We’re picking up where we left off last week in our Timmins history feature, and the first dogsled race back in 1916.
It ran about 13 miles through the Porcupine Mining Camp. Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says it started at the corner of Pine Street and Third Avenue.
“Thousands of people lined the streets and all the way up the Dome Rd., all the way past Porcupine Crown Mine up to the Vipond (Mine),” she narrates. “There were groups at the Dome Mine that came out to watch. There were people in Schumacher, McIntyre, so everybody was out watching these dog races.”
A man named Brisson won that race, and repeated a couple of years later.
“The races ran until about the 30s and things are added on to it then,” Bachmann continues. “There’s competitions for ski racing in the community. There’s a Carnival Queen that’s selected. There’s groups that get involved with food and all those good things.”
It all began with that dogsled race that raised money for the families of military men in active duty during the First World War.