In the late 90th some polardogenthusiastes arranged a longdistancerace over 300 km. The race was named Technical Trail and the purpose with the arrangement was to offer a race for pure breed polar dogs where the dogs’ original qualities were tested. Start and finish was at Femundtunet in Norway and the track run through both Norway and Sweden. This race ended after two years and then some Swedish mushers decided to start a race in Sweden using the same concept. The longdistancerace POLARDISTANS was born!
The first POLARDISTANS started in March 2001 with start and finish at Mörkrets Fjällgård, a place some 30 km west of Särna. There were only a total of 10 competitors in this first race. Winner in pulka style was Annika Karlsson and in nome style Kristin Esseth. Mörkrets Fjällgård was no ideal place for this race and just to mention one thing – Mörkrets Fjällgård was a white spot on the cellphonemap. So in 2002 the race was moved to Särna with start and finish at Särna Camping.
Changing the start and finish to Särna gave a number of opportunities to develop the race and the number of competitors slowly increased and in 2009 46 mushers started. In 2003 the 150 km race was started and this distance was after a few years altered to 160 km and the concept of today, PD 160 and PD 300, was a fact. The 160 discipline was thought to be a recruiting distance for the PD 300, but very soon it was clear that many mushers preferred that distance, often because they didn’t had the time to train their dogs and themselves for the 300 km distance.
In 2008 there was made a test with the distance 400 km, but since only one person started (and finished) the organization committee decided not to continue with this distance.
In this history over POLARDISTANS I haven’t named anyone of all those persons who have made the race come true, the functionaries. The reason for this is that I find it hard to mention just a few names, well aware that I surly will miss some. So therefore no one named, no one forgotten. Thank you all!
Lennart Andersson