Jamaican musher tries for cool running of Iditarod trail

Published on March 11th, 2010

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

A musher from tropical Jamaica competing in a sled dog race? Yes, many thought the idea ridiculous when an adventure tourism operator there decided to build a team five years ago.

No one is laughing now except the creators of the Jamaica Dogsled Team, which is sending Newton Marshall to the pinnacle of world-class competitions, the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Among those rooting for the 26-year-old musher is Margaritaville icon Jimmy Buffet, who spends a lot of time in Jamaica and has been the team's primary sponsor since it was founded by a friend.

"I just love the whole idea of it," the singer said. "I love the absurdity that when we first did this, people laughed and thought it was a joke and guess what? It isn't."

It's not as strange as it sounds, really. Look at the Jamaican bobsled team in the 1988 Winter Olympics that inspired the movie "Cool Runnings."

And FYI to those who snort at Marshall as a publicity stunt: last year he completed the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Out of 29 mushers, the rookie placed a respectable 13th.

If he makes it to the Nome finish line, Marshall would be the third black musher to complete the world's longest sled-dog race, which crosses frozen rivers, dense woods and two mountain ranges, then goes along the dangerous sea ice up the Bering Sea shore.

To prepare for his run, Marshall has been training this winter with defending Iditarod champion Lance Mackey, a three-time consecutive winner and four-time Yukon Quest champion who is being paid an undisclosed sum by the Jamaica team sponsors. Marshall is leasing his 16-dog team from Mackey.

Started working with strays

It's a long way from Jamaica, where Marshall grew up in poverty. Marshall had never known the kind of minus double-digit cold he would encounter in the far north, or that there were dogs obsessed with tearing through the snow.

He was working for team founder Danny Melville, a partner in Chukka Caribbean Adventures, as a horseback tour guide in St. Anne in 2005 when he was brought in to help care for the strays being rescued for the nascent dog venture. Mushers from Minnesota and Scotland were brought in as consultants for the team.

The goal was always twofold, according to Melville. His vision was to train the Jamaica dogs to pull dune buggies for "sled dog" tours and elsewhere in the starry distance, there would be snow racing with actual sled dogs.

Marshall stepped on a real sled for the first time during a two-week trip to Minnesota mushing country in 2006. He was stunned at the energy and excitement of the dogs.

"Oh my God, it was crazy," he said. "They just wanted to go. They just wanted to run."

Back in Jamaica, Marshall worked as a dog-tour guide. Then in early 2007, he found himself kicked off the team after taking a joy ride in the car owned by the husband of his literacy teacher. Instead of returning the car as intended, he ended up crashing it, then told an elaborate story about the vehicle being wrecked by an armed thief, Melville said.

Marshall made amends to the couple and returned to the team several months later. By then, an older dog-tour driver was being tapped to train in Canada for a future Yukon Quest, but he ultimately backed out. So Melville turned to Marshall.

"I just said, 'Would you like to give it a try?'" Melville recalled. "He said, 'Yah, mon.'"

Training with Hans Gatt

Thus began the young Jamaican's transition to long-distance mushing, launched by a two-season training with Hans Gatt, a veteran musher from Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon Territory. There also were mid-distance qualifying sled dog races to run.

Gatt, who in February won his fourth Quest, has his doubts about Marshall's upcoming Iditarod performance, saying he had to be pushed hard along the Quest trail. Midway through the Quest, Gatt waited long hours at the Dawson City checkpoint, worried about Marshall and the dogs he had leased to him. Far behind in his competitive game plan, Gatt withdrew from the race after giving Marshall a "wake-up" talk.

From that point on, Marshall moved from 23rd place to 13th.

"If he has what it takes to finish the Iditarod, it's going to be a lot up to Lance," Gatt said. "Newton himself? No, he does not have what it takes."

Mackey expects Marshall to do just fine and finish the race on his own, proving any unbelievers wrong.

"I can honestly say he's going to make them eat crow," he said.

Marshall himself believes he could have done a bit better in the Yukon Quest. He sees the Iditarod as an opportunity to correct some mistakes, such as not running a competitive Quest race. The only thing he's nervous about is crossing over the frozen Bering Sea. Otherwise, he's good to go with his "very strong" dogs.

"I don't want to have any doubt in my head that I won't be able to finish the race," he said. "I will finish this race."