09/30/2026
Today on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation,
I think it is important for those of us who live with, work with, and love sled dogs to remember that their story began long before racing, tourism, or the modern sport we know today.
Sled dogs are deeply woven into the history and cultures of Indigenous peoples across the Northern hemisphere.
For generations, and long before Europeans arrived, dogs were our partners in survival. They helped people travel across enormous landscapes, hunt, carry supplies, connect communities and live with the realities of winter and our country. In many northern cultures, the relationship between people, dogs and the land was not simply about using an animal for transportation. It was part of a much larger relationship with family, community, our mother and survival itself.
That history also carries painful chapters.
Colonization did not only affect people. It disrupted languages, traditions, families, relationships with the land and traditional ways of living including the relationship between Indigenous communities and their dogs.
As mushers today, I think we have a responsibility to know that history.
Not to claim it as our own and not to romanticize it.
But to respect it.
The dogs we stand behind today connect us in a small way, to something much older than our sport. They remind us that as people we are not separate from the natural world around us. We are dependant on animals, water, snow, forests and a healthy land and all these depend on the choices we make in return.
Reconciliation is ultimately about people, and it requires listening to Indigenous voices and acknowledging these truths that can be difficult to hear. Perhaps our dogs can also remind us of something very simple: respect has to be lived.
Respect for one another. Respect for different cultures and our histories. Respect for the animals entrusted to us. Respect for the land beneath our feet and respect for the generations who will come after us.
There is so much division in the world today. Maybe one of the most meaningful things we can do is learn from one another instead of trying to erase our differences.
We can remember where we came from while building something better together.
Today, I honour the Indigenous children, families, survivors and communities whose lives and cultures were profoundly affected by colonization and the residential school system.
And as a musher, I also acknowledge the Indigenous peoples of the North whose relationships with sled dogs stretch back thousands of years and were stripped from it.
Their history deserves to be known.
Their cultures deserve to be protected.
And the Earth we all share deserves our respect.
🧡❄️🍁
