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This Winterfest, however, held something a bit different. The International Midwest Sled Dog Race was held on Saturday and Sunday. Participating in that race, were people from all over the nation and even the world.

"In past years we've gotten people from Alaska, Montana, Utah, really, just from all across the country. This year, we had Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Illinois, and Minnesota. As far as international participants, we had Ontario, Quebec, Russia, and Jamaica. We had a young lady who is on Team Russia. She has been an exchange student for a short time here in the United States, in Pennsylvania. Her name is Sasha Panyukhina; she is from Tver, Russia. She started out racing when her parents in Russia decided that sled dogs might be a very good tourist attraction for their area of the country. So, they purchased sled dogs and equipment and began working and training with them. After a year or so, they discovered that this probably would not be a good business. So, they started racing. They've been racing for 15 years now. She has been involved with it for 10 years.

She races all through Europe. Most recently, she took first place in the Junior World Championships in Poland. She came in fifth in her particular class at the Winter Fest, which is quite outstanding. There is a very symbiotic relationship between the dogs and the musher. They don't use whips or anything like that. Voice control is the only thing that the musher has with their team. She only had two days of practice with a team that she has never handled before. So, to come in fifth place in one of the classes is just really remarkable because all of the competitors that she had have been racing for years. She was very excited to be here, and thought that our trails were just magnificent. She said that they were really fast and scenic and that it was just an overall fun event to be involved with. She said that it was really spectacular. It is interesting to note that she had her Russian National Team uniform on, it was all black, it was pretty neat. Sasha would like to come back for next year's race, but as it is such a great distance to travel, that is still up in the air.

The gentleman from the Jamaican team was Damion Robb. He works for a tour company in Jamaica by the name of Chokka Caribbean Adventures. They're part of the tourist industry within Jamaica. What they provide is a two mile excursion with the sled dogs. What is really unique about them is that this company and a lot of these new events that Jamaica is getting involved with are being backed by Jimmy Buffett.

Jimmy Buffett has given Jamaica a fair amount of dollars to help the tourism industry and to help Jamaica financially so that it can better establish itself as an economic presence. There are three people who are doing this tour guide business with the sled dogs. Damion is one of them. He is working with a coach, Ken Davis of Minesotta, so that he can become more proficient as a musher. They are going to different races across the United States and Canada. One of their other team members is up in the Yukon being trained to do long distance sled dog racing.

That would be somewhat on par to the Iditarod. They are trying to get all of these team members experience so that they can go compete in the world. Both Ken Davis and Damion Robb were very impressed with the trail and the race, with the kind of competition that we have. They have said that they will be back next year. What is also unique about the Jamaican team is that they get stray dogs from their animal shelter. They take care of the dogs and train the dogs. You certainly can not run Siberians down there because of the heat, so they have quite a mixture of dogs down there. If this company makes a profit, all of that profit will go back into the rescue dog area,"said Ken Waichunas, a vital part of not just the Winter Fest, but many happenings in the Kalkaska Community.

On his way to his next race, Damion Robb was able to contact the Leader and share a few thoughts on his recent experience in Kalkaska. "The Kalkaska Winter Fest was a great event. A lot of mushers were there. I was able to learn a lot of new things from the other mushers that I met. The race was well organized; the trail was well groomed and well kept. The team that we have in Jamiaca does not do races because we are the only dog sled team in the Caribbean. We get most of our dogs from the JSPCA (Jamaican Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). We only use our dogs to do dog sled tours for the tourists. We have, right now, 21 dogs in our kennel,"said Robb.

Even though the highlight of the weekend was the dogs and the events that involved their skills, every part of the Winter Fest came out successful this year.

"The high school band and the middle school jazz band played, this is the first year that I know of that we had the middle school band play. Their bake sale went over very well. Then, we had the Kiwanis pancake breakfast and the Ladies Auxiliary of the VFW did the lunches. We felt that, overall, the Winter Fest was very successful; we had a lot of fun. It was very cold. But, people, during the dog pull contest, pulled up their cars near the contest so that they could sit in their warm cars and watch the weight pulls, which was a lot of fun to see. It seemed like there were a lot of people there and that they really enjoyed it. With the sled dog rides, we raised approximately $800. The decision has been made to split that between the Winter Special Olympics, which is the Wertz Warriors, and with our local animal shelter. The comments that we have received back from some of the participants were that the trails were in unbelievable shape, that it was a fun trail for them to race on as it was quite scenic, not at all boring, and quite fast. They all had a really good time and most are very eager to come back and participate again. We had approximately between 80-100 registrants for the different races,"said Ken Waichunas.

The results of the differing races were: Junior Sled 1- Dog Speed , Emily Rodenhouse, Michigan Adult Sled Unlimited Speed- Jason Rodenhouse ,Michigan Adult Sled 6- Dog Speed Amy Cooper , from Wisconsin Adult Sled 4- Dog Speed Kati Dagenais , Quebec Canada Junior Sled 3- Dog Speed Hunter Collins Junior Sled 2- Dog Speed Eran Menard Adult Sled 8 -Dog Speed Dawn Brown , New York

Next year's Winter Fest promises to be even more of a destination for national sled dog racers than this year as the Winter Fest continues to grow in popularity and recognition.

For more information on next year's Winter Fest visit www.upnorthlife.com/kalkaska/winterfest.asp.