Milo’s Portalatin third in Can-Am race

By Don Eno
SJVT Reporter

FORT KENT — Quebec musher Martin Massicotte crossed the finish line at 5:45 a.m. Monday at Lonesome Pine Ski Lodge in Fort Kent with his team of Alaskan huskies, capturing his record seventh top finish in the Can-Am Crown 250-mile sled dog race.

Second-place finisher Denis Tremblay of St. Michel des Saints, Quebec, followed Massicotte, arriving just after 6:30 a.m. in second place.

“I’m very tired and having a tough time appreciating I won right now,” Massicotte said Monday morning. “I am destroyed physically but conscious that I won.”

Of the 15 mushers who departed Main Street Saturday in the 250-mile race, four — Jessica Holmes of Portage, Amy Dionne of St. David, Andy Bartleet of Albany Township and Becki Tucker of Dorchester, New Hampshire, had dropped out by Monday morning.

Matthew Schmidt of Grand Marais, Minnesota finished in third. The top Maine musher in the 250-mile event was Ashley Patterson of Shirley, who finished fifth.

In the 100-mile race, Bruce Langmaid of Kearney, Ontario, was the first to arrive Saturday night at the Lonesome Pine trails ski facility in Fort Kent, beating Jacob Golton of L’Amable, Ontario, by just five minutes.

This is the first year Can-Am hosted a 100-miler, replacing the 60-mile event that had been run since 1994.

The only Maine mushers in the 100-mile event, Rico Portalatin of Milo and Kasey McCarty of Lexington, finished third and 13th respectively.

No racers dropped out of the 100-mile race, and the only musher scratched from the 30-mile race on Saturday was Jeffrey McRobbie of Wayne, who was injured in a collision with a snowmobile.

The juvenile driver of the snowmobile involved in the accident has been charged with operating to endanger, according to Maine Warden Adrien Marquis.

Nancy Duplesis of Saint Zenon, Quebec, finished first in the 30-mile race Saturday, beating second-place finisher Eli Golton of L’Amable, Ontario, by 10 minutes. Thirteen-year-old Lara Renner of Alton, New Hampshire, finished in fourth place, just 20 minutes behind Duplesis.

With the “winter wonderland” scene finally set after nearly a foot of new snow Wednesday last week, downtown Fort Kent once again played host to the start of all three Can-Am Crown sled dog races Saturday morning.

The Fort Kent Public Works crews and volunteers worked late into the night Friday to move snow and turn a half-mile stretch of downtown Main Street into a runway for the mushing teams and a big party for fans who get to watch up close as teams race past.

The carnival atmosphere created by closing off both ends of downtown to vehicle traffic at the start is a signature of this event, as are the community groups and merchants who welcome racers and visitors.

Several racers were well-known fan favorites, and others had family friends travel with them. But the majority of local spectators were at the races to share the excitement and root for all the mushers to do well.

“We cheer them all on,” Raymond Ouellette of Fort Kent said Saturday. Competitors in all three races left from the downtown area at various times Saturday morning.

Editor’s Note: BDN staff Writer Julia Bayly contributed to this article.