Nepal RPCV Bill Steyer is contender in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race
Caption: A CONTENDER?--Bill Steyer, seen here earlier this week in his Goldstream Valley dog yard, will be trying to break into the top three on his fourth trip down the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race trail.
Read and comment on this story from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Nepal RPCV Bill Steyer who hasn't been listed among the top contenders in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race yet, but he already knows how to talk like one. With a good training year and a sixth-place finish in the Copper Basin 300 without two of his best leaders, the Goldstream Valley musher admits he's shooting for the top three and quite possibly first place in only his fourth try at the Quest, which gets under way at noon Sunday in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Steyer met his wife while the two were in the Peace Corps working in Nepal more than 17 years ago. Steyer was working as a drinking-water supply construction supervisor for the 2.5 years in Nepal and the two became trekking buddies during their time off. Read the story at:
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Getting up to speed By BETH IPSEN, Staff Writer
Bill Steyer hasn't been listed among the top contenders in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race yet, but he already knows how to talk like one.
"I don't have the fastest dog team," Steyer said. "My strategy is to run my own race initially and take care of my dog team."
With a good training year and a sixth-place finish in the Copper Basin 300 without two of his best leaders, the Goldstream Valley musher admits he's shooting for the top three and quite possibly first place in only his fourth try at the Quest, which gets under way at noon Sunday in Whitehorse, Yukon.
If he can keep his team in good shape and have a large portion of his 14-dog team intact toward the end of the 1,000-mile race, the relative newcomer to long-distance sled dog racing might just add his name to the list of champions.
He'll have five determined challengers to fight with for that title--defending champion Hans Gatt, past champions John Schandelmeier and Frank Turner, and hard-charging contenders Thomas Tetz and William Kleedehn.
But giving him hope is the fact that Steyer has steadily climbed the Quest rankings after placing 20th in his first try in 1998. That year, Steyer got a bad rap for his competitiveness in two books written about the race.
"I was a rookie. I was pretty naive about long-distance racing," said Steyer, who has read the accounts in Brian O'Donoghue's "Honest Dogs" and John Balzar's "Yukon Alone," and said not everybody shares those perceptions.
That year was a learning experience for him.
"You do the Quest once and you realize, 'If I didn't this, that or another,' I could do better," Steyer said.
He took two years off from the Quest, then placed 14th in 2001. Last year, he took that experience and placed sixth in a field that included four former champions, beating three of them. And that was after he had some injuries and ran the last 750 miles of the race with only nine dogs.
This year he's back with much of the same team, some of them, like his main leader, Sissy, are veterans of three Quests while four are new to the team.
This year's Quest will test what Steyer has been learning over the past years as he has advanced in the sport of long-distance racing.
The Philadelphia native said one of the first things he learned was he needed to raise his own dogs. The younger of the 25 dogs in his Cool Runnings Kennel are from the same three litters he's bred.
"Some of the best dogs are the ones you raise yourself," Steyer said.
When training his dogs, he tapped into his own experience of competitive running and swimming.
"It's like coaching a bunch of athletes," Steyer said as he sat in the spacious log cabin he shares with his wife, Judy, a family practitioner at Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center, and their two children, Ben, 14, and Saanti, 11.
Steyer has run various local triathlons and placed ninth in his only Equinox Marathon.
"I really like training and I'm really intrigued and trying to develop the dogs to the best of their potential," he said. "I really am trying to look at all the facets of conditioning as well as nutrition."
But with training a bunch of dogs, he has to try read their minds, know what to feed them, how long and at what pace they can run before they need rest.
Steyer said it all came together and his team jelled during the Copper Basin. The race even allowed him to develop two inexperienced leaders.
Now, the question will be to see if the dogs can rise to the occasion again and use the varied training he's put his dogs through for the Quest.
"Judy was nice enough to allow me to cut loose and do some outside training away from here to get some longer miles," said Steyer, who also took the winter off from working as a swimming instructor and lifeguard to travel with the dogs.
Steyer met his wife while the two were in the Peace Corps working in Nepal more than 17 years ago. Steyer was working as a drinking-water supply construction supervisor for the 2.5 years in Nepal and the two became trekking buddies during their time off.
Afterwards, Steyer worked as a "bureaucrat" for the Environmental Protection Agency for a number of years and Judy went to medical school.
When the family moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula where Judy had a residency, Steyer discovered sled dog racing.
"I was a home dad there and dog mushing was something available to do there," Steyer said. "I was vulnerable and I took the plunge and did what everybody else does, get a couple of dogs and got a few more and then you just kind of build on that."
After medical school, Judy's first job was in Bethel working for the Native corporation there, which later led to the job in Fairbanks, giving Steyer the boost he needed to get into racing dogs.
"She likes to run dogs when she has the time. She's extremely instrumental in (my) veterinary organization of the Quest and provides emotional and financial support," he said. "I couldn't do this without her."
Reporter Beth Ipsen can be reached at bipsen@newsminer.com or 459-7545. Click on a link below for more stories on PCOL
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