Determined teen stays strong after withdraw from Canadian Challenge

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The decision didn’t sit well with her father, Steven Laviolette. He quickly took to social media, wondering if her age was a factor and how race organizers could say she wasn’t being “competitive.”

The Canadian Challenge Facebook page quickly filled with comments on the matter, some commending the decision and others criticizing it.

Later that day, Steven acknowledged his emotions had been running a bit high and “as a father I think I went a little overboard.”

Even with the benefit of hindsight and knowing his daughter was by no means going to win, Steven still said he “was completely positive that she would finish the race.”

“Laquasha went over there with her eyes open. She didn’t go over there to run a sprint race, she didn’t go there to run a 100 mile race, she went there to confront the hard weathers, the lack of sleep, the tough terrain.”

A rough start

At 17 years old, Laquasha was the youngest in the race and was also taking on her first long distance competition.

Post by Tuuluuwak SledDogs.

But her father, Steven Laviolette, said she’s no amateur.

“Laquasha is used to doing long distances with our dogs almost everyday. We run her approximately between 60 to 100 kilometres a day,” Steven said.

“She’s spent a night out many times at – 30 C, – 40 C by herself with her team. She’s been doing this for years and years.”

The odds stacked up against the young Quebec racer as she travelled far from home.

First, her father’s plans to join her in the race were dashed when car troubles kept him at home. Those same car troubles led to Laquasha arriving close to the wire for the Canadian Challenge.

Physically, the long trip and lack of downtime affected both Laquasha and her dogs.

However, she got off to a good start on the Tuesday launch.

Laquasha spoke with paNOW 12 hours after she had a chance to get some rest from the race, saying she went in to the Canadian Challenge shooting to make it from checkpoint to checkpoint.

“I didn’t have in mind to go from A to Z. I had in mind to go from A to B, B to C, and so on,” she said.

Each checkpoint posed new challenges for her.

At the first one, the trail’s veterinarians decided one of her dogs should sit out because of dehydration.

“I think that because I am the youngest musher there they were probably paying a little more closer attention to me to make sure that I knew what I was doing. So I think for that they may have been a little more particular about it,” Laquasha said.

Along the trail, organizers kept an eye on Laquasha. At one point she took a break on the trail to water them, feed them, and massage them when the dogs looked a bit less peppy.

Her father Steven said that’s something their dogs are trained to do back home, but for organizers “the comment from then on was ‘your dogs laid down on you. They laid down on the trail.’”

He cited the learning curve for Laquasha going from expeditions to competition.

“For the racing world I imagine that’s a different story… so the vet now had the impression that the dogs were exhausted, which they weren’t. So it now became a concern of the vets of Laquasha pushing the dogs too hard.

By the third checkpoint, she took some major hits.

Two more dogs were pulled by the race veterinarians due to dehydration, which Steven cites the lack of water during the long trip to Saskatchewan from Quebec, possibly licking highway salt during rests, and the stress of the trip.

With her team down to nine, Laquasha reorganized their race order and kept in mind the vet’s advice to make sure she thoroughly massages two dogs who were suffering from a sore elbow and sore should.

But right before take-off, over 300 kilometres and a day and a half in, the veterinarians decided to pull those dogs as well.

It “was a big blow on Laquasha’s team because those two dogs are just two years old, very fast, very motivated, very determined,” Steven said.

The race marshal and veterinarians kept an eye on Laquasha, who had just taken off for a full night of travel in very cold temperatures.

When they saw her team going at a speed they considered too fast, Steven said that’s when they finally decided she could not continue.

While he respects their concern for her, he said he believes she’s experienced enough as a musher and knows her dogs well enough to have continued on to the La Ronge checkpoint.

In fact, she had been so confident in her team that the decision for her to withdraw came with a lot of confusion and emotion on her end.

With seven dogs still in the race, she still had two more dogs than the minimum finishing requirements. And despite being far behind the others, she wanted to continue.

“Even just on the trail that I had continued on, I was proud of myself, I was proud of my dogs and how far we got.”

Steven is a very proud father.

“Her grandparents were up there and they couldn’t believe that this is the little girl we saw five years ago that was colouring books and today she’s out there cooking stew for her dogs in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“She didn’t quit, she didn’t give up, she respected their decision and she bowed out gracefully.”

The team plans to be back next year to take on the challenge, and they say it was a good learning experience.

Withdraws nothing new for the Canadian Challenge

Withdraws, are different from scratches because they aren’t by choice.

While scratches are much more common – there were three in the 12-dog race this year – withdraws have happened three or four times in the race’s 18-year run, according to Canadian Challenge treasurer Bernie Zintal.

“I can fully understand getting emotional about it, because they love their dogs and they love the sport,” he said.

Having the number of dogs drop throughout the race is also common. In fact, Zintal said one year they had a man finish with only six dogs standing.

Usually racers finish with 10 or 11 dogs, but last year the winner came in with his full 12-dog team.

Claskowski@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk

by Chelsea Laskowski

Determined teen stays strong after withdraw from Canadian Challenge

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