CANADA’S "DOG DERBY."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 7

CANADA’S "DOG DERBY."

ENDURANCE AND HARDIHOOD. A TWENTY-FOUR HOURS’ RACE. In a few days we shall nil be prisoners again in the ice-bound silence of the North. But just now this little town is wide awake. For the day of Canada’s famous “Dug Derby” has arrived, and visitors from more than 500 miles around are crowding the hotels, writes L. C. Donthwaite in a dispatch from Northern Manitoba to the Daily Mail. Of all sporting events in the world, this, perhaps, demands the highest powers of endurance and hardihood. A race of 270 miles behind a dog team in a temperature of 60 degrees below zero is calculated to find weak places m the strongest. Assembled in mass formation to see the start is the whole available population of the “city.’ Ribald advice and comments flv back and forth as thick as hail. “Say, Edmonton, that’s a great team of poms you’re driving!’ “Don’t let them pinch you for furious loitering. Resina!” “Who’s the guy with the team of camels?”

And threading their way none too gently through the crowd, raucous voices upraised, are the bookmakers. As soon as they have seen the teams set off on their journey they will settle steadily to stud poker until they assemble next day to meet the winner. For a moment the crowd is hushed. The starting pistol shattering the stillness of this rarifiod air is (he signal for a roar of encouragement and farewells that drowns, almost, (he shouts and whip-crackings of the drivers. The crowd swarms on >to the course to wateh the sharp outline of the drivers as they merge gradually into the leaden background of the fast darkening skyline. Twenty-four hours later, so far away as to seem but a dim shadow against the snow, but darkening every moment into form and substance, (ho leading team looms into view. As, it approaches nearer the crowd turns and follows in whooping, yelling escort. The clogs, with lolling tongues, the driver swaying a little on his feet and with the fnr about his mouth stiff with frozen breath, amble gamely but somewhat uncertainly past the winning nost. They have completed the course in a few minutes over the 24 hour? at an average speed of llj miles an hour. No other team is yet in sight. The rest will bo coming in for six or eight hours. For a Dog Derby is won by more than a head.