Bred to Sled : Park Service Huskies Carry on Tradition of Fabled Yukon King

Warmed by a pink cap and down-filled parka and barking orders to a team of huskies, Gary Koy is carrying on in the tradition of the fabled Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, tracking lawbreakers on a dog sled.

Koy is leader of a three-team backcountry patrol at Denali National Park, a 6-million-acre wilderness and preserve that occupies a Massachusetts-sized chunk of Alaska’s vast interior.

He leads mushing patrols against poachers, puts on dog sled demonstrations for thousands of visitors and oversees the park’s breeding program for Alaska’s most famous working dog, the intelligent, hardy and generally multi-bloodline husky.

“We’re the only park in the National Park Service that mushes dogs,” Koy said recently while driving one of the hickory and polyethylene sleds he makes.

“Some parks, like Yellowstone and Yosemite, have a tradition of patrolling with horses. With us, since the first park manager in 1921, it’s been dogs.”

With 10 dogs in harness, Koy was leading two other teams into the Upper Windy Valley section of the park. The rangers were hoping to quietly confront the culprits who had been breaking a padlock on the door at the Upper Windy Valley cabin, a small log structure built in the 1930s.

“We’ll be looking to see if there have been any snowmobile intrusions in the park,” Koy said as the dogs trotted briskly over the hard-packed trail on a sunny but crisp day. Temperatures had bottomed out at 34 degrees below zero.

“There also have been some vandalism problems. Nothing extreme. A few locks have been broken off.”

Denali, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, was founded as McKinley National Park in 1917.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which in 1980 designated 106 million acres of Alaska land as new conservation units, added 4 million acres to the park, which then was renamed Denali--Indian for “the great one.”

That’s a reference to Mt. McKinley, the continent’s tallest peak at 20,320 feet and the park’s majestic centerpiece.

The original 2 million acres remain legal wilderness, off-limits to hunting and snow machines. The newer section is open to sport and subsistence hunting and trapping. But the park’s remoteness generally keeps that to a minimum, officials say.

The 41-year-old Koy, who learned how to handle sled dogs while growing up in Wisconsin, was a volunteer at the 30-dog Denali Park kennel for four years and finally was hired to run it.

Standing 6 feet 4 and weighing about 200 pounds, Koy is a gentle giant as dog handlers go.

“Ready, OK,” he says, as the barking, lunging dogs set off at a run.

“Steady,” he says, coaxing his animals to ignore the yowling entreaties of village dogs as they trot past the few houses at Cantwell.

Soon the teams are inside the park’s boundaries, negotiating uplands abutting the giant Alaska Range.

The Denali rangers name their dogs thematically. There’s Licorice, Gumdrop, Taffy and Fudge from one litter. Boot, Socks, Gaiters and Mitt from another.

The names are a few shades shy of the colorful word picture you get when you envision Sgt. Preston’s King, lead dog to the Mounties. But then names don’t necessarily make the dog.

Licorice, for example, is one of the Denali lead dogs, steady and dependable.

“We start training at about 7 months,” Koy said. “Our oldest dogs go to about 11 years.”

Extra dogs and retired animals are offered as pets to Park Service employees or others.

The Denali dogs look different from the huskies that run the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race each year. They’re more sociable, the kind of animal that can tolerate the glad hands of hordes of visitors to the park, which is Alaska’s most popular tourist attraction.

“Our dogs also are bigger, slower. A lot of what these dogs do here is one step at a time, up steep hills, breaking trail,” Koy said. “Top speed for these dogs on a good trail is about 7 miles an hour. Dogs run from 10 to 13 miles an hour on the Iditarod.”

Dog teams have been used in the park to haul everything from injured climbers to fuel cans, scientific gear and mail.

Each is capable of pulling 100 pounds or more on a good trail. In deep, blown-over powder, they may have a tough time getting through, requiring the musher to break the trail in snowshoes.

Backcountry patrols vary from daylong excursions to two-month-long treks.

“Our objectives are to be seen, to show the flag,” said Tom Habecker, the ranger responsible for the northern half of the park. “We look to see if people are hunting or trapping. We show up unannounced, do our thing and then leave.

“There are a lot of local mushers. When we show up with our own dogs it establishes our credibility.”

Sandy Kogl, driving the third team on the patrol, says she enjoys the quiet of traveling by dog sled instead of snowmobile.

“You never know what you’re going to see. Wolves, caribou, moose or maybe a poacher,” said Kogl, who ran the kennel for a dozen years and has written a book about Denali sled dogs.

“I’ve come up on tracks where a ski plane has landed, stopped and somebody’s shot a wolverine. Our job is to protect the resource. Protect it for future generations.”

The rangers had the trail to themselves that day. No poachers. No vandals. It was a routine run and the backcountry rangers like it that way.

“One of the things about traveling with dogs, if you hit a blizzard you generally can get back. They know the trail,” Koy said. “I think dogs are more reliable than a snowmobile. You don’t have to yank a pull cord.”