Photo: Aaron Peck And Elevation Sled Dog Adventures Facebook page

By Shane Clausing

Iditarod Sled Dog Race

Bezanson’s Aaron Peck gearing up for 2022 Iditarod race

Feb 8, 2022 | 1:55 PM

Bezanson’s Aaron Peck has hit the road to prepare for the 2022 edition of the famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska next month.

It will mark the seventh time Peck and his team of dogs have participated in the race.

Peck tells EverythingGP it takes him a year’s worth of preparation to get everything ready for the big race.

“The pressure builds now with last-minute gear adjustments with the sled and preparing all of the food drops for shipping out on the trail is a big task,” Peck explained.

“We’ve spent a lot of hours preparing and packing frozen meat and high performance (dog food) for the dogs. Logistically, coordinating the delivery of those food drops to Alaska as well is difficult given our geographic location.”

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With most of the small but important logistical items out of the way, Peck and his team can mainly focus on his dogs and racing.

In order to get his dogs prepared for the big race in Alaska, Peck usually spends some time prior to registering his dogs in some smaller races to get everyone up to speed.

“The dog’s conditioning has come into a peak now,” Peck said. “They ran a 200-mile race in Fort St. James on the weekend. We took first and second and the dogs did incredibly well. The dogs show us they’re in true form now and we’re excited.”

With the race in Fort St. James now completed, Peck and his team will head to the Yukon to participate in another race before the Iditarod.

“We’ll be heading up with 20 dogs. Fourteen dogs run in the race, but we take 20 along and we’re actually excited to run for the first time in the Yukon Quest 300,” Peck mentioned. “It’s a 300-mile race out of Whitehorse and it starts on February 19. That will be a lot of fun, racing against some Yukon and Iditarod teams.”

March 5 will mark the official start of the Iditarod race. In 2021, Peck’s team was able to claim 14th place. It took them eight days to complete the race, which ended up being their best-ever finish in the Iditarod.

Peck says his team is hoping for big things this year.

“The winner averages nine days (to finish) give or take. Sometimes more and sometimes less depending on the trail conditions. Last year, we were 14th place. It was a different route, so it was a shorter trail last year. Fourteenth place would put us around 10 days on the trail. We hope to be nine days this year.”

There were periods last year where Peck’s team actually led the pack in the early stages of the race, however, some dogs were forced to drop out with injuries which caused them to drop some places.

“We’re coming into the race with a winning attitude, and we believe our dogs are champions, winners and they deserve it,” Peck expressed.

“Last year, we had a couple of injuries and a couple of younger dogs tuckered out partway through. All of them were totally fine. We’re just looking to build on past runs and fix some of the mistakes we’ve made in the past.”

As he heads to Alaska, Peck wanted to send a big thank-you to all of his sponsors and everyone from Grande Prairie and the Peace Region cheering him on.