Running North (ePub)

"This remarkable chronicle of the grueling Yukon Quest remains a vivid illustration of the soaring potential of both human and canine character" (Booklist).

What happens when a woman and her husband move their family from New Hampshire to Alaska to train a team of purebred Siberian Huskies for the world's toughest dogsled race, the Yukon Quest? They endure thousands of miles of lonely training in the Yukon trying to avoid thin ice, wolves, and rogue moose; they put up with the amused skepticism of Alaskan locals; and they pit themselves against the ultimate, fickle adversary-nature.

Running North is the true story of how Ann Mariah Cook, her husband, George, and their young daughter, Kathleen, moved to Alaska; and how their Siberians became the first team from the lower forty-eight states to finish the Yukon Quest. It tracks George on his horrific journey through the Yukon, recording the frostbite, the hallucinations that come with exhaustion, the wolves, and the nights out on the ice at minus ninety degrees Fahrenheit. But it is also the account of Ann, who drove the truck and carried the gear and kept the family together. Running North depicts two very different adventures on the edge: one among the racers braving the Yukon and the other among the people they leave behind.

"Marvelous, just marvelous." -Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs

"An explorer's tale with a feminine slant: Cook tells the story not just as dog lover and race handler... but also as wife and mother." -The New York Times Book Review