Mushers and former board members say the Yukon Quest is cancelled this year, because there is no one left to organize the iconic sled dog race.
“Unfortunately the board is not active right now and so there will not be a Yukon Quest race in the Yukon this year,” said Andrea Fischer, a former board member who also served as a trailbreaker and marker for the race for 10 years.
Fischer says she served as temporary president of the board last year, but stepped away after its annual general meeting in June. She said the board was “in good hands” when she vacated her position, but that other board members have also left since then.
“It’s just a lot of effort by volunteers who have the expertise to do the accounting and grant writing and office organization and rent a store, and everything that the Quest is involved in as an organization,” she said. “I think there’s just a certain level of burnout.”
Last year’s Yukon Quest 450 winner, veteran musher Michelle Phillips, says she’s disappointed the event won’t happen this year. It’s typically held in early February.
“It’s a lot of history, it’s quite a beautiful route to travel on. It makes me sad that it’s not running.”
The past few years have been tumultuous for the Yukon’s most famous long-distance sled dog race.
For many years, the race followed a 1,600-kilometre route between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, Alaska, and was organized by two boards, one on either side of the international border. In 2022, however, pandemic-era border restrictions and disagreements between the Canadian and U.S. boards over mandatory rest times for dogs led to the race splitting in two shorter events, one in Alaska and one in the Yukon.
Since then, the Yukon Quest in Canada has faced numerous challenges, many attributed to climate change. In 2024, the race was cut short because of open water along the Yukon River and last year the race followed a new route that started in Teslin and followed the South Canol road to Ross River.
That decision was met with some pushback.
Jason Severs served as the Yukon Quest race marshal in 2024 and 2025. He says changing the route was a challenge for organizers and mushers, and “a detriment to the race.”
Former board member and musher Louve Tweddell says some mushers preferred the traditional Quest route along the Yukon River because of its challenging and exciting terrain.
Phillips, however, says she enjoyed the new route last year.
“It was different, but it worked as well. It was nice to include the community of Ross River, and Teslin was very receptive and very warming so that was nice,” she said.
‘They just went silent’
Tweddell’s family first moved to the Yukon from Quebec years ago because of the Yukon Quest and the territory’s dog mushing community. Her father raced his first Quest in 2009 and 10 years later, she participated in her first Quest in 2019. She called it a “great event.”
“Since I was a kid, I was dreaming of doing the Yukon Quest,” she said. “So it’s kind of unfortunate that it’s gone.”
Tweddell joined the race’s board last year, but said she soon left because of disagreements about the race route. Tweddell says she wanted it to return to the Yukon River.
According to Andrea Fischer, the board considered several potential options for the 2026 race, including following last year’s route from Teslin to Ross River, or moving the race north to go from Pelly Crossing to Dawson City, or bringing the start line back to Whitehorse.
In November, the Yukon Quest provided its last 2026 race update on its Facebook page, saying the event would be a 100-mile race from Whitehorse to Braeburn, starting on Jan. 31.
However, Tweddell says with no further updates since then, mushers have scratched the race from their calendars.
She feels organizers are showing a “lack of respect” for mushers.
“They just went silent. No announcement, no nothing,” she said.
Board faced financial constraints
Tweddell says after several experienced board members left after the 2025 race, the remaining members struggled to keep the event financially afloat.
“That was very unfortunate, let’s just put it that way,” she said.
Phillips says she believes the Quest was in debt and that it was just too difficult for the new board to get a handle on that.
“It’s just hard for volunteers to take over that kind of workload,” Phillips said.
In a statement to CBC News, the Yukon department of Tourism and Culture said it currently has a three-year funding agreement with the Yukon Quest. This year, it allocated $150,000 to the event, but it said the organization has not yet accessed any of that funding. The Quest needs to meet certain requirements in order to access the funding, said the statement.
Fischer said that government funding would typically cover a salary for an executive director, as well as other office and operating expenses. She also said the Quest hasn’t had an executive director since last year’s race.
Last year’s executive director, Anne Tayler, took on the role on a volunteer basis but stepped down after the race.
Hope for a return
Still, some mushers are hopeful that the race is not finished for good.
Tweddell says it will depend on the interest from mushers to help organize it. She recalls going to the Quest’s AGM years ago, when lots of mushers would be there to give feedback on the previous year’s race.
“And just as I got older … numbers of mushers have decreased drastically,” she said.
In the absence of the Quest, Tweddell and her partner, musher Nathaniel Hamlyn, are hosting a 100-mile race in Mendenhall called the Yukon Odyssey, in February.
