Imagine that you’re trotting across a remote valley in the chilled wilderness between Alaska and Canada.

Your life—and the lives of your 15 companions—rests in the mittens of the musher you’ve been pulling over slopes, into gullies and along frozen riverbanks for hundreds of miles.

How do you feel?

After nearly 30 years of competitive dog mushing in Alaska, that question is still a hot topic.

Winning mushers have the chance to carve out quite a life for themselves and their dogs, finding fame and fortune at the finish line.

Many beginners attempt the same trail, investing in dogs and equipment with dreams of their own. Some, hit with bills for 80 lbs of dog food a week, or finding themselves without the time or energy to run the animals regularly, go broke.

Most mushers make every effort to treat their dogs as champion athletes, but many huskies are leftneglected or worse--starving, freezing or perhaps left to pace endlessly near their houses, waiting for a race or at least freedom to roam.

This project aims to portray the best and worst of the life of the Alaskan Husky: bushy-tailed, bootied and by far the toughest mutt in the Last Frontier.

Tom Delaune and Staphanie Land