Following an announcement by the Yukon Government last Friday, the Yukon Quest will be requiring vaccinations for mushers, volunteers, race officials, and the vet team.

The Quest is running 100 and 300 mile races this year on the Yukon side starting on Feb. 19, 2022. On the Alaskan side, 220 and 550 mile races are off and running on Feb. 5, 2022.

Susie Rogan, president of the Quest on the Yukon side, explains how the COVID-19 plan for the race will work.

“We are required to have a COVID plan and we are working on our COVID plan, which will be finalized in November, but it will be open for adjustment right up to the race start based on the guidance of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.

“All our board members, our staff, our vet team, and our race officials are already vaccinated, which is where we stand on the issue. We have no choice … the Yukon Quest this year has 14 signups on the Yukon side and 18 signups on the Alaskan side, so that’s a total of 32 mushers for the Yukon Quest. We did split it into two races, COVID being one of the reasons. We’re not 100 percent sure what the status of the border’s going to be when the time comes and we just needed to get planning, so that was one of the big reasons we split it in two.

“The other one was that we did a survey and we had well over 100 responses and … not very many people were in a position to run a 1,000 mile race this year because their tour businesses were shut down, their jobs were shut down, they just can’t afford it. We can still have fun and put on a good event and try out our ideas.”

According to Rogan, it costs about $20,000 minimum to run the Quest.

She emphasized that there are two separate entities involved in the race.

“I can only address what we’re doing on the Yukon side, because it is two separate – we’re organizing independently, we do have meetings where we’re in touch with each other and we do have a Yukon Cup. People come over from Alaska to run the Yukon Cup. They do have to be vaccinated.

“We have sent out an email to all our signups on the Yukon side to see whether or not they are already vaccinated. We actually believe they probably are, just looking at the names. But we’re not wanting to be activists about this. We want to follow the guidance of our Chief Medical Officer of Health, and we want to do things right, and we want to of course act on the feedback from the communities. We’re still waiting to hear from one of them. If they were to say all mushers must be vaccinated, or the volunteers to come into our community, then of course we have to require that. But as a board, we’ve decided the best action for us is to listen to what the Chief Medical Officer is telling us, listen to what the communities want, and then design our COVID plan accordingly.

“Even if we are all vaccinated, if you do happen to catch it, you have just as much of a viral load as an unvaccinated person, and you can also spread it. So even if everybody were vaccinated, we still are relying on our COVID plan to keep everybody safe.”

Measures for the Quest COVID plan include the use of face masks inside of buildings, when people are being checked in and out. The mushers do have face gaiters, but the organizers understand those aren’t as effective as face masks, so face masks will be supplied, as well as hand sanitizer. Essentially, the Safe Six plus one.

Of course, there are other changes to the races due to COVID.

“We are not having a food drop,” said Rogan. “The dog handlers will bring the food drops to the checkpoints. We haven’t yet decided whether people will be allowed to camp out or whether they will be allowed into buildings. Again, that’s up to the communities. And if they are allowed to camp out in those buildings, then of course they’ll have to have proper spacing and COVID protocols. But it is still fluid.”

For the 2021 Yukon Journey, which replaced the Quest, at least one community allowed the racers in.

“Pelly invited us in and opened up their hall for us and they even cooked us food and kids took the day off school, and lined the streets – it was quite fun … my dogs took a sharp right and I went right through the flagging tape and over to the Pelly store with flagging tape draping off of me and the cops had to stop my frickin’ team. It was frickin’ disastrous and I was like ‘why me?’”. But we had a good time, and nobody got sick, and nobody spread anything. We abided by reasonable measures and yet people still managed to have a good time,” related Rogan.

“Carmacks, they didn’t want us in their rec hall – that’s all good, so people were allowed to sleep in their cars and we set up a wall tent. We just did what we had to do. Whatever they want us to do, of course we’re going to do that. We want the participation of the communities and in order to get that, we have to do what they ask us, and that’s just how it is,” Rogan added.

According to Rogan, the email sent to the mushers said “we need to organize this race. We’ve got people angry at us for not requiring vaccinations but we’re going to have people angry at us if we do require them … we’re just asking at this point ‘are you’ (vaccinated)?”

But what if someone doesn’t want to get vaccinated?

“I can see that point. If it’s not legally required, why are we requiring it, but I would just have to tell them, like, we are a community, and it’s not just what the law says, it’s the perception ... it’s the sincere concerns of our First Nations communities, owners of private property who’ve offered hospitality suites, we have to respect those people’s demands, because we’re guests on their land, in their community, in their homes. I don’t want to say everything’s finalized yet, but I think I’m signalling to you which direction we’re going in here. We don’t want to alienate people unnecessarily, so we’re waiting to get the information back, before we start talking about things like that.”

“We had the discussion – it was actually, funny enough, the person who is immune-compromised and can’t even attend our meetings – she was the one who said ‘you know what guys, we’re not going to make everybody happy no matter what we decide, let’s follow what our well-paid professionals are telling us we should do. We don’t need to figure this out.’ We listened to her because she’s exactly the kind of person who’s most affected by non-vaccinated people and yet she also realizes she can catch COVID from vaccinated people.”

“We all realize that vaccinated, unvaccinated, you still have to act as if it’s a risk, and you still have to have a real good plan to keep people safe.”

Has the Yukon Government given them a mandate yet?

“They have not. However, we haven’t got an approved COVID plan yet, either … it’s well on it’s way.

“We’re kind of getting pressure from certain people saying ‘I’m disappointed you’re not requiring vaccine’ … we’re just hoping it’s not going to be an issue so we don’t alienate people. I feel that there’s people who are sort of being driven further down their path away … none of us want to see our community divided unnecessarily over this issue.

“It is definitely a really tough year to be trying to plan … a community event, where everybody’s supposed to be welcome.

“We’re also aware that we’re as a board supposed to be providing leadership. That’s not up to our staff, like our Executive Director, whatever. That’s up to me as the board president and the board. Like, I’m only one voice, but it’s really up to us. And we know we’re all very strong personalities. It’s not that we’re wimps. And it’s more like knowing that, we’re all trying to walk that line.”

There won’t be a big banquet for this Quest, either.

“We are not gonna have a big banquet,” advised Rogan. “First of all, the only big banquet hall here in the Yukon is still being used for vaccinations, for COVID. We can’t have the Alaskan side here, so even though we have a total of 32 signups … we’re not expecting to have the numbers – people crossing the border … so instead we’re going to have a cocktail party, because we’re limited in space, and that will be like mushers and sponsors and key people, and then we’re also going to have a bib draw and Meet the Mushers and some kind of a finish event, which we haven’t finalized yet. But they won’t be big sit-down dinners like what people are used to.”

Much like the Yukon Journey, the upcoming Quest will have longer mandatory rest stops built in.

“I think the most interesting thing about our race is the increased mandatory rest. We tried it out with Yukon Journey last year, it was very successful, and popular … it was better for the dogs, it was more fun for the mushers.”

Rogan also explained why they shortened the races this year.

“You’ve got a vocal minority who are very adamant about this is what the Quest is – it’s a 1,000 mile international race, and that’s exactly what we planned to put on this year. It was actually one of our board members, Frank Turner, who said ‘we need to do a survey’ … and guess what, he was right. We got the results back, and thank God we did that survey. Because people weren’t able to do it.”

She said the survey yielded some interesting results.

“There were about 12 people who said ‘for sure,’ … and of those 12 people … about four of them were actually qualified to do the Quest. ‘We are in big trouble here. What can we do?’ We had other categories, and there were about 43 people who said ‘yeah, I would run a shorter race.’ And of those, 32 have signed up, which is really really good.”

Rogan said the 2022 race will see an increase in the number of participants.

“The year before COVID hit … there were only 15 signups … we have more than twice the signups this year, but of course it’s a more accessible race.”

Rogan thinks the shorter races have had an impact on the number of mushers.

“Definitely. There were more people able to do it. More qualified. They don’t have to have a qualifier on our side. The 550 does require a qualifier. But that’s on the Alaskan side. They’re just going through some really remote areas and they don’t want people who have no experience thinking ‘this is a dream.’”

Rogan says the bottom line is that “we need to be nice to each other. That goes for people who are afraid of getting vaccines.That’s really where we’re coming from with this. We don’t want to be divisive. We don’t want to be critical. But we do want to stick by what makes sense. What’s safe. What we’re supposed to do.

“I just want to clarify that we will be requiring vaccines for all mushers” stated Rogan.

“All of them as far as we’re aware are vaccinated anyway. We certainly don’t want to alienate anyone, but we have to at some point make a call and get on with our planning.”

“We also learned at the TIA (Yukon) Zoom meeting that all people attending events over 50 people will have to show proof of vaccination,” said Rogan. “Therefore, it is extremely likely that we will require all of our race officials, checkpoint volunteers and our vet team to be fully vaccinated. Our COVID plan is not yet finalized but will be in November. The people in place in these positions so far, are in fact fully vaccinated.

Rogan added “there are many moving parts with the Yukon Quest, from pre-race events to the start line, time stations, check points, finish line, and post race events. The Yukon Quest will work with the Government of Yukon to examine each aspect of our race in order to design and implement an optimal COVID plan.”