Photo Scrapbook

Zoom Lens – Talking Siberian

Teachers attending the Winter Educator’s Conference had the opportunity to visit the Van Zyle Kennel and Art Studio.  During the visit teachers enjoyed conversation with Jon and Jona Van Zyle as well as their handsome Siberian Huskies.

Zoom Lens – Tennis Anyone?

Who’s My Daddy, a Siberian Husky from Jon & Jona Van Zyle’s Kennel is ready for a game of tennis. Jon is the “Official” Iditarod Artist.

Zoom Lens – Athletes of the Junior Iditarod

It’s all about the dogs! These canine athletes have just completed the 2014 Junior Iditarod and are standing under the finish banner at Happy Trails while their musher/coach signs in and produces the required equipment for bag check.

Zoom Lens – Portraits of Piglet

Seven-year-old Piglet runs with the Klejka family from Bethel Alaska. Piglet, a winner of Junior Iditarod gold is a veteran of many Junior Iditarod races.

Zoom Lens – Humanitarian

Ben Harper left Yentna Station two-minutes behind the lead musher and finished in second place by the same margin of time. Out of Yentna, Ben passed the leader more than once on the sixty-two mile return trip to Happy Trails but needed one more pass for the Championship. For his excellent and spirited run to …

Zoom Lens – Sportsmanship

Kevin Harper left Yentna Station ten minutes behind Jimmy Lanier but passed Jimmy on the trail. Harper was became aware of a pair of dogs approaching him from behind. The pair of footloose dogs were connected by their tugs to a very short piece of gangline. Without the resistance of the sled, this pair was …

Zoom Lens – Piglet

Joshua Klejka who placed 8th was extremely happy to have had the opportunity to run on such good trail. There’s way more ice than snow around his hometown of Bethel so while his dogs didn’t have enough training this year to be really competitive, musher and canines enjoyed the 124-mile run immensely. Piglet is a …

Zoom Lens – As the teams left Yentna

When the first Junior musher, Conway Seavey left Yentna Station at 02:08 the night sky was cloudy. At 04:45 when Nicole Forto, the final musher out of the checkpoint departed, the clouds disappeared, the stars shown brilliantly and as northern lights danced into the sky, an orange quarter moon rose over the tree lined riverbank …

Zoom Lens – SPOT

I’m not talking about my best canine friend, SPOT, I’m talking about the GPS tracking device that Junior Iditarod and Iditarod mushers will be using while on the trail. In the past, the tracker that was attached to the Iditarod sled was the size and weight of a brick. It sent signals up to satellites …

Zoom Lens – Dressing for Success

Zach Steer shared his system for dressing and system for organizing his gear with junior mushers at a clinic on Thursday evening. Both Zach and his wife Anjanetta have run Iditarod and many other mid-distance races. He showed a short video of Anjanetta putting all the necessary gear on. It amounted to thirty-seven pieces, which …