Sophomore Grace Conklin has been a part of Venture Scouts, a branch of boy scouts, for almost 10 months now. Through Venturing crew 313, she participated in dog sledding for the high adventure OkPik Northern Tier. 

     “I also went as a part of my school SAE project where I am comparing companion dog body condition scores to working sled dogs body condition scores,” she explains. 

     Her experience concluded that most dogs have a muscle mass score of 4,5, and 6 which are ideal body condition scores. “They have a feeding system in which if they feed the dog and they aren’t eating, they will take away the food so they don’t get bloated while they are eating. Bloating can be fatal to sled dogs,” Conklin explains. 

     She learned that the heavier and more muscular dogs are in the back row because they’re stronger, and the ones that are leaner and better listeners are in the front so they can navigate.

     The first night of their trip was spent in a cabin at the dog sled base and drove the next morning to the musher camp. “The dogs were treated very well and are probably the luckiest dogs. They are all grouped based on how well they get along and how well they can pull,” Conklin shares. 

     According to Conklin, if the dog team was slower, they would just add another dog. On the other hand, if the team was too fast, they would remove a dog. “The night we spent was in the open snowfield and we had a sleeping system. So first we had our base layer, then warm layer and wind layer. These were all so we didn’t get too cold and freeze,” she explains. 

     At night they had 2 sleeping bags, 2 pads, and then a tent to sleep in. “We put our wind layer in between the pads while sleeping, our warm in-between our sleeping bag and then changed into a new base layer. This kept us warm at night,” Conklin shares. She says they also made sure to warm up and went on runs before we slept.

     “I never thought I’d get to experience anything like that. The dogs were amazing, and super fun to work with each day,” says sophomore Korynn Sims

    When they first took off, Sims and the others on her sled couldn’t believe what was happening. “I mean we were being pulled by 5 dogs at pretty fast speeds, and it was crazy how long the dogs could run as well,” she states. 

     Sims says the dogs loved running sleds because they would start barking and crying to go again every time they would stop. “It seemed like the dogs were having just as much fun as we were,” she says. 

     Sims says overall, it was so fun and truly a once in a lifetime experience that she would 100% do again.