About Jerry Vanek ... I
have been smitten with sled dogs in one form or another for 50 years.
I doubt that will change any time soon. While I’ve done my
share of youthful racing and training, judging and handling, camping
and touring, I have dedicated the last 17 years of my life to providing
veterinary care for sled dogs along the race trails of Alaska and
the Yukon; Wisconsin and Oregon; Michigan, Montana, Maine, and Minnesota.
When I’m not practicing medicine on huskies, I’m either
writing or lecturing about them, teaching parasitology and cell
biology at my local university, or training firefighters and EMTs
how to rescue animals in disasters through BART—the Basic
Animal Rescue Training FEMA program. I’m also an EMT, certified
in advanced wilderness life support, and a ham radio operator in
my “spare” time. To eat and sleep, I divide my life
between my lake home in Bemidji, Minnesota, and my grandfather’s
1881 farm in the northern Red River Valley.
I met Colonel Normal Vaughan in 1991 and served him on his journey
to Antarctica in 1993. He has been my idol ever since. So, in 2007,
I joined Norman’s Serum Run ’25 as a trail veterinarian
and handler for Don Duncan and his Superlative Samoyeds. It was
the single greatest experience of my life. This year, I am returning
to Alaska to join Don and Margaret, Erin and Kent, and the other
Serum Runners on the road to Nome, retracing the monumental footsteps
of the original heroes of the 1925 relay and fulfilling Norman’s
dream. Can we leave today?
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