The Yukon Quest used to be called ‘the toughest dogsledding race in the world’ until the marketing brains decided the tag line was putting off would-be participants. It runs each February for a thousand miles between Fairbanks in Alaska and Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Conceived in 1984 in response to the increasing commercialization of the Iditarod, the founders wanted to create a race that was faithful to the spirit and history of the north. And so, while the Quest covers the same distance as the more famous Iditarod, it has just 10 checkpoints as opposed to the Iditarod’s 25. Competitors are alone with their dogs for stretches of hundreds of miles – and, except at the race’s halfway point at Dawson City, they’re allowed to accept no outside help.

Conditions can be treacherous. Mushers must be ready to deal with temperatures that drop into the minus 40s, with blizzards and white-outs, and with treacherous overflow ice, where water has burst over the edges of streams and rivers and has refrozen in a delicate crust that snaps and cracks under paws and sled. While the dogs rest for around six hours in twelve, the mushers enjoy no such respite. By the time they’ve rubbed cream into their team’s feet, boiled water, and fed both dogs – who burn ten thousand calories a day when racing – and themselves, only a couple of hours remain. Soon, their eyes grow red and rheumy; they stumble into checkpoints with wan smiles and matted hair.

The Yukon Quest is gruelling for spectators, too, if you want to follow the race in its entirety. You snatch sleep in your truck – there are no boutique hotels in this part of the world, and they’ve not heard of 300-thread-count sheets – and consume bowls of moose stew or Quest burgers at the roadhouses and visitor centres designated as checkpoints. It you think you have it hard, though, spare a thought for those who travelled this way before, for this is gold rush country. A rich seam of gold was found in the creeks of the Klondike in August 1896 and when, several months later, news broke in Circle City, Alaska, the prospectors there loaded up their sleds and left at once for the Klondike along these same trails that the Yukon Quest uses today. In July 1897, news broke in Seattle and San Francisco; America was in the depths of depression and an estimated hundred thousand hopeful miners thronged north along with missionaries, mail men and Mounties, all travelling along these trails in response to the demands of last great gold rush. The landscape hasn’t changed much across the years. The snow and the spruce trees are still here. So are the moose and the bears, the bald eagles and the caribou. This is one part of the globe whose human population has diminished in the last hundred years rather than grown.

Even the Yukon Quest doesn’t attract a huge number of followers. As the Quest officials, volunteers and supporters move day by day from checkpoint to checkpoint, a camaraderie builds up. This is no football match – it’s the freezing far north, and there’s only a handful of you. You sit at night, waiting for your team to come in, or stand on the side of the trail, staring into the darkness, waiting for the official to shout, ‘Team!’ and wondering: will it be yours? And then, as the temperatures drop to deathly levels and you find yourself inwardly asking why you ever embarked on this crazy escapade, the moon rises and the faintest smear of pale green creeps across the horizon. Its grows stronger, and the northern lights weave green and red against the cold night sky.

Getting there: The Yukon Quest traverses remote parts of Canada and Alaska; anyone following the race will need a four-wheel drive and experience of winter conditions. Alternatively, ‘Follow the Yukon Quest’ packages are arranged by Muktuk Adventures, where I was based while I researched Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman, and whose owner, Frank Turner, has competed in the Yukon Quest in all but one of the 25 races to date. Go to www.muktuk.com for information.