Who Needs Skis?

Winter in Maine can be hard on one's inner athlete. Sure, there's UMaine hockey, high school basketball, and ski areas for downhill and cross-country.
But what about those who have a taste for something more exotic? Dig out your tuque and get acquainted with three of Maine's less-publicized wintertime sports.

Toboggan racing in Camden
Fast Times in February
“I’m going to have to keep this one hidden until the race,” says Steve Huff, running his hand along a not-quite-finished toboggan in his Dedham garage. “It’s like that keel on the America’s Cup boat the year the Australians won it.”

When an entire race lasts nine seconds, and you’re looking for an edge over equally keen opponents, a little bit of secrecy goes a long way. In a sport where winning margins are measured in hundredths of a second, no detail is too small to ignore. The potential reward is a national championship and a huge helping of local glory.

Most participants in the U.S. National Toboggan Championships, held each February at the Camden Snow Bowl, don’t put in anywhere near the time Huff does constructing a new sled for each year’s event. They don’t have the collection of trophies that Huff does, either. “Anybody can enter,” says Beth Ward, an employee at the Snow Bowl and a member of the committee that oversees what has become the midcoast’s most popular midwinter event. “There’s no qualification.”

The toboggan races at the Snow Bowl became the U.S. Championships simply by declaring themselves so. “We’re in the process of getting it trademarked,” says Ward. The championships are in their 20th year, and Ward is inviting all the past winners back, as they do every five years, to compete for the World Championship.

“The same handful of teams turn in the best times year in and year out,” says Huff, who usually signs up several teams to slide down the chute on his handcrafted toboggans. “Believe it or not, there’s a lot of strategy involved. Lots of stuff you’re doing physically can make a difference of hundredths of a second. It’s subtle, and people don’t talk about it much, but the good teams know.”

Ward expects 400 teams to sign up for this year’s competition, which takes place February 5–7. Competitions are held for teams of two, three, and four. Two hundred teams will enter the four-person races; half that number will enter each of the smaller races. Riders can be on multiple teams, but the race committee reserves the right to limit the number of teams from any one group. Registration is $25 per team member, and all registrations must be received by Friday, January 10.

David Dickey, owner of the Camden Riverside Hotel, was one of the founders of the event. For 20 years, he’s been the person at the top of the chute yelling “Go!” at the start of each run. He’s also turned his hotel into a headquarters of sorts for race participants, opening up the conference room for waxing and other overnight work on toboggans.

“It’s the one weekend a year I never look at my expenses,” he says. “Everybody knows this is the fun place to stay.”
The weekend has become a midwinter party in a summer tourist town. This year’s event will feature a fireworks display on Saturday night and a performance by comedian Bob Marley at the Camden Opera House. National publicity, including an article several years ago in Sports Illustrated magazine, has expanded interest beyond the borders of Maine.

“A few years ago, these two guys from Tennessee came up,” Dickey says. “They’d read about it in an airline magazine and decided they’d come up, buy a toboggan, and give it a shot. And they were good old boys from the South; they’d seen snow, but they really had no idea. And everybody loved them. Pretty soon there were 20 people gathered around, teaching these two southern rednecks how to sit in a toboggan. They ended up taking second place in the two-person division.”

Another attraction is the costumes. “People come as cartoon characters, giant chickens, you name it,” Dickey says. “About half the participants are focused on the costumes. Those people probably won’t win a race, because their clothes are flopping all over the place, but they might win a prize for best costume.”

All clothing, costumes included, must be tucked so as not to hang out over the edges of the toboggan. Old clothes are recommended. “You’re going down this narrow chute at 40 miles an hour,” Huff points out. “You don’t want anything to catch on the edge.”

Rules for the toboggans themselves have been streamlined over the years. Toboggans must be made of wood, with a front curl large enough to protect the feet of the front person. They must fall within width and length requirements, and they must have a pad for all riders and some kind of handhold, either a rope or wooden handles.

The toboggan must not weigh more than 50 pounds, including the pad. For this reason, Huff includes saws in the set of tools he brings to the event. On at least one occasion, he’s had to cut off a section at the back end of the sled to make weight.

Huff is not the only man wielding odd tools. Stuart Young, the “chute master,” uses a mini Zamboni that he and Dickey developed to prepare the ice the racers will slide on. As with curling, a bumpy ice surface decreases friction and increases speed. “It’s like layering a cake,” he says. “It takes about 30 hours to do it properly.”

The chute itself, originally constructed in 1936 and refurbished several times since, is 400 feet long, and empties out onto the frozen surface of Hosmer Pond. The race is timed from the beginning to the end of the chute. Each team gets two runs, and the best combined time wins.

Despite the fickle Maine weather, the event has never been canceled, and only one day of racing has been lost in 20 years. Some 5,000 people now descend on Camden for one weekend in February. Shuttle buses are available to bring people from various spots around town out to the ski area, an option Dickey strongly recommends for spectators. “The traffic jam is like Woodstock,” he says.

Curling in Belfast
50 Years of Rock Throwing
Most members of the Belfast Curling Club own an unmatched pair of shoes—one for sliding, the other for gripping. The sliding side comes courtesy of a smooth Teflon sole worn on the foot opposite the dominant hand: Lefties slide on their right foot, righties on the left.

The Belfast Curling Club is the only place in Maine to try this arcane sport, but it’s no newcomer. It’s been there for five decades.
Explaining curling can get complex. “The game contains elements of horseshoes, shuffleboard, and bocce,” says Belfast club member Joe Baiungo. “The goal is to get your rocks as close as possible to the target.” How players do this is a matter of much strategy and teamwork and, as those who have seen the sport on TV may remember, fast-paced sweeping.

The “rocks” that players move toward the target are literally rocks. Curling traces its origins to 16th-century Scotland, which had an abundance of rocks, frozen lochs and bogs—and a paucity of mid-winter entertainment. According to Baiungo, all the curling stones in the world still come from two quarries in Scotland. They weigh 20 kilograms— approximately 42 pounds—and cost $500 apiece. The Belfast Curling Club owns 60 of them.

The stones are concave on the bottom, so that only a thin ring is in contact with the ice. Players use a handle to release the rock (this is called “throwing,” though “sliding” is a more accurate description), holding the handle at either the 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock position, depending on which way they want the stone to curve on its path down the ice. This is what makes the rock “curl,” and gives the sport its name. A gentle turn of the handle will impart enough spin so that the rock will follow a curved path—important if you want to sneak between an opponent’s rock and the target.

Before each match the ice is “pebbled.” A fine mist is sprayed onto the ice surface and allowed to freeze, raising small peaks and further reducing friction. This wears down as the match progresses, something players must take into account. “The first rock will not curl the same way as the last rock,” Baiungo says.

A curling team has four members, each of whom will throw two rocks toward the target each round (called an “end”). As the rocks move, other members of the team will follow the rock and sweep the ice ahead of it, at the team captain’s (or “skip’s”) direction. Sweeping reduces the friction on the ice surface, allowing the stone to travel as much as 10 additional feet. This can be frenetic. “If you’re sweeping all the way down the ice, it takes everything you’ve got.” Baiungo says. “I lift weights and keep in shape, and I still get exhausted doing it.”

A game consists of eight ends (10 in Olympic competition) and lasts about two hours. Extra ends are played in the event of a tie.
Founded in 1959 by Dr. Norman E. Cobb on the inspiration of friends from a curling club in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, the Belfast Curling Club is still going strong half a century later. There are currently 160 members from 61 communities spending dark winter evenings driving to and from the club. The clubhouse itself, a few miles out of town on the road to Augusta, contains a bar, a small kitchen, and an area with tables, chairs, and benches from which people can watch the action on the ice. A large meeting room doubles as a dance floor.

“While curling brings us all together, we come from many different walks of life,” says Ann Kirkpatrick, current president of the club. “This person is an architect; that person owns a paint store. We’ve got plumbers, electricians, truck drivers.”

All pitch in to help the club meet expenses and to keep the facility operating. It isn’t cheap. The club relies on sponsors, volunteer labor, and membership dues: $300 per person for a seasonal schedule that runs from November to early March. Much of the equipment that regulates the temperature in the ice house was built in the 1950s, though there have been periodic upgrades. Fans at each corner of the three-lane curling rink keep the cool air circulating. Ductwork snakes along the low ceiling—the only low-overhead thing about the whole operation.
But despite the costs, this is an oddly addicting sport. Tune into the upcoming Winter Olympics to check out a match or head on down to Belfast and get swept up in the action.

Dogsledding in Fort Kent
The Mushing Mystique
“You know you’re a musher,” says Julia Bayly, “when you go outside and look at seven piles of poop and know which dog each one came from.”

Dogsledding, or “mushing,” isn’t simply a seasonal hobby. “It’s a lifestyle as much as a sport,” says Bayly, who lives and mushes in the Fort Kent area. “You have to love it.”

In the past 20 years, interest in mushing has grown in northern Maine. The big race of the year is the Can-Am Crown, which will take place this year on March 6 and 7. Races of 30, 60, and 250 miles begin on Main Street in Fort Kent and end at the nearby Lonesome Pine ski lodge. According to Pat Dow, who’s in charge of race registration and whose husband, Allen, sits on the board of directors, it’s a festive event.

“After midnight, the town crew will find some snow—it’s usually not hard to find—and cover Main Street with it and put up barricades,” she says. “The races start right there on Main Street, with crowds of people lined up to watch.”

The 30- and 60-mile races are open to anyone with a sled and a dog team. Entrants in the 250-mile race must have completed a previous race of at least 100 miles. Each race is limited to 30 teams and there is usually a waiting list for all three races.

“We’ve talked about expanding it, but 90 teams is about all we can handle,” Dow says. Participants come from as far away as Oregon and New Zealand. Many teams are from Canada. The 250-mile loop is a qualifying race for larger events like Alaska’s Iditarod.

A dogsled team can finish a 30-mile loop in as little as two and a half hours. Both of the shorter races will finish before dark on Saturday, though, Dow says, “there may be a few stragglers.” The 250-mile loop has mandatory rests built in, including a minimum five-hour layover at Allagash, approximately 40 miles before the finish. “It’s a very hard road from there to here,” says Dow. “A lot of hills.”

The course is segmented by a number of volunteer-staffed checkpoints, where food and veterinary services are available. “Some mushers will blow through the checkpoints early in the race, while others will pace themselves,” Dow says. “It depends what their strategy is.”
Not all participants are pros gearing up for the Iditarod. Bayly will race her six-dog team for the first time this year in the Eagle Lake Mad Bomber 30-mile race in January. Another musher will run Bayly’s dogs in the Fort Kent race. “I’m not brave enough to go down Main Street yet,” she says.

If you want to try dogsledding before you commit to the year-round care of multiple dogs, three-time Can-Am 250 winner Don Hibbs and his wife, Angel, owners of Maine Dogsledding Adventures of Millinocket, offer opportunities to do so at their Wilderness Lodge and Cabins on Nahmakanta Lake. A number of packages, from an afternoon to three days, are available. Participants get hands-on practice driving a team of five or six dogs.

“People don’t want to be cargo,” says Hibbs. “The fun is driving the sled.”

Hibbs runs a team of 12 dogs in the Can-Am. Dogs can be dropped at checkpoints during the race, but no substitutions are allowed. He keeps upwards of 20 dogs at any one time. “It’s like a ball team with a farm system,” he says.

Bayly is in her late 40s and took up the sport only recently. “You can get into it for not a lot of money,” she says. “You can start with three dogs. Some mushers run strings of 12 or more. Right now, six is my comfort level.”

She starts training in September when the nights grow cool. “I don’t run my dogs if it’s over 55°. In September, that’s 5 in the morning, which means you’ve got to be out watering them and getting them ready at 3.”

Her dogs range from 3 to 9 years old. There’s a hierarchy of roles, and the team leader needs to be carefully chosen. “You can ruin a dog by putting it up front too quickly,” she says. “Sometimes a mile or so before you get home, you can put one that’s showing promise up front. But they need to be having fun. You can’t lose your temper, even though nothing will get on your last nerve faster than a sled dog that doesn’t cooperate.”

Northern Maine would seem to be an ideal environment for this fast-growing sport. It’s got everything: a long winter, plenty of snow, expansive tracts of sparsely populated land, and an extensive network of trails. And like curling and toboggan racing, it isn’t all about the competition. “There are a lot of mushers who don’t race,” Dow says. “They just do it for the love of riding a sled through the woods.”