About us

Otto, Bettina and Vancouver training the pups at 7 months

In the spring of 2001 I was just finishing my first season running sled dogs.  I was working for a touring company in the Lake Tahoe area that first year.  I had met a woman by the name of Kristi Whitten.  She had actually found me, by the sound of barking dogs.  She was invited to the kennel where I worked and we started to take an interest in each other.

It was getting closer to the end of the season and my restless mind did not know what to do.  I had been reading a book about Joe Redington.  He is known as “The Father of the Iditarod.”   It was this book that inspired me to move to Alaska.  I told Kristi of my plans and asked if she wanted to join me.  Much to my surprise she said yes.  It was in that moment that I knew I would spend the rest of my days with her.

I packed my things in two vehicles.  One of those was a 1977 International Scout II.  I had been slowly rebuilding the Scout over the past year and was confident it could make the journey.  The second vehicle was a 1973 VW Camper Van.  I thought the van would make a nice travel trailer and a place to sleep when I first got to Alaska.  I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to Alaska.  I had no job lined up or place to stay.  I just had to be there.

With only one blown radiator hose, and a Hitch Hiker that traveled over 3000 miles with me, I pulled into Anchorage on the night of May 25^th, 2001.  The next day I went to the Iditarod headquarters in Wasilla.  There I learned that there was a kennel up the road looking for a handler.  I moved to the kennel on the 29^th of May. 

There were close to three hundred dogs at that kennel.  There were seven different mushers that trained off of the property.  Five were distance racers, one was a sprint racer, and I would make the seventh. 

I would be running a yearling team for an Iditarod veteran that year.  The amount of experience I gained was priceless.  The days were long and the work was often tedious.  The big pay off was running a race called the Klondike 300.  I had specific instructions from the dogs owner, “This is a training run for these young dogs and you, you are not racing.”  What I learned that year was to become the basis of my own kennel.   

It is five years later and I’m still running dogs.  Kristi and I have been married for two years now.  In 2005 we bought six dogs from Alaska.  Now we have a kennel of twenty dogs.  Running this kennel is a full time job for me.  We are interested in mid and long distance racing.  One day we hope to run the Yukon Quest.  It is considered by most to be the toughest sled dog race in the world.

I invite you to join us on our journey.  Come with us over the long trail and experience the wonders of sled dogs.