IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships a big hit in Northwoods

For the first time ever, the International Federation of Sleddog Sports (IFSS) Dryland Mushing World Championships came to the United States. And they were a big hit.

The IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships took place Oct. 21-26 at Minocqua Winter Park.

Similar to how the Olympic Summer and Winter Games work, the IFSS World Championship only takes place every couple years with a different venue. For example back in 2019, the IFSS World Championship took place in Sweden.

“Every other year you have a world championship, and it rotates countries,” competitor and organizer Niina Baum said. “So the next one will likely probably be like in Europe again and then Canada will need to host at some point and possibly South America or some other countries. It kind of needs to rotate to be fair around the globe and stuff so that everyone sort of has different opportunities to attend the world championships depending on their geographic location. Really the soonest we’d be able to host again would really probably be like eight years.”

Rhinelander local Baum, who is on the United States committee, played a big part in getting the IFSS World Championship to the United States.

“I was a competitor, and I was also one of the organizers,” she said. “I serve on the board for the United States Federation of Sleddog Sports, and that’s like a sub federation of the International Federation of Sleddog Sports. Whenever a country wants to host the world championship, their federation is the one that puts the bid in. So I’m on the board for the United States Federation, and we’re the ones who put the bid in to get the world championships here in the U.S.A. That’s where my role kind of played in.”

Once the United States was set to host, they had to pick a venue. Baum suggested Wisconsin and started to find the best place to host.

“I had gone to a world championship in 2019 in Sweden myself to compete and around the same time I had also joined the United States Federation board, and I was just really blown away by the world championship event and thought to myself like, ‘Wow we should really have this in United States,’” Baum said. “‘Why haven’t we brought this here?’ And basically one of the biggest things we needed was a good established venue to be able to bring it over here. So I just kind of started looking for different venues, and I’m from Wisconsin.”

A chance meeting turned into an opportunity for Minocqua Winter Park to host.

“Things didn’t quite work out, wasn’t quite the right type of set-up, and so I was kind of looking around this area. I had actually looked at CAVOC over at the Rhinelander school forest as a potential possibility because it had awesome trails, but parking was limitation there,” Baum said. “So I had met the current, at the time, the manager, executive director for Minocqua Winter Park was also a mountain biker, and we were just kind of chatting. I think I’d ask if they did anything in the fall, off season outside of winter, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, actually we’re looking to expand and do more stuff in the offseason outside of winter,’ and I was like, ‘Would you consider a dryland dog sled race?’ He was like, ‘That sounds really interesting. Let’s chat more.’”

    Juan Jose Ruiz Tovar from Mexico competes in the Dog Bikejor Men Masters race during the IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at Minocqua Winter Park. (Kate Reichl/Lakeland Times)
  

Minocqua Winter Park had the necessary trails and landscape to host a big event like the IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships.

“I was familiar with the venue cause I would skijor there with my dogs in the winter,” Baum said. “So I knew the trails were great. I knew they had a lot of space and everything, and the chalet and all the infrastructure was really great so we hosted a local race there just like a regional race to just kind of test it out and see how it would go. It went really good. We did that four years ago, we hosted a local race and then the year after that we did another local race. And we had one international judge from the international federation come down and kind of scout it out, and then we did which then it got approved to do Continental Championships last year.”

The one downside to Minocqua Winter Park was the parking, but organizers made it work.

“The only thing is we just need more parking, right? But I know Minocqua Winter Park’s been doing a lot of expansions,” Baum said. “They knew parking was going to be tight for us, and that you had even expanded that over the last two years here which made a huge difference and actually made it a lot more feasible for us to be there.”

The IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships featured participants from a variety of countries and was a big hit.

“Overall it was a huge success,” Baum said. “I think the only thing is we would love to have maybe seen a few more international competitors, but there was a lot of struggles with new-travel restrictions and everything and a lot of uncertainty with travel and everything with current administration and political stuff going on. So I know that unfortunately did cut back a little bit on how many people we had traveling from around the world to attend, but we know all of our classes still met the requirements, and we were able to run everything.”

The goal for the future events would be to get more international competitors.

“It was definitely still a success, but if we do it again, I would like to see like 100 more competitors, but that’s OK cause like I said the parking was already tight so it was kind of like a blessing in disguise, right? It was perfect, especially with our first time, too, from an organizational standpoint,” Baum said. “I feel like the amount of competitors we had was probably perfect for this year, and like I said, we made all the requirements for the classes to run and to have medal status and all that kind of stuff so it was exciting.”

The IFSS Dryland Mushing World Championships brought in many spectators.

“The event was six days long. It started from Tuesday and went ‘til Sunday,” Baum said. “So obviously during the week, we didn’t see as many spectators out there because during the workday, people are in school and stuff like that but when Friday hit and Saturday hit, and Saturday was insane. The people were parked — I don’t even know how far down the road because it was so crowded. People were like, ‘I had to walk a mile just to get in here.’ So that was awesome to see it was absolutely packed.”

There were two divisions that participants could enter — the all-breed and registered Nordic breed. 

“The registered Nordic breed is kind of like a way of preserving the history of the sport with the traditional Nordic breeds that were originally used in dog mushing, but now with it evolving so much the competitive, top teams are using more hound-based breeds,” Baum said. “So we have two categories, one to kind of preserve the history of the sport with the traditional-style dogs and then the open class to allow for growth and creativity and all that kind of stuff.”

Baum found the podium for the first time in her career, earning a silver medal in the 1-Dog Scooter and a bronze medal in the relay.

“This is my third world championship,” she said. “In 2019 I went to Sweden. In 2023, I went to Spain ... and I was really close in Spain. I had gotten fifth over there in the world. So to finally make the podium was really awesome especially to do it when it was hosted in my home country was really cool, too. So it was really neat to see my dogs help me get there and pull that off, and I knew we could get there. So it was really awesome to be able to do that here and make that podium.”

Several other participants from Wisconsin found success throughout the IFSS World Championship. Anne Small, from St. Germaine, made the podium in third place. 

“We had quite a bit of awesome local participation and results,” Baum said.

It may be a while before the IFSS World Championship is back in the United States, let alone Minocqua. The IFSS would be interested in coming back in the future.

“The international Federation — all their officials and people came out, and they were like, ‘Alright, when do we have it here again?’ So they were definitely all really excited about this venue,” Baum said. “They said the trails at Minocqua Winter Park were some of the best trails that we’ve ever had for a Dryland World Championship so that was really, really awesome to hear.”

Brett LaBore may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].