog tour company in Ely where he says there’s plenty of snow to operate safely.
But some 90 miles south and along the North Shore, conditions are so much worse that organizers postponed the iconic 2025 John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon until March 2. The Board of Directors said in a statement Thursday that “Recent assessments revealed insufficient snow and icy terrain along the 300-mile course, creating hazardous conditions for sled dogs and mushers.”
The Gunflint Mail Run Sled Dog Race is also being postponed. The message on its website says, “Last week’s rain took a toll on the race course and the current forecast shows little to no snow prior to January 11th. The Board has decided to postpone the race until a later date, likely in February but yet to be finalized.”
“We have smaller teams, things are safe and comfortable and we take care of our small trail system, ” said Hway. “We don’t have 300 miles of trails that we’re maintaining like the Beargrease trail.”
Mushers need about a foot of snow for the Beargrease race to proceed.
But in the metro area, one of the biggest sled dog races needs just half that many inches. The Klondike Dog Derby is a five-year tradition that announced it will continue as planned on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. The 40-mile race includes 35 teams and starts in Excelsior and goes across Lake Minnetonka.
“We need snow, but we’re full speed ahead right now,” said Klondike Dog Derby Board Member Dale Kurschner.
“We’re not meteorologists but we’re optimistic,” said Kurschner. “We’ve looked at four, long-range weather models and they’re all indicating snow mid-to-late month, so fingers crossed.”
There was such little snow and ice last year that the event was canceled and the pandemic shut it down in 2021 as well. This year, organizers are expecting upwards of 30,000 spectators.
“It’s really important for this economy and you think about wintertime around here and bringing in all these people, it really helps,” said Kurschner.
The popular Ice Castles event also opens Friday for the first time at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Organizers say the cold has helped them open about a week earlier than normal. The event typically remains open through early March but is entirely dependent on the weather.
Plymouth’s 36th-annual winter festival called Fire & Ice is also set to open on Feb. 1 at Plymouth Creek Playfield.
The event will look different this year as it moves from a frozen lake setting to a park due to cancellations in recent years because of poor ice conditions.
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