The End of Season 4

And just like that, it is spring!

Our fourth season came with a lot of highlights and even more learning. Here is our season in review

Drone shot by M Baxley

Deciding how far apart to put the dog houses

Fall training!

Dr. Robyn's first visit

Photo shoot with Duluth Trading

Anna and Jackie building dog houses

long runs and short days

sled training

Anna during Beargrease

The start of the Mail Run

UP 200 finish

Wolf Track Classic Start

foggy dog yard

Running sled dogs to work

Leaping Lizards we love the boundary waters!

First BW trip

Aurora in the BW

Fixing the broken operator pedals on the skid steer

ashley's second attempt at enrolling in high school

the biggest birch tree on our property

New logo!

Lost key Sled Dog merch!

Skylar helping with dog box build

Empty dog yard

saying goodbye to our boy Iorek

In the summer of 2025, Anna and I made the leap and purchased 65 acres from my mom in Northern Minnesota to start our own kennel. Coming off of 3 seasons in Alaska with two successful Iditarods, we decided to move back home closer to our families

We held a get-together at the kennel with some of the folks who must love us very much, and built 20 dog houses and stacked nearly enough wood for the whole winter

Fall training began, so we started to find the trails to get the dogs ready for sled season. We did many loops on one particular trail, but next year we will utilize more of the network near the kennel

We partnered with The Bond Between to be our in-kennel vet. Dr. Robyn is our vet brain we rely on.

Snow started to fall... and fall... and fall! We got out our sleds and started to pack in the miles. We fell in love with Minnesota all over again (while we continue to miss our swamp life in Alaska). We even ran to Grand Marais and back!

Anna checked off another dream on her list: the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon out of Duluth, and placed as rookie of the year!

I ran the Mail Run out of Grand Marais and learned that I do not love sprint racing, but I have mad respect for the mushers and dogs that do!

I ran the UP200 out of Michigan! They have the best snow, and they know how to throw a party. Running 200 miles made me wish that there were even longer races nearby.

We finally decided on a kennel name: "Lost Key Sled Dogs" and had a logo made by Sofia Hisakuni

Anna and Skylar ran the Wolf Track Classic out of Ely. A final fun run for our kennel!

After the race season wrapped up, Anna and I took the dogs to the Boundary Waters for the first time. I'm having a hard time describing the feeling of sharing such a beloved place with our pack. Since Anna and I started running dogs together, running our dogs in the BW was a shared goal. We zigged and zagged all over and found ourselves beneath a beautiful Aurora.

We shared our dogs with as many folks as we could! We invited friends and new guests out to take rides, we were filmed twice, and had high school kiddos come out to help us put in a new trail!

We launched new merch for the Lost Key Sled Dogs!

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In the midst of all the joy, the learning curve was steep. We quickly learned which dogs could not live next to each other. We went through 4 generators and finally just bought a good beefy one. I learned that the oil must be changed every 100 hours. I gelled up the skid steer twice and nearly started it on fire once. The ATV ~sometimes~ worked. We ran out of firewood to heat the cabin with in Late March. We underestimated how much meat to purchase at the beginning of the season. When mud season came, we had to park at the end of the driveway; the mud was so deep.

All in all, it was a banger of a season! Anna drove the dogs up to Alaska with Erin (another musher from the shore). I built out a new dog trailer for the dogs to travel in. They will give tours for a couple of months on a glacier in Juneau. I will fly up in September and drive them back for another season of running! I hope we see as much snow next year as we did this year!

Now I am at work full-time and can just sneak in a few projects here and there at the kennel. I'm harvesting wood from old logging slash piles for heat next winter and milling wood for different projects. Dog houses need to be painted, the driveway needs gravel, trails need to be put in, and so on. The list is never-ending, but that's how we like it.

Big future projects include: More solar and battery storage, and hopefully a septic tank! Good thing I'm back at work so we can have two incomes! (but if you want to buy us a septic tank, we won't stop you!)

Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen! There is a long list of folks who put in the hours and hours of work at our kennel so that the dogs had the best winter possible!