FORT KENT, Maine — This year’s Can-Am Crown International Sled Dog Races brought over a thousand spectators to Main Street in Fort Kent and provided a much-needed economic boost to the area, particularly after last year’s race was canceled due to lack of snow. Behind the scenes, several hundred volunteers donated countless hours of their own time to make the races a reality.
Can-Am media contact Jacob Pelkey said there are roughly 30 directors and 60 advisers who hold monthly meetings from July to March to discuss coordinating the event. Advisers oversee registration, sponsorship, trail conditions and race check-in. The group also includes municipal officials such as the town manager, public works director and police chief.
The directors group includes positions such as secretary, marketing director, IT specialists and overseeing operations at Can-Am Central, a communications hub located in the basement of the Lonesome Pine Ski Lodge.
“It’s like an information hub,” Pelkey said. “They keep the maps and times updated down there. At any given time there were 12 people there, and they were there around the clock from Saturday morning until the last dog came in on Monday night.”
Pelkey said volunteers would rotate in and out, and people would come in and bring food for them as they worked around the clock.
Linda Deprey, who is in charge of Can-Am Central, said they take care of phones, radios and work closely with ham radio operators at all the checkpoints and safety stations.
Deprey said that while there are roughly a dozen volunteers helping out, others will often come in and offer assistance. She said one volunteer came from as far as Massachusetts.
“She was there at 6:30 in the morning,” Deprey said of the volunteer. “They start at 8, but there’s a lot of preparation before they start, and she was there; she wanted to see the whole process.”
She said others will come in and cook food for the mushers. Deprey said she was at Can-Am Central until the last musher came in at 2 am on Tuesday morning.
This is Deprey’s fifth year working at Can-Am Central, and she said she looks forward to returning each year.
“It’s a lot, because we don’t sleep for three or four days, but at the end of the day it’s well worth it,” she said. “We tend to forget about it, and think ‘I wouldn’t do that tomorrow,’ but come next year we’re ready to go at it again.”
Roughly 30 certified veterinarians and vet technicians are also stationed at the various checkpoints for each of the three races, Pelkey said. He added that there is one head veterinarian, which is required under race rules.
On the morning of the race, about 120 volunteers worked behind the scenes to ensure everything went over well. Lance Morin, who directed volunteer efforts for the Main Street start, said that while he is planning and organizing throughout the year, the major work began about a week before the race.
Morin works with volunteers as well as Fort Kent’s Public Works Department, which dumped over 30 massive truck loads of snow for the track on Main Street.
“Fort Kent Public Works is a well-oiled machine. They know exactly what they need to do,” Morin said. “I coordinate everything, but they make my job look very easy.”
He commended Public Works Director Chad Pelletier, who recently started in that role but has been a part of the department since 2012.
“We’ve been working together from the start,” Morin said. “I’ve been doing this since I was a junior in high school, so about 20 years, and I’ve been doing the director role for close to 10 years, and Chad has been there all along, so him and I trust each other.”
Morin said everything was set up in record time for the race on Saturday morning, which he said took place without any issues.
“The crowd was great,” he said. “The teams were eager to run, and the energy was awesome.”
After the teams all took off with their dogs, Morin and the Main Street volunteers started taking everything down around 11:20 am. By 1 pm, everything on Main Street was back to normal.
And while it is not as easy as it once was to find younger volunteers, Morin said the young people who volunteered this year were incredible.
“They all know what they have to do,” he said. “They do the job extremely well, and that’s what makes it a world class race. Every volunteer goes above and beyond.”
And while volunteers for the Can-Am come from far beyond just the town of Fort Kent, Pelkey said several local people are often willing to be a part of the sled dog races.
Some residents even volunteer to let mushers stay at their homes, which is often necessary due to local hotels filling up ahead of the actual races. Residents also do this for biathlon events hosted at the Fort Kent Outdoor Center.
“It’s been a tradition for so long, and it’s such a prominent race in the race circuit that there’s a lot of pride to be able to help pull this off,” Pelkey said. “I think it isn’t the municipality on its own, or a particular business on its own, or a particular festival or race on its own — it’s everyone working together with what they have.”
