Alaskan Musher: Lauro Eklund

a dog sled team charging ahead towards the camera with the musher standing on the back of the sled

A remarkable resilience flows through Lauro Eklund. It has seen him through many bitterly cold nights riding the rails of his sled, urging his dogsled team forward, and through several long years as he has labored to build up his small kennel, Skookum Expeditions, from scratch. He hopes this resilience will one day soon lead the 25-year-old musher to the start line of the biggest races of all, the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.

With his father, Neil Eklund, a two-time Iditarod racer, he spends long days working with his dogs and exploring Alaska’s remote and rugged interior. As a child, he split his time between Anchorage and nearby Fairbanks, living with his mother during the school year, and out in the bush with his father during the rest of the year. It was a lifestyle that etched a spirit of adventure deep into his soul, one he chose to follow soon after graduating high school.

close up of a musher petting three of his dogs, one licking his face, in at lantern light as it gets darker out around them
a father son photo standing outside of their wall tent, the father on the left old and wrinkled wearing a black baseball cap, grey sweater and green and black plaid wool jacket; the son on the left wearing a red beanie, brown down jacket over a red and black flannel
“There is nothing more haunting and beautiful than hearing your team of dogs howling at the moon after a good run,” he says. “It makes falling asleep inside a tent at 20 degrees below perfect.”

“When I was 17, I bought my first sled dog, Annie, from a local musher in the town of Tanana on the Yukon River for $600 and a cord of firewood,” he says. “From the moment she entered my life, I knew what path my life was going to be, and I have followed it.”

He sired a litter of pups from her and started building out his stable of dogs. Living in large wall tents for months at a time to be near his dogs in all seasons, he diligently trained them while working apprenticeships with local mushing legend Lance Mackey, a four-time Iditarod and Yukon Quest champion. The work might have scared off most people, but it was something that Eklund was used to, having grown up with his father.

As a child, he would work the trapline and hunt with his father and older brothers. During the summer, they would build a large wooden raft and live off it for months on the murky and muddy Yukon River, selling cords of driftwood they had harvested to the small communities on the remote waterway. In the winter, when it froze solid, he would head out with his father into the long Arctic night on his sled.

“There is nothing more haunting and beautiful than hearing your team of dogs howling at the moon after a good run,” he says. “It makes falling asleep inside a tent at 20 degrees below perfect.”

Over the last few years, he has worked his way up the competitive mushing circuit. Short one-day races—the first two he came in last place after getting lost—have led to longer races. This season he will be running the 500-mile version of the Yukon Quest as he works towards eligibility to compete in his first Iditarod in 2023. As the sun quickly leaves his northern home and the long night arrives, Eklund knows that another hard season on the trail is here and, with it, many challenges. That’s just the way he likes it.

a dark haired man sitting down wearing a white t-shirt under a black wool coat holding a dog in front of him
a man standing on the back of a dog sled wearing a black, grey and red plaid wool coat and green wool pants while the team waits for a command

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a father son photo, the father on the left old and wrinkled wearing a black baseball cap, grey sweater and green and black plaid wool jacket; the son on the left wearing a red beanie, brown down jacket over a red and black flannel Shop Outerwear