The organizers of the “Kinda” Klondike Road Relay 2021, which takes place on September 11, have announced more changes to the race. Race Coordinator Amanda Deuling explains the previous changes.

“Historically our race has run between Skagway, Alaska, overnight, and ending at Whitehorse at Rotary Park. Because of COVID, we’ve had to change the race route, because we’re not allowed into the U.S. So we’re making it a five-person race, instead of a 10 person race, and you can start … at the B.C-Yukon border, which is Leg 6, and then running right into Rotary Park.

“One of the changes will be that we start at 7 a.m., instead of running overnight; this will be happening during the daytime.”

In addition, American teams will now be allowed to register for the race, provided they can fulfill Canadian border protocols by race time.

“If they follow the government protocols in terms of being allowed in the Yukon, we don’t want to stop them from joining our race,” says Deuling.

“And we would love to have some Americans join in, because historically they’ve been making up at least half of the race participants. We sure miss them.

“The federal government has changed border protocols starting on August 9th, so we are following the government regulations and rules regarding vaccinated Americans coming in.”

What protocols will Americans have to follow in order to register for the race?

“That will all be based on the border. We will be letting the border patrol do their job in terms of the Americans that come to the Yukon and for our race have fulfilled all their protocols.

“They have to follow all the entry protocols, which are you have to be vaccinated – proof of vaccination – so that we will be running our race in a COVID-friendly way.

“We’ll have lots of hand sanitizer, physical distancing – we’re super-lucky that we’re an outdoor event, so we won’t be gathering as a large group.

“We’re going to let the border patrol people do their job, in terms of letting Americans in in a safe way.”

Americans who register for the “Kinda” Klondike portion of the race would be racing on this side of the border back to Whitehorse. But would another outbreak change anything?

“Absolutely,” states Deuling. “All of our plans are based on recommendations from the CMOH office, so we will be monitoring those, and with close consultation to make sure this is a safe event for everybody.”

For people concerned that the legs from this race won’t count towards the Senator’s Cup, fear not.

“We’ve heard … that people want these legs to be counting towards the Senators Cup, so we will be doing team times, we will be responsible for team times, because we didn’t want to pass along the sweaty timing stick, just due to COVID. So we’re going to have timing for the entire team, and then team captains will be timing the individual legs, and uploading them to a document at the end of the race, if they’re interested in having their times, and their names recorded for the Senators Cup.”

In previous races, they would use a timing stick.

“It’s a kind of lanyard,” says Deuling. “Many organizations in the Yukon use this … the Klondike International Bike Race, and orienteering, they have these sticks for timing … leg number one wears it, and they dip it into a timing box, and then they pass it on to the number two runner.”

This race, they’ll be doing something different.

“We’re just going to have the timing stick for the last runner, and we’ll be able to use that information for the total team time.

“We just didn’t want to have that stick passed along. We’re trying to keep everyone safe.”

Deuling says the prize structure for this year’s race has changed as well.

“This event has been lots of fun over the years, with lots of people dressing up in costumes. This year we won’t be giving out prizes for individual legs, but we have lots of prizes ready for creative teams who come out in costumes and do good cheering.”

As for the August 18 registration deadline, according to Deuling, that too, has changed.

“That’s a bit of a soft deadline. We are going to keep it open. We’ve just decided to keep it open a few more days, because we’re very close to our 400 participant level, and we’re really hoping for a few more teams to sign up. That would be a fun number to get to for Sport Yukon.”

“We’re encouraging teams to sign up, and we will accept registration for another week, so that … people who may have been outside of Yukon and are coming back at the end of summer – they won’t have missed it.”

“We’ll open it to the 25th. Yukoners have been wonderful at supporting this event and we just encourage a few more teams to register to get us to the 400.”