26 sled dogs evacuated as wildfires burned in northeastern Minnesota
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As wildfires burned across northeastern Minnesota on Sunday, kennel operator Soph Mintz evacuated 26 sled dogs from a wilderness homestead and dogsledding outfit near Two Harbors.
The outfit, Wintermoon, lost all seven structures on its property to the wildfire. And one dog named Freddie later died from stress and heat exhaustion.
“Soph is the hero of this story,” Wintermoon trustee Chris Heeter told MPR News host Emily Reese. “She always is thinking about the care of the dogs first.”
Wintermoon has been running canoe and dogsled trips for women for 40 years. Keeter said the loss of the buildings hurts even more because they were built by founder Kathleen Anderson, who died last year from ovarian cancer.
Mintz will keep the dogs at a kennel in Grand Marais while the outfit rebuilds, and there is a GoFundMe to help with the recovery.
“The stories that that place holds makes it worth all the effort. It's just the need for people in this culture to get to be outside and connected to nature and away from things that ring and notify and buzz,” Heeter said. “It’s so essential that we are committed to trying to make that happen.”
Press play above to listen to Chris Heeter’s interview with Emily Reese.
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