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TWICE AS NICE

Golton earns his 2nd first place finish in Midnight Run

MARQUETTE — Canadian musher Jake Golton was the first to cross the finish line in the 2017 Midnight Run, an eight-dog, 90-mile race from downtown Marquette to Chatham and back.

Wearing bib No. 111, Golton, of L’Amable, Ontario, finished the Midnight Run at 8:56 a.m., about two hours ahead of the first place finishing time at last year’s race.

“(The weather was) warm really early so that’s not really good for us,” Golton said. “They had to call it a little bit short today, so that’s also why we were done a little sooner.”

Due to the weather and trail conditions, race officials made the decision early Saturday to change the finish of the race to Lakenenland in Chocolay Township, more than 14 miles east of the typical finish location at Mattson Lower Harbor Park in downtown Marquette.

“Usually when you have weather like this the trail breaks up, but it was really hard, pretty hard-packed. The dogs weren’t sinking into it much,” Golton said. “The trail was pretty good, but the weather was kind of warm.”

Temperatures as of late Saturday afternoon reached a record high of 54 degrees, and averaged about 44 degrees throughout the day, which was 28 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service station in Negaunee Township.

“Everybody is healthy,” Golton said of his team. “We left one dog off (at the Chatham checkpoint). He just didn’t look quite right, he looked a little stiff, a little sore … He just didn’t quite recover in the time he needed to, so we just left him out.”

Golton finished just a few minutes ahead of Larry and Joann Fortier, of Gaylord, a husband and wife duo who finished first and second, respectively, in the 2016 Midnight Run.

Larry Fortier crossed the finish line at 9:00:04 a.m. Saturday, while Joanna Fortier finished just three seconds later.

Nipping at their heels was Joanna Oberg, of Ignace, Ontario, who finished at 9:00:38 a.m., and Bruce Langmaid, of Kearney, Ontario, rounded out the race’s top five finishers, crossing at 9:05:53 a.m.

“There’s a lot of good teams in Ontario but it’s a big province and they’re pretty spread out so it’s hard to get everybody together there for a race,” Golton said. “And the races are dying out in Ontario, so we travel to Maine, we’ve been as far out as Wyoming and up way far north too.”

Golton’s history with sled dogs began at 4 years old when his dad got a team, and he began racing at the age of 12 in an Ontario circuit.

He has since competed in a number of Michigan sled dog races as well, including the Copper Dog in the Keweenaw Peninsula and the Tahquamenon Country near Newberry.

In his Midnight Run debut, Golton took first in 2014, and said he finished around the top five in 2015, but didn’t compete last year.

Golton said while the number of sled dog races may have dropped a little over the last 10 years in his home province of Ontario, he added there’s still a good deal of interest in the sport in other parts of Canada and the northern U.S.

“It’s doing well here. There’s a lot of teams here in every race,” he said. “In Quebec there’s a good circuit, in northern Manitoba, Canada, there’s a good circuit. So I don’t think it’s dying out everywhere.”

He wasn’t sure whether he would compete in next year’s Midnight Run, but for now he seems satisfied with the win.

“We came in with our own game plan and stuck to it,” he said. “It paid off for us.”

Ryan Jarvi can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 270. His email address is rjarvi@miningjournal .net.

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