The Great Sled-dog Race

Peter Zenkl photographed the Yukon Quest sled-dog race in freezing conditions and shares his shots of the mushers and their dogs

The included series was shot at the finish line of the Yukon Quest, a 1000-mile sled-dog race which leads from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse, Canada. In roughly 10-15 days a single musher covers the distance with his 14 dogs. They’re out in the wild at -50 degrees Celsius, riding day and night over windy mountain passes, deep woodlands and frozen rivers.

Overnight the musher and his or her dogs huddle together on a bed of straw and sleep right there on the snow to keep each other warm. As you can imagine, there is a strong emotional bond between the musher and their dogs – there has to be that trust and understanding between them.

My shot of the husky in the den [3] may look forlorn, but what you actually see is how the huskies are safely transported to the race. They ride in wooden boxes sitting on the back of a pick-up truck. The dog was moving quickly back and forth in the box, so with single point autofocus on my D500 I was able to fire quite a few shots perfectly through the mesh. Of course I had to use the joystick to continually readjust the focus point, but it seemed to be doing a great job.