Long Hard Trails and Sled Dog Tales

Long Hard Trails and Sled Dog Tales is a memoir of sorts, an adventure story to be sure, and a look at what it’s like to follow a winning sled dog team across thousands of miles of Arctic wilderness.

Award-winning author Helen Hegener hitched her wagon to a star: The legendary four-time Iditarod and Yukon Quest champion Lance Mackey, beginning with his bid for a fourth Yukon Quest title in 2008.

For the next several years she followed Lance and dozens of other mushers, many of whom became close friends, across Alaska and the Yukon Territory. She founded Northern Light Media, which produced the DVD Appetite and Attitude: A Conversation with Lance Mackey, and published the books Yukon Quest Album, All Alaska Sweepstakes, Along Alaskan Trails, and others.

But going beyond the exciting sled dog races, she also gives readers the backstory of her life as founder and co-publisher of a leading publication in alternative education, and the riveting nationally-watched lawsuit which cost her that business and much more; the ‘long hard’ part of the trail…