Photo courtesy of Jessi Downey

Jessi Downey is originally from the village of Noatak. She started dog mushing as a teenager by helping Jen Evans and other local mushers run dogs around the southcentral town of Willow and eventually went on to start her own kennel. She has run the Willow 300, the Goose Bay (Tug) 150, and ran the Kobuk 440. She earned the Humanitarian award in the goose bay and sportsmanship award in the Kobuk 440. Key dogs in her kennel are Cezanne, Espresso, Kuupiaq, Cappuccino, Zinc, Asta, and Rowan and she added that Winnie, and Bryne are leaders in training right now. She is looking forward to seeing the trail and the people along the way. Her sponsors are her mom and friends and family