REGIONAL— Coming in first and second in the John Beargrease 40 this week had special significance for two North Country mushers.
Ashley Thaemert, of rural Tower, and Dusty Klaven, of Togo, finished first and second respectively in the shortest of the three races held as part of the annual Beargrease on the North Shore. It’s a short race designed mostly for novice racers or those without enough dogs for one of the longer distance competitions.
“It’s mostly just for fun,” said Klaven, who finished 90 seconds behind Thaemert. The two women have become friends over the past few years, with a bond that’s been forged over their mutual love of dogs and mushing.
They regularly share their dogs with each other, mixing and matching over time. Indeed, the two mushers had seven-year-old brothers, both of whom were born at Klaven’s kennel, leading their teams this week. For Thaemert, it was Willy who led the way to her first-place finish, while his brother Skinner brought Klaven’s team home in second place. “To me, it was special knowing that those two dogs from my kennel are still out there racing well,” said Klaven.
Klaven is now raising a six-week-old litter of puppies from other dogs in Thaemert’s winning team. “That makes the future look real bright,” said Klaven.
Thaemert said she first met Klaven, a veteran musher, a few years ago, while preparing for the Beargrease. “She’s been racing a long time, and she’s been really helpful for me in learning to race dogs,” said Thaemert.
It was happenstance that pitted the two racers together in the Beargrease short race. For Klaven, a previous Wolf Track Classic winner who has regularly been a top-ten competitor in the Beargrease mid-distance race, the switch to the short race was a practical decision after a difficult start, personally, to the season. She spent much of December down with a tough case of COVID-19, during which she said she could barely breathe and was unable to train with her dogs. Then, a death in her family took her focus elsewhere for a time. “There were some things that I couldn’t control,” she said. “I had to put reality first.”
It was concern for her dogs that prompted Thaemert to scale her own plan to run the mid-distance race again this year. When one of her lead dogs had a litter of puppies just before the start of the training season and another developed a shoulder problem, she scaled back to the 40-mile race. She said Willy had also developed a shoulder problem during the mid-distance race last year and hadn’t fully recovered.
Both mushers said the short race was actually a lot of fun and it gave both of them a chance to give some experience to their younger dogs. Thaemert ran with four of Willy’s pups, born about a year ago. “It’s their first race and it’s good to get them used to the distractions of racing, so that next year when we put them in longer races, they know what to expect.” At 40 miles, she said she can just let the dogs run at their pace without having to worry as much that they might injure themselves. “This way, they get a fun season before we ask them to do the tougher races.”
And both Klaven and Thaemert have more racing yet to come this season.
Both women will be among a large field of mushers competing this weekend at the Minnetonka Klondike, a 38-mile race around Lake Minnetonka that boasts a $10,000 prize for the first-place finisher.
The two friends will also be competing in the six-dog class in the Wolf Track Classic in Ely on Feb. 27.