Northwest History. Alaska. Dogs, Dog Races & Mushers.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1937
• Subjects: Fairbanks; Alaska; annual Dog Derby; University of Alaska campus; trophy; Johnny Allen; Tanana Indian; Irish setter; wolf stock; Bergman Kokrines; Big Mud; Malemutes; Bob Buzby; Siberian sledge; dog strains; Juneau; Mary Joyce; Mary Hansen; ice carnival; gold nugget; walrus ivory staves; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Indian; Pacific; walrus*
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/90551

Two Women To Seek Title: Course Set./Three-Day Test Will Start Friday. Two Women To Seek Title COURSE SET Three-Day Test Will Start Friday FAIRBANKS, Alaska, March 9. —(I.N.S.)—Thirteen expert mushers, including two women, and thirteen teams of alert and eager dogs took light sleds skimming over the snow surface in below zero temperatures today, as hundreds of visitors poured into Fairbanks for the North's greatest sporting event, the annual Dog Derby. The race will be run over the University loop course, near the University of Alaska campus, sixteen miles a day, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The team with the best elapsed time will win a trophy and substantial money prize. A favored entry was Johnny Allen, Tanana Indian, 1936 winner, who arrived with a team of eleven dogs, all in excellent condition. They are of Irish setter and wolf stock, averaging sixty pounds each in weight. Allen uses his team regularly in the winter, freighting between Kokrines and Big Mud, a distance of eighty miles. WOMEN DRIVERS He will use a light, seven-foot basket, mounted on a sled with nine-foot runners. Allen predicted his dogs would better the time of 1 hour and 9 minutes, which local experts say is "very good" for the course. Other favorites include Bergman Korkines, also of Tanana, winner of third place last year, who brought a team of nine Malemutes, and Bob Buzby, Fairbanks business man, whose dogs, a cross between the Malemutes and Siberian sledge dog strains, have won the trophy three times. The women entries, first ever to participate in the Derby, will be Miss Mary Joyce of Juneau, who last year drove a team of dogs to Fairbanks, over 1,000 miles; and Mary Hansen of Fairbanks. The Dog Derby is the principal event of the annual Fairbanks Ice Carnival. Nearing completion is a massive carved ice throne on which a young woman to be chosen as "Miss Alaska" will be crowned at the opening of the festival. She will sit there for short periods, wearing a crown made from walrus ivory staves and finely wrought chains of gold nuggets.