Despite some adjustment for the recent cold weather, the Aurora Ford Classic — a two-day dog race along the side of Highway 2 from Hay River to Enterprise and back — has been held for the third year.
The race featuring 12-dog teams began on Jan. 31 with a 23-mile run from Hay River to Enterprise and concluded on Feb. 1 with a run from Enterprise to Hay River.
The event had originally been set for Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, but cold weather prevented the run set for the first day.
"Saturday was ridiculous," said race organizer Danny Beck of the -38 C wind chill on Jan. 30.
"The wind chill is the killer," he said. "On Monday (Feb. 1), we had a little bit of a wind chill there, but it was like -21 or -22 or something like that. So it wasn't too bad. We were pretty much sheltered."
Beck, the president of the Hay River Dog Mushing Club, said that the races are not held in extreme cold mainly to protect the dogs.
Despite the change because of the weather, Beck was pleased overall with this year's Aurora Ford Classic.
In particular, he was happy with the number of participating teams, an impressive 14.
"That's pretty much every team in the Northwest Territories," he said.
Beck said that the high number of teams was because of travel restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"You kind of expected it because of Covid," he said. "No one is going south. They're all here."
Along with Hay River racing teams, others came from Yellowknife, Fort Resolution and Fort Providence.
This year's race winner was Fort Providence's Danny Beaulieu, who also won the inaugural Aurora Ford Classic in 2019.
Beaulieu said he was proud of his dog team.
"You've got to give credit to the dogs," he said. "We spend a good deal of time training them. I knew that we were going to have a lot of 20-mile area races and we kind of trained for that."
For Beaulieu, it was his third win of the season, since he had won previous races in Fort Providence and Yellowknife.
Top prize in the Aurora Ford Classic was $2,000.
Second place and $1,800 went to Grant Beck of Yellowknife and third place and $1,600 was won by Richard Beck of Yellowknife.
All the other teams won a prize, starting with $1,500 for fourth place and declining by $100 for every subsequent finisher to $500 for 14th place.
"The prize breakdown is really good," said Danny Beck. "When you look at the prize breakdown, you're guaranteed to make something."
There were health precautions taken with this year's Aurora Ford Classic because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For example, no one was allowed at the race's staging areas in Hay River and Enterprise, except for mushers and handlers, and spectators watched the race along the highway, mainly while sitting in their vehicles. There were also no indoor meetings or banquet.
"So there were no crowds gathering or anything like that," said Beck.
Once again this year, the organizer said he was very pleased with support for the race from the business community, especially main sponsor Aurora Ford.
There was also support from Great Slave Lake Drilling and Exploration, Hay River Home Hardware, Choice North Farms, Mackenzie Electric, Norland Insurance Agencies, Kal Tire, Diggerz Powersports, Greenwood Consulting, Keith's Water Service and Rowe's Construction.
"We're really thankful for the sponsors being so generous with us," said Beck.