Family support helped Janna Lee Cushing get to the finish line of the YUkon Quest 100.

Cushing, of Ladysmith, Que., arrived at the finish at Braeburn Feb. 12 at 12:46 p.m.

She was greeted there by her fiancé, Pawel Wanzy, and her father Geoffrey Cushing, who drove from Quebec with her, and her brother and sister-in-law, Kirk and Molly Cushing, who flew in from Denver.

Before Cushing’s arrival in Braeburn, the Star spoke with her father Geoffrey regarding his daughter’s arrival, as he and Wanzy waited for the big moment.

“We’re anxiously awaiting her arrival. It’s been a long outing for her and the boys and the girls. So we’re looking forward to seeing how they’re doing but we’re following them and all that training that we put in at the end seems to have paid off because it looks like they’re going to make it here.”

Janna Lee's brother Kirk said it was “exciting” waiting for his sister.

“She’s confident and she’s got her dogs. There’s just a connection she has with them, so it’s on her terms. I’m proud of her.

“If I was to go running down the trail – which I want to do right now – I would not be greeted with happiness. She would be, ‘Hey, let me finish this my way.’

“She’s earned it. She’s gone through months of training, mentally, physically and psychologically and the fact that these are her puppies that she’s raised from literally puppies to the Yukon Quest, hey, my hat’s off to her. If she needs us to stay in the cold and wait, I can do that.”

Molly Cushing said “She’s been an inspiration to a lot of people all over the world. People are following her from France to Colorado, to Texas, to Quebec, and she is grateful for all of her supporters and family and friends that got her here.

“What she’s gone through to get here, the late nights, the gruelling training that it takes and then the bad weather that she can’t even control and has to keep her head about her, and she’s still here. So I’m just excited to see her come through the finish line and realize her dream come true. And this isn’t the end. This is kind of the beginning, which is super awesome.”

Her fiancé, Wanzy, added, “I’m just here to support her with all the decisions she makes.”

The Cushing family consists of Geoffrey, “Mama Bear” Jo Ellen, older brother Derek, Kirk, older sister Corie Jo (CJ), and Janna Lee , the “baby” of the family.

Geoffrey explained what brought the family here.

“As far as our family was concerned, it was the perfect opportunity to explore this type of sledding … it gave us a chance to enter in a really potentially challenging race. I’m not just about the racing, but the love of working with your dogs and being in the outdoors like this.

“It’s about as safe and as well-organized as you’re ever going to find in an international event like this, that anybody can travel 5,400 kilometres across the country with no experience in this type of event and let their daughter onto the trail with an investment of dogs.”

Cushing added, “This has got to be one of the most spectacular areas in the world. And that’s why we travel up in the Yukon because there is that lore of the Klondike for those that really enjoy being in this area, and we caught it years ago when we started volunteering here.”

According to Geoffrey, Janna Lee came to the Yukon for the first time about eight years ago. Jeffrey joined here as a volunteer a year after that.

“We run gap year programs for international students. So there were a couple of winters that we brought half a dozen international students up here, registered them as volunteers.

“Every time we came up, she and I would have these conversations about ‘what if we’re not just volunteering and getting fat on the cinnamon rolls here in Braeburn, but actually participating?’

“To actually bring dogs up here is like a dream come true. And it’s a family thing. Everything our business is centred around is around family. My four kids are all tied into what we do but on different levels with different capacities. But there’s always the love of animal. The dogs are just everything. Well, aside from my daughters and horses because her sister is big into the horses. Everybody’s got their obsession.”

Back in Ladysmith, Que., the Cushings run the International School for Earth Studies, which, according to Geoffrey, consists of four pillars:

• animal husbandry, which is horses and dogs, canine sports;

• self-defence, which Geoffrey’s daughters are certified in;

• environmental literacy, which is the education of the needs of climate, climate crisis and current ongoing issues and

• outdoor preparedness (which isn’t outdoor survival.)

“It’s before that,” explained Geoffrey. “Make sure you’re properly clothed, signs to look for, how to make a fire, some of the basic things if you’re stuck by the side of the road.”

Cushing said his wife is a wildlife rehabilitator.

“We’ve had 15 bear cubs and started with eagles, hawks and owls in 1994. Our family has been well rooted because of my wife for the most part in the whole animal husbandry thing. So the development of the canine program was really about trying to find the best way to bring together human beings and canines.”

Cushing said his daughter Janna Lee gets her calm from “lots of different battles.”

“They’ve been raised since they were children, since they were tiny, they were responsible for animals, and because we’re a rescue centre they’ve had a lot of animals die. They know more about death than most adults. And I’m not saying that to flaunt that. Maybe there’s post-traumatic stress tied into that somewhere but when you raise an animal, you rescue an animal and it dies in your arms after you’ve tried to bottle feed it or save a wing or whatever. There’s a part of you that goes with those animals because you feel that energy, electromagnetic energy, or whatever, that’s leaving that body.”

“So my kids have really been exposed to that for a long, long time. And I think through that there have been coping mechanisms and they’ve grown up in stress, you know, four kids growing up in a family-based business in the middle of the wilderness. Do your own homeschooling. Everything that everybody saying what we shouldn’t do, we did, Didn’t have a book to go by. Had a dream. Four kids later and all the stress that goes with business and so on. That shapes your life and shapes you to cope with stress, because my wife and I’ve been together over 37 years and working for them since we’ve got together … to build a dream that you can do it.”

Regarding Janna Lee, Geoffrey said, “The first thing she learned was whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. And that’s the seed for my children. It’s been the seed for all my students. It’s about ‘find that greatness within’.

“In our situation here, this race has given us the opportunity to find that greatness that’s within, not just the human side of it but the dog side of it too, because they’re emotional animals. When you work with them long enough you know that they’re not just an animal with no spirit. They’ve got you figured out long before you got them figured out.”

When she finally got there, it meant a lot to Janna Lee to have her family at the finish line.

“I can’t ask for anything better. It’s a family affair. The whole thing with our dogs, they are family to us. They sleep on the couch, they socialize with everybody.

“Having my family here right now to love up on all the dogs … it’s beautiful.”