The Yukon Quest held its 2023 Meet the Musher event last evening at the Mount McIntyre Recreation Centre in Whitehorse.

The Bib Draw was also held at around 7:30 p.m.

The 2023 Yukon Quest mushers and a lot of their fans were in attendance.

Mayla Hill and Aaron Peck made it into Whitehorse Wednesday night from Grand Prairie. They are both racing in the YQ450. The Star spoke with Hill just prior to the Meet the Musher event.

“It’s pretty exciting. We’ve got a lot of young dogs. We’ve got quite a few veterans that will be going from here onto Iditarod, so this will be more like a training run and getting those yearlings to the finish line.”

Meet the Mushers is a new experience for Hill.

“I haven’t done the Meet the Mushers and actually for Iditarod I don’t think I was there when Aaron was doing it either, so this is all pretty new territory.

“It’s exciting. I’m not exactly sure what I’m in for but it’ll be fun I’m sure.”

Hill said their dogs are looking really good.

“We just finished the Classic in Fort St.James. We did really well with that. The yearlings surprised the hell out of us. They were really finishing strong at the end. In that warm weather in the mountains, they really surprised us.

“Right now, the main goal is to get as much weight on those young dogs as possible. They did lose a little bit from that race. Going into this race, we’d like to have a little bit more weight onto them but I think we’re pretty close to what we want. They got prepared from that race for this one, so we’re excited.”

The Classic at Fort St. James is a 200 mile race.

“It’s all in the mountains … I took first with the yearlings and Aaron had a lot of the main dogs. They all finished fantastic. It was a really good race.”

Hill said her and Peck will be running the 450 together most of the time, until the end anyway.

“It’s gonna be a great race.”

Quest fan Doreen Johnson came all the way from Williams Lake for the Quest. In fact, she was on the Air North flight that had to land at Prince George when the plane depressurized.

“It didn’t get scary until the oxygen (masks) fell,” she related.

Regarding the Quest, Johnson said “I came up for this, because before COVID we used to watch it on the computer and that was when Jessie Holmes was there. I liked to watch him and cheer for him but now it looks like there’s a whole new bunch of people.

“I’m celebrating my birthday here, which is tomorrow.”

Johnson was there with her son Mark, who lives in Whitehorse, so she did a combined trip.

“Came to see the mushers and came to see my son.”

Johnson was hoping to get to Dawson for the finish, but her granddaughter is competing in hand games taking place at Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre this weekend. So she may try to make it to Braeburn instead.

“We’re hoping we can time it to see if we can make that schedule.”

Musher Aaron Peck said the event was “wonderful. It’s good to be in town. We love coming up to the Yukon. The energy’s good.

“I’m used to running Iditarod where you can have a thousand people. This is a mini version of that right now. It’s great. I think they’re doing it the right way again, getting the public out and meeting each other and tell our stories. It’s really good.”

As for their dog team, Peck said, “We’re being cautious. Our team’s got a core group for Iditarod. They’ll be on the race trail. But we’ve got a lot of young dogs too, so between me and Mayla we just want to get as many to the finish line in a positive way. Show them the trail, build up their confidence, teach them what they can do and just have fun.”

Laird Smith and his wife Cornelia Scheper-Tames originally came from Edmonton to see the Northern Lights.

“We didn’t know about the Quest until we got here but one of our group was in Toronto at a book club and one of the members of the book club suggested that he look up Frank Turner when he gets here, so he did.”

Smith and Scheper-Tames went to a Questfest talk that Frank Turner had on Tuesday.

“At that meeting, Frank talked about Meet the Mushers, so here we are, meeting the mushers,” said Smith.

“I’m on a journey. It’s an adventure.”

Smith said he thought the event was “fantastic. There’s so much to learn.”

At that point in the evening, they’d met three or four of the mushers.

They also had the opportunity to spend a little time with Turner, a Quest legend.

“We talked to him for two hours at dinner. He’s such a library of knowledge. It’s amazing to listen to him.”

Musher Connor McMahon, also running the 450, said “There’s a good amount of people here. A lot busier than it’s been the last few years of racing, so it’s nice to see.

“If it was in the summer and I was in my social mode, it’d be great, but so many of us are now so sleep-deprived after training and so focused on the race … they’re good, but we just feel a little bit out of our element maybe. It’s a lot of people and you’re just used to a lot of dogs. We’re used to the dogs that don’t talk but it is nice to see all the involvement though and all the fans out. It’s nice to see that there is the support.”

McMahon was asked how he was feeling about the race.

“At this point, I’m surprised. I feel nice and calm, relaxed, ready to go. I double-checked, triple-checked everything. It’s where it should be and where it has to be. Just have a couple more decisions here and which dogs are gonna make the final choice here, so that’s starting to get a little bit bigger of a question. Time’s running out but it might be a parking lot decision.”

The Polesky family, Kyle, Teri and Novak, 8, from Nakina, Ont., were also there to meet the mushers.

“We’re leaving tomorrow so it’s the only day I can meet them,” said an obviously excited Novak.

The Poleskys have been in the Yukon two weeks. Teri had run the 100 mile Yukon Ultra to Braeburn.

“We stayed at Muktuk (Kennels) for half a week,” related Kyle. “We also took part in the dogsledding from the lodge. Just revelled in the northern lifestyle here; enjoyed every little bit of it. Once we knew we had a chance to come here to meet the mushers, we came down. We have a new appreciation for the passion and how much work goes into it.”

Teri said “It was incredible to be on the trail that they were going to be running the dogs on as well.”

She finished her Ultra 100 in 43 hours.

“Really good trail this year, good weather. Way better than last year.”

Teri stopped at 87 miles last year due to the poor trail conditions.

“Lots of snow. It was wet, heavy snow, so it was tough going.”

Teri plans to run the Ultra again next year.

Ryan added, “We’ll be back again. We love it here. You can’t beat Whitehorse.”