By Heidi Atter
It’s hard for Dennis Burden to sleep the night before the Eric Rumbolt Memorial Dog Sled Race. The Labrador man spends hours preparing the track each year on the ice on Alexis Bay, outside of Port Hope-Simpson in southern Labrador.
Early in the March frost, Dennis heads out on skidoo to his dog team tied up just outside the houses, and is greeted by an electric energy. The dogs jump high, excited to get into the harnesses and head off to run. Burden’s family has had dog sled teams for generations in southern Labrador. While the dogs aren’t used for transportation anymore, each year Dennis harnesses the dogs to race.
“It’s pretty exciting for sure,” Dennis explains. “When they drop the flag and you get out.”
A crowd always gathers at the starting line, while the dog racers are spaced out to give the dog teams enough space between each other. At his spot, Dennis and a friend quickly tie his dogs onto their specific positions, staggered from the flat sled the team driver lies down on. The Labrador flag is dropped, signifying the start and a skidoo drives forward, echoing off the nearby mountains, leading the dog teams where to go. Dennis says he doesn’t race to win but instead for the joy of it. It’s a tradition he wants to see continue, but the weather is changing. In 2024, last winter, there were few days when the ice was safe to run the dog team, and the Port Hope-Simpson race had to be postponed twice due to unsafe conditions. The race was able to be held a few weeks after the initial planned date when a cold snap allowed the ice to freeze, and racers hit the ice on a weekday before the snow and ice melted again. The towns of Rigolet, Charlottetown and Pinsent’s Arm all had to cancel their dog sled races.
“You can’t even plan it anymore,” Dennis says. “It could be pouring rain,” he explains. “Everything has changed and changed so fast, too.”
Even with the changing temperatures, Madonna Savory’s three children eagerly await the race each year.
“I can’t wait to go and watch the dogs, see the dogs, pet dogs, cheer for dogs,” the Port Hope-Simpson mother shares. “My oldest, actually, now has been bugging me for the last year for his own team.”
Madonna is one of the people working to organize and run the race. She says it seems people are less interested than back in the day, but it’s important to continue the tradition so it doesn’t go away.
“We always get a good turnout, always. So if we keep it going, people are going to keep coming and watch,” Madonna explains. The weather has been different since when Madonna was younger, in a large way. “Our winters are not our winters no more. It’s warmer, it’s not so much snow. I don’t know if our winters is soon going to end,” Madonna admits.
It’s been an big difference compared to when Dennis was just in his early 20s as well, he says.
“Minus 30, was pretty normal one time. We could always leave here, go to Williams Harbour, Mary’s Harbour on snowmobile for the New Year’s Ball. That’s how fast it is changing,” Dennis says, adding that he hopes this year will be more suited for winter activities, despite beginning with rain and grass peeking through small patches of snow. “I really try not to hope too much, because then I end up being disappointed,” he says. “The damage is done.”
Dennis has two granddaughters under five years old who he knows may know the tradition as they grow older. He sighs and says they’ll just try to adjust, and maybe have over-land trails, similar to Indigenous peoples in western Canada facing climate change challenges. No matter what happens, Madonna hopes the tradition continues in any way it can. She hopes her son may have a team when he’s older if that’s what he still wants, and that he could pass the tradition to his own children one day.
“Hopefully they know of it and it continues,” she says. “And then you can look back and tell these stories.”
