Musher

Musher with dog sled team

Musher is the technical term for the person who steers a dog sled team . He stands on the sledge and steers his team alone by calling commands that have to be implemented by the lead dog.

Mushers are also called those who follow the dogs on cross-country skis while they are connected to a pulka by a rope . One of the most famous mushers was Leonhard Seppala , who took part in a rescue operation with his dog Togo in 1925 to save the residents of the city of Nome in Alaska from a diphtheria epidemic (see diphtheria epidemic in Nome ).

In addition, the term musher, based on the dog sledge, is also used for dog carts .

It has not yet been clarified whether the term comes from the French word marcher (to march) or from Greenlandic .