ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Two deadly crashes between sled dog teams and snowmachines have sparked campaigns to provide mushers with lighted collars, vests and harnesses so their teams will be more visible on dark trails.
The separate crashes occurred on the Denali Highway near Cantwell in November and December. A total of five dogs were killed on teams belonging to mushers Jim Lanier and Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey.
The nonprofit August Fund, which works to rehome retired sled dogs, teamed up with Anchorage pet store AK Bark to supply mushers will free gear, according to owner Mark Robokoff.
“We set up a goal of trying to outfit 100 mushing teams across Alaska with full LED gear and that means four dogs in LED harnesses and the musher in an LED human vest,” Robokoff said.
Robokoff said Polaris, the snowmachine manufacturer whose driver struck one of the teams, chipped in $8,500 towards the cause. In addition, Noxgear, the company that makes the lighted harnesses, agreed to supply them for about 20% below wholesale costs.
Robokoff said AK Bark won’t profit from helping the August Fund distribute the gear to mushers.
“Retail that would be about $350,” said Robokoff. “We got it down to where we are able to outfit an entire team for about $110.”
Robokoff said right now they are almost 80% of the way toward reaching their goal. Donations can be made at the August Foundation website. AK Bark is also accepting donations at the store located at 557 E. Fireweed Lane.
Light Up the Lead Dogs is another effort to keep them safe. Sled dog lover Cherie Lovely said she knew one of the mushers driving a team that was hit and wanted to do something to help. She’s now partnered with the Alaska Snowmachine Alliance to raise funds to provide free lighted LED collars for musher’s lead dogs.
“I actually bought quite a few [collars] before I started doing the fundraiser and had mushers test them out so that we would know that this was actually a quality collar and it would be seen and be worth getting,” Lovely said.
Lovely said the Canadian company that makes the collars has agreed to provide them at rock-bottom prices so that more can be distributed to mushers for free.
Michele Stevens with the Alaska Snowmachine Alliance said the goal of her organization is to increase safety on Alaska’s mixed-use trails for all user groups, which made getting involved in Lovely’s mission a no-brainer.
Lovely said they are getting donations from all over — even New Zealand — and are close to reaching their initial $5,000 goal. Lovely is hoping they will exceed that goal to make an even greater impact.
Donations can be made through the Light Up the Lead Dog’s Facebook page.
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