Speaker Biographies
2006 International Sled Dog Symposium
Sponsored by the Alaska Dog Mushers Association and the Fairbanks North Star Borough Parks & Recreation Department, Pioneer Park
In alphabetical order, these are some of the speakers who'll be presenting at our 2006 International sled Dog Symposium. Biographies are added as we receive them. For more information, email Ami Gjestson or ADMA, or call 907-457-6874.
Dale Anderson and Laura Katucki
Dale and Laura are recreational mushers living off Chena Hot Springs Road in Fairbanks. They operate Lucky Dog Kennel and currently have 16 dogs, 15 of which are in a free-run kennel. Their primary goal in mushing is to enjoy the sport and have happy, healthy dogs. They take pride in their dog care and believe that even those dogs that are hard to handle can come around with proper care and socialization.
Ken Anderson
Ken was born in Minnesota. He says he began mushing at birth, as his parents had a recreational team. He came to Alaska in 1993 to be a musher and study biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He’s been running the Iditarod since 1999 and took fifth place in 2003. Also in 2003, Ken took third place in the Atta Boy 300 Stage Race and fourth place in the Wyoming Stage Stop. In 2006, he took second place in La Grande Odyssée. Ken is married to Gwen Holdmann, a Yukon Quest and Iditarod veteran.
George Attla
George Attla, legendary open-class sprint musher, has won more Fur Rondy World Championships (10 wins) and more Open North American Championships (8) than any other musher, and and he has won 9 ISDRA Unlimited Class medals as well. George won his first Fur Rondy World Championship in 1958 and his first Open North American in 1969. His book, Everything I Know about Training and Racing Sled Dogs, though now out of print, was considered the musher's "Bible," and his life story became the subject of a film, Spirit of the Wind (later re-titled Attla!), and a book by Lew Freedman, Spirit of the Wind: The Story of George Attla, Alaska's Legendary Sled Dog Sprint Champ.
Miki and Julie Collins
Miki and Julie use dog teams to run their 80-mile trapline in bush Alaska. They have written extensively about their experiences at Lake Minchumina, and are authors of the books Trapline Twins; Riding the Wild Side of Denali: Alaska Adventures With Horses and Huskies; and Dog Driver: A Guide for the Serious Musher.
Kriya Dunlap
Kriya grew up in upstate New York with 150 sled dogs and upwards of 60 pups a year. At age 5, she was bribed with candy into racing her first race and, despite her immediate addiction, she expected candy after every race for several years. Shortly after her father, Harris, retired, Kriya went to a sports academy for cross country skiing and on to college at Cornell University to study animal science. Once again, Kriya found herself working with sled dogs at a sled dog research facility with Arleigh Reynolds. That is where she decided to get ONE sled dog and combine her two favorite sports by trying skijoring. For graduation Arleigh gave Kriya her "first" dog, Oban. Graduate school and the mushing allure brought Kriya to Alaska to study blueberries as an antioxidant in racing sled dogs. After completing her master's degree in biochemistry, she continued on for a doctorate in nutrition, using sled dogs as a sentinel for the effects of subsistence diets on immune function. If all goes as planned, Kriya will graduate in May.
Egil Ellis
Egil is a seven-time winner of the Open North American Championship, four-time winner of the Fur Rendezvous, and eight-time winner of the Tok Race of Champions open-class sprint races. He has also won the European Championship and the World Championship. Egil has been racing for 21 years in Scandinavia, Europe and Alaska. He is originally from Sweden but has lived in Willow, Alaska, since 2001, where he and his wife, Helen Lundberg, operate their kennel of pointer crosses. Egil has been obliterating track records across Alaska for the past 8 years. He is the successful breeder of the original pointer-cross line of sled dogs that are now found on most top sprint teams around the world.
Curtis Erhart
Curtis, a noted fourth-generation Alaskan musher, comes from a long family tradition of running sled dogs and racing in Alaska. He has been involved in many aspects of racing since his first race at 7 years old. Having been deeply involved in running both sprint and distance racing, Curtis brings a wealth of experience and information for beginners and experienced mushers alike.
Gwen Holdmann
Gwen has been mushing dogs since 1993. She completed the Yukon Quest in 1998 and Iditarod in 2001. She won the 2003 Wyoming Stage Stop Race, and took fourth place in the 2006 running of La Grande Odyssée in France. She has also run numerous sprint and middle-distance events around North America, including the UP200, the World Championships at The Pas, Manitoba, and the Open North American Championship in Fairbanks. Gwen graduated from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with a degree in engineering physics. She has worked for NASA and the Poker Flats rocket research range studying the aurora borealis. When she's not mushing, Gwen is working full-time for Chena Hot Springs Resort as a renewable energies project manager.
Jeff King
Jeff won the Iditarod in 1993, 1996, and 1998, and most recently in 2006. When he won in 2006 at age 50, he became the oldest musher to win the Iditarod. Since 1992, Jeff has finished in the top 10 every year except 2005, and has finished in the top five an impressive 10 times. In addition to his consistent performances in the Iditarod, Jeff won the Yukon Quest in 1981 and the Kusko 300 a record eight times. In 2003, Jeff also won the Kobuk 440. In his third decade of racing, King has logged well over 175,000 miles on a dogsled. First and foremost, Jeff is as dedicated to his dogs as they are to him. Following the 2003 Iditarod, he was awarded the coveted Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award for his consistent, high-quality dog care.
Sarah Love, DVM
Dr. Sarah Love is a veterinarian and a specialist in small-animal internal medicine. She received her veterinary degree and specialty training at the University of Minnesota and became interested in sled dog medicine while living there. She has worked as a trail veterinarian on the Iditarod, John Beargrease sled dog marathon, UP 200, the Can-Am race, and others throughout the upper Midwest. Besides sled dog medicine, her veterinary interests include hematology, infectious diseases and gastrointestinal diseases. Her non-veterinary interests include endurance sports and wilderness travel.
Helen Lundberg
Helen was born in Sweden, and has been racing with sled dogs since 1985. She and her husband, Egil Ellis, have been together since 1991, and in 2001 they moved from Sweden to live in Willow, Alaska. There, they operate Ellis Racing Sled Dogs, a sprint kennel of pointer/husky crosses. Helen has been training and racing with sprint dogs in all classes from 4-dog up to the open class. She has won the Swedish Championships in the 6- and 8-dog class and is a multiple winner and current track record holder of the Limited North American 8-dog class. She was also World Champion in the 8-dog sprint class at the IFSS World Championships in Fairbanks in 2001. Now she is running the second string with young dogs in most of the open sprint races they enter, and often doing pretty good. Helen is also editor for ISDRA's magazine, Dog & Driver.
Allen Moore
Allen Moore began competing in sprint races about 15 years ago. For the last 5 years, he has been racing mid-distance races such as the Copper Basin 300, the Tustumena 200, the Knik 200, the Two Rivers 200, and the TRDMA Solstice 100. Allen won the Copper Basin 300 in 2005. Allen works as a contractor and carpenter during the summer and trains sled dogs full-time during the winter. He lives in Two Rivers, Alaska, with his wife, Aliy Zirkle.
Herbie Nayokpuk
Herbie Nayokpuk, a.k.a. the "Shishmaref Cannonball," ran the Iditarod 11 times between 1973 and 1988 and finished in the top 10 in eight of those races, taking second place in 1980. He is one of the most liked, respected, and admired of all Iditarod mushers. Herbie was awarded "Most Inspirational Musher" from the Iditarod in 1988, and, in 1992, became the first living musher to be given the honorary No. 1 starting position.
Diane Preziosi, DVM
Dr. Diane Preziosi graduated from the University of Missouri School of Veterinary Medicine in 1992. She worked in private practice on small animals and exotics for 6 years before returning to the University of Missouri to teach general practice medicine to veterinary students for 3 years. After that, she completed a residency in dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Preziosi is a board certified specialist in dermatology (ACVD) and a board member of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (ABVP). She currently works at Veterinary Specialists of Alaska in Anchorage.
Wesley Rau
Wes is a physical therapist of 30 years, and a certified manual therapist. He was the Oregon state representative for veterinarian physical therapy, and has presented at the National Physical Therapy Symposium in Seattle on spine disorders of canines. Wes first spoke at the ADMA symposium in 2003 and has been invited back by popular demand ever since.
Arleigh Reynolds, DVM, PhD, DACVN
Dr. Arleigh Reynolds is a veterinarian and a canine exercise physiologist and nutritionist who also competes in open-class sprint races. He received both of his doctoral degrees from Cornell University. He says racing started as his doctoral project, but has become his job and life's passion (second to wife and kids). Arleigh has studied the relationship between diet and performance in sled dogs for more than 19 years in his laboratory and on the Alaskan sled dog trails. He has worked as a veterinarian on the Iditarod, the Open North American Championship, the International Federation of Sleddog Sports World Championships, and the ALPO series in New York.
Jill Schreiber
Jill was raised in Washington state and has always had a love of dogs and of training them for specific tasks. She started mushing with weight-pull dogs in 1984 and continued on to limited-class competition in the western states. Jill moved to Alaska in 1992 to learn and continued to race limited class. She also works with border collies as sheepdogs. Jill is currently employed as a laboratory technician with Nestle-Purina in Salcha, working with Dr. Arleigh Reynolds.
Susan and Andy Seitz
Susan and Andy Seitz operate a "micro-kennel" of four dogs in Fairbanks. Both skijor competitively in Alaska and are Limited North American Champions in the one-dog and two-dog classes. In addition to sprint racing, they enjoy spring touring trips in the White Mountains with their dogs. When not skijoring, Susan is a software developer and Andy is a fisheries oceanographer.
John Wood
John Wood has been active both as a racer and as an organizer behind the scenes since 1990. John ran open-class sprint for 10 or so years before switching over to the stage racing format. Unfortunately, there are no stage races here in Alaska since the demise of the Fireplug. Each December, John packs up the dogs and drives down to the Lower 48 to race. Now that he has hit the magic 60, he is trying to shift his focus from racing to that of organizing a stage race in Alaska. To this, he brings his experience running the Fur Rondy, Open North American, and many other open-class sprint races as well as the Fireplug, Wyoming Stage Race, and the Atta Boy stage race and World Championship.
Roxy Wright
As a young girl, Roxy dreamed of running dogs like her father, Gareth Wright. She entered her first Women's North American at the age of seventeen and went on to win the race in 1972. She is tied with Kathy Frost for the most Women's World Championships. Roxy began running in the Open Rendezvous and Open North American in 1976. She became the first woman to win both of these races in 1989. Roxy won them both again in 1992 and 1993. Besides winning just about every major sprint race in the state of Alaska, Roxy ran the Iditarod in 1983, finishing 23rd, and won the Alpirod Sled Dog Race in 1990. Roxy retired from racing in 1996 to have more time with her grandchildren. Her son, Ramy Brooks, carries on the family tradition. Roxy continues to run dogs, helping out Ramy occasionally and working with Arleigh Reynolds.
Aliy Zirkle
Professional dog musher Aliy Zirkle’s life revolves around her dogs. She came to Alaska in 1992 to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a biologist in the small town of Bettles, which lies about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The dogs and the people captivated her. After spending years trekking across the Arctic, Aliy entered a Christmas race in the Athabascan village of Allakaket and got hooked. She began to build a strong team of dogs and started racing in mid-distance and long-distance dog races. Aliy became the first woman to win the grueling 1000-Mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in 2000. Since then, she has turned her sights to the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She is one of the top racers in the Iditarod and won the coveted Humanitarian Award in 2005 for demonstrating outstanding dog care on the trail. Aliy has been featured domestically and internationally on television and in print and has addressed audiences around the world about mushing and her lifestyle in Alaska. Her kennel is family-run and is dedicated to excellent dog care and nutrition, and training and raising happy, healthy dogs. She will be heading down 4th Avenue in Anchorage to start her 7th Iditarod in March of 2007.