“I was born and raised right here. I was born on King Salmon creek, I don’t know where that is, but it’s somewhere around here. {laughs} I have had dogs all my life; I only had four years of my life during high school when I didn’t run dogs. The day I got back from high school, I started up my own kennel—my folks only had one dog at the time. We went to these boarding schools—I went to one in Oklahoma—and when I left, everyone had dogs. In my absence they had invented the snow machine, and most everyone had gone snow machines. When we were young, we all went through an apprentice program in the village and we were eventually going to be running dogs. I had too much into it, I couldn’t let it go. So I raised my own dogs, and I have had dogs ever since. I have raced all my life, since I was a young man. I have run the Iditarod 17 times and numerous other races. I raced my first Iditarod in 1978/79. I haven’t run the Iditarod in 12 years or longer—it’s been awhile. I use these dogs for hunting and fishing, hauling firewood, the whole nine yards. These are real dogs here.” —Joe Garnie is an Inupiat dog musher from Teller, Alaska.
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