The UP 200, one of Marquette’s signature events, is shrinking.
With three weeks before the sled dog race, only nine mushers have officially committed to it. Five others might join them, and race officials are searching for others.
Last year there were seventeen entrants. Just a few years ago, the numbers were in the high twenties and low thirties.
So what’s happening?
For one, there’s competition from races in Duluth, Newberry and the Keweenaw. For another, the prize money–$34,000 total for both the UP 200 and the Midnight Run–isn’t turning many mushers’ heads, though the money is comparable to other races, if not better.
Pat Torreano, who heads up the sled dog association here, points to a few other factors:
1) The economy. Sled dog racing is an expensive hobby. Tons of dog food, sometimes exorbitant vet bills. You might have noticed that very few hedge fund CEO’s and Internet billionaires are into mushing.
2) Some of the veteran mushers are getting old. It’s tough work to drive a dog team 250 miles through the snow and cold.
3) The younger mushers are more into “party racing.” That’s what Torreano calls it. Those are races run in stages, thirty or forty miles at a time, then you stop, rest for the night with great food and accommodations (maybe a drink or two), then get up, refreshed, the next morning for the next stage. That’s a far cry from driving a team 125 miles through the snow and cold, then collapsing in exhaustion, only to get up and do it all over again.
The UP 200 may be at a crossroads. Even Torreano admits it may have to change.
She and Marquette city officials aren’t panicking yet but they’re concerned. The crowds still love the race (we can cheer and ring our cowbells for ten minutes, then duck inside for a cozy dinner), but the mushers not so much.
This year’s UP 200 is February 14th, Valentine’s Day.
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The public announcement hasn’t been made yet but Cynthia Thompson will be the new news director and 6 pm anchor for WJMN.
WJMN, a CBS affiliate, will launch its first ever newscasts in the UP within a couple of months.
Thompson recently resigned as ND and anchor at ABC 10 and a couple of decades ago, she anchored the news at WLUC. She knows the UP, she knows news, she’s “old school” which means she cares more about actual news events and proper writing than she does about social media.
Whoa. Could be a trend.
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The investigation into the racist letters received by TV 6 is still open, according to the State Police. Whether the letters actually contained specific threats against the former news director, Regena Robinson, and other members of her staff, is unclear. In any case, no arrests yet and no one’s talking.
Meantime, the bigwigs from the station’s new owner, the Sinclair Broadcast Group, were in town this week.
Of course, it was a rah-rah session, but many staffers came away impressed. Sinclair seems to genuinely care about news (though with a distinctly conservative bent) and it has plenty of experience running small market TV stations.
A new morning co-host, Sam Bauman, also made his debut alongside Vicky Crystal and Shawn Householder. Bauman’s 23, out of Granville, Ohio, and a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.
He’s getting acclimated. He finds the weather cold and the people warm.
Yeah, that’s just about right.
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Buck Levasseur, the creator and star of Discovering, has had a tough couple of years.
Like debilitating back pain, four back surgeries, five months in a nursing home, loss of his job and loss of a lifestyle that he loved.
Well, he’s still around and living at home in Skandia but now he uses a walker, a cane or one of those motorized chairs. Thirty-two years of lugging a thirty pound camera and a fifteen pound tripod through the wilds of the UP will do that to you.
You want to see him and thank him for his decades of bringing the great outdoors to us on TV? He’ll be at the Marquette Regional History Center’s fundraiser at Kaufman Auditorium on January 30th. Jack Deo will present a tribute to him.
You want to help Buck with his enormous medical bills? UP Whitetails Association is holding a raffle for him. Phenomenal prizes.
Buck’s not really depressed, by the way. He misses his old life, but he’s still got his memories and his friends. And they’ve all got stories that could take you well into the night.
You got news? Email me at briancabell@gmail.com