Rob Cooke was the first musher to sign up for the 2020 Yukon Quest in Whitehorse on Aug. 3. (John Hopkins-Hill/Yukon News) - Whitehorse, Canada 
Mushers start signing up for the 2020 Yukon Quest
The field for the 37th Yukon Quest 1,000 Mile International Sled Dog Race has started to take shape.
Aug. 3 was the official sign up day for the race, which starts Feb. 1, 2020, with a total of 10 mushers signing up either in-person in Whitehorse or Fairbanks, Alaska, or via mail or proxy.
The 10 mushers set to run the full 1,600-kilometre race includes eight veterans. Yukoner Rob Cooke and 2019 winner Brent Sass highlight the field that also includes Richie Beattie, Dave Dalton, Torsten Kohnert, Cody Strathe, Ryne Olson and Canadian Denis Tremblay.
Mendenhall’s Lori and Louve Tweddell, daughters of three-time Quest finisher Luc Tweddell, are the only rookies in the field so far.
“The biggest tip we got was don’t do it,” said Lori about what kind of advice she and her sister had gotten from dad. “He’s helped us a lot along the way. Everything we do and what we’ve learned is from him. We’re pretty much the image of what he was, but there are two of us.”
Running the Yukon Quest is something Louve said she’s wanted to do since Luc finished the Quest for the first time in 2009.
“Afterwards it was like, ‘Oh my god. It looks like so much fun. I want to do that when I’m older,” said Louve.
The two mushers started the qualification process for the race last winter, racing the Percy de Wolfe Memorial Mail Race and the Yukon Quest 300, and will finish the process with this season’s Copper Basin.
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