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Quest Volunteers Get to Work on Trail Markers

Fairbanks, AK - Volunteers gathered in south Fairbanks last weekend (Saturday) for the first in a handful of events leading up the start of the 30th running of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race on February second.  They were tasked with cranking out five-thousand trail markers for the event.

The sound of staple guns echoes inside a large, dusty warehouse in south Fairbanks.  Four foot-long wooden trail markers are spread out between sawhorses all over the place.  Mark Winterstein will man this year’s final Yukon Quest checkpoint in Fairbanks.  He spreads thick stripes of hot pink and black paint across the tops of the wooden stakes laid out in front of him. “It‘s always kind of like a milestone of the winter," says Winterstein.  "Once the Quest starts then you know as soon as it’s over, it’s almost March and then the spring is coming so that’s pretty good.”

Once the painting is done, small square pieces of reflective tape are secured with staples.  Race Manager Alex Olesen says Quest volunteers make ten thousand trail markers each year: five thousand go to the Canadian side of the trail and five thousand mark the Alaskan side. “You just have to have a couple thousand ready by the time of the first trail breaking session which come s in early January,” says Olesen.

This year, Olesen says inmates from the Whitehorse Correctional Centre volunteered to make the markers for Canada. “They did ‘em because they’re a captive audience," he grins.  "So, they were able to do ‘em in small chunks and they did a couple of hundred a day or so."

Reports from Eagle, a checkpoint in the middle of the trail, indicate that the Yukon River froze at a high level this year and then shifted, creating areas of jumble ice. Further down river, locals in Circle have told Olesen the river is smooth.  “You just have to assume that it’s gonna go to hell and get ready for that.  And if it doesn’t then you are ok," he nods.

Olesen says he won’t know for sure what the trail is like until it’s completely broken.,  Even then, conditions can change quickly. 26 teams are signed up to leave the start line in Whitehorse for the 30th running of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.