Editors's Note: This week, we hear from some younger voices in the community, as related to Susan Cantor, a local dog musher and Iditarod veteran who works with junior mushers. As the community works on the rewrite of the Beach Lake Park Master Plan, these young community members speak about the importance of maintaining safe trails as they learn their sport. The next Beach Lake Master Plan public meeting is 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Eagle River Town Center Community Room 170.

Dog mushing – it's not just for adults. As Parks and Recreation rewrites the master planoutlining the future of Beach Lake Park, the junior mushers of Chugiak-Eagle River step forward to explain why they need dedicated trails.

Fifth-grader Rachel Oswald describes a typical encounter with a nonmusher on the trail: "People assume you have perfect control of the dog team. They really don't understand that you can't just stop. They'll just stand there in the middle of the trail, and expect the dog team to move out of the way."

Encounters like this create havoc in a dog team. When sleds suddenly slow or swerve, the long ropes holding the team together tangle around the dogs, especially with young mushers on board. Tangled dogs can injure. If the musher is knocked off-balance, or the snow hook pulls out while the musher walks up front to straighten the team, the entire team may take off down the trail with no driver – a sure recipe for disaster.

Currently, only dog teams are allowed on the Beach Lake sled dog trails. The junior mushers want it to stay that way.

"Beach Lake is a great place to train kids, new mushers, and new dogs," explained Rachel's mother, Margaret Oswald. "It's the only safe trail system for the junior mushers in the Anchorage area."

Ron Kilian, who sponsors two families of junior mushers, agrees. "You wouldn't find bikers on a golf course or horses on a ski trail," he said.

The junior mushers who race on Tudor Track in Anchorage know the problems of multiuse.

They – and their parents – abound with nightmare stories from Tudor Track, where multiuse trails crisscross the mushing trails. Sophomore Tilly Cantor had her team charged by half a dozen dogs, let loose by their owners on a ballfield next to the race trail. At a recent race, a dog repeatedly charged 10-year-old Payton Young's team while the dog's owner stood by yelling at the young musher!

"Guess what I ran into this time?" Tilly exclaimed after the same race. "Bikers!"

The power of a dog team is "unbelievable, even at slow speeds," says Lois Rockcastle, mother of two Arctic Winter Games mushing competitors. "I got knocked over in a parking lot and ended up with huge bruises on my leg."

And what of the poor pet that decides to "take on" an entire team?

Beach Lake, with its dedicated mushing trails, is far safer. Mushers, especially

Beginners, need their own place.

"We're not trying to be greedy," Rachel Oswald continued. "We just need a safe place to run our dogs."

Keeping Beach Lake safe for junior mushers is good for our community.

"Mushing involves the whole family," said Kilian, who maintains his kennel of dogs solely to support junior mushers. "Mushing teaches the kids responsibility and fairness. It gives them confidence and independence. These kids grow up to be good citizens."

So what is the bottom line for the junior mushers, which constitute a meaningful percentage of users at Beach Lake Park?

"We need to keep Beach Lake safe for juniors," Kilian adds. "The juniors represent the future growth of the sport."

The juniors ask that the new master plan reserve the core of groomed race trails for dog mushing only, with no trails crossing or adjacent to the mushing trails.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, February 4, 2010.