FLIN FLON REMINDER — This year’s second annual Jimmy Custer Memorial Dog Race has been postponed, with organizers saying the mild winter has made Amisk Lake potentially unsafe to race on.
The event, which was originally supposed to include three dog races in Denare Beach this past weekend, has been moved to a later date.
“We will have to postpone the race. Weather has not been in our favour and we will need to wait for colder temperatures and snow,” said event organizers in an announcement made Feb. 1.
“We will post a new date for the race soon.”
No new date has been announced for the race as of press time.
Weather in the region has been abnormally warm for the past several weeks, coming after a December that broke records for both a lack of snow and high temperatures. According to Environment Canada forecasts on Feb. 9, the region is likely to see daily and overnight average temperatures in the minus single digits Celsius on and off over the next week, with periods of light snow expected. The weather has been so warm in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan that Environment Canada has marked it as an “abnormal temperature trend.”
Dog races elsewhere in the north have either been postponed or cancelled due to warm weather creating unsafe conditions. The annual World Championship Dog Races in The Pas, held as part of the Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival, were officially cancelled by organizers in late January after too little snow was reported along the traditional race route. Unlike the Custer race, the Trappers’ Festival race has been cancelled outright, not postponed - the rest of the festival’s events, running from Feb. 14-18, are still scheduled to continue as planned.
