Kent Kraft /for the Gazette A team takes off from the starting line Friday night at the CopperDog races in downtown Calumet.

CALUMET – On Friday evening, spectators lined 5th Street in downtown Calumet to watch the start of the CopperDog events for 2026. After a presentation of the Canadian and American flags by some young mushers coupled with live performances of the respective national anthems, the competitors for the CopperDog 120 started their race.

Twenty mushers left Calumet for Eagle Harbor, the first leg of that race. All the dogsled squads completed the journey before 11 p.m. with the quickest time of 2:14:37 logged by Mike Bestgen. On Saturday morning, nineteen of the teams left Eagle Harbor and made their way to Copper Harbor.

Bestgen continued a scorching pace in the second leg of this race. Though he was the last one to leave the starting gates in Eagle Harbor, his squad was still the first to arrive in Copper Harbor, nearly six and a half minutes ahead of the second place musher Jake Golton.

Spanning a total distance of 121.3 miles, the dogsled teams were expected to finish Sunday when they races from Copper Harbor to the finish line in Laurium. Bestgen takes a nine minute total lead over Golton into the final leg with Sarah Tarlton’s dogsled team seven minutes thirty-nine seconds behind in third place.

Bestgen, out of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, has run every single CopperDog event to date, the only musher who can claim that. Coming off his first win in the CopperDog 150 last year, Bestgen hoped to continue the momentum on Sunday to win back-to-back titles. Race results were not available at press time Sunday

The CopperDog 30 also started on Friday evening and covered the 30.8 miles from Calumet to Eagle Harbor. Twenty-one mushers competed in this event with Danny Edmonson winning with a time of 2:12:19, nearly six minutes ahead of second place Larry Fortier.

Saturday afternoon hosted two other dogsled events, the CopperDog 15 and the CopperDart races. A counterclockwise loop covering 15.9 miles comprised the CopperDog 15 where twenty mushers competed. All the teams finished the race in under two hours, but the fastest team finished in just over one hour with an average speed of 15.6 miles per hour.

Jake Golton took first place in the CopperDog 15, the same Golton who has the second-best time in the CopperDog 120. He was the only musher to compete in both races. Less than three hours after completing the Eagle Harbor to Copper Harbor leg of the longer race, Golton took a dogsled team on the shorter course and managed a time three and a half minutes quicker than second place Bob Lee. Coming down from L’Amable, Ontario, Canada, Golton is competing in CopperDog events for the tenth time.

New this year was the CopperDart race which was a youth-focused 4.8 mile race open to mushers aged 15 and younger. In an intensely close race, first place went to Kashton Beaber who finished just five tenths of a second ahead of second place Sara Anderson.

Beaber traveled from Mountain, Wisconsin to compete in his first CopperDog while Anderson has competed three times previously in CopperDog events. She actually ran a team in the CopperDog 30 this year as well, coming in an impressive sixth place.

In addition to the races, three CopperPull events and one CopperDash event rounded out the offerings. Two of the CopperPulls took place on Saturday, as did the CopperDash, with the final pull expected to take place Sunday morning.

In the CopperPull, dogs are hooked up to a sled and must pull increasing amounts of weight. Awards are given to the dogs in each weight class that pull the most weight, an award to the dog that was able to pull the most weight overall, and the dog that was able to pull the most weight per pound relative to their body size.

For the CopperDash, youth 4 to 12 years-old had a chance to be a musher on a short track. While some participants took on a serious demeanor with a determined look in their eyes, others were gleefully shouting, “Go! Go! Go!” as the single dog raced them down the track. Awards were given out to the fastest times in each age group, and raffle prizes were drawn for participants as well.

Spectators were present at all the events throughout the weekend, cheering on the mushers in the races as well as the weight pulls and the youth mushers in CopperDash. Despite the cold turn in the weather, everyone seemed to enjoy these dog days of winter.