Boy who gave up sled receives new one

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, February 9, 2008

Fifteen-year-old Caleb Tysver is using a new dog sled this winter — and it isn’t the one he won in an 11-hour competition last fall.

In October, the Battle Lake student and avid sprint racer attended Eddy Streeper’s 10th annual dog sled auction near Osage. Streeper is a 33-year racing veteran and his dog sled auction is the only event like it in the world.

At this year’s auction, one attendee could walk home with a sled valued at $500 — if he or she kept a hand on the sled as it dangled six feet in the air.

“You could have one hand on it — and you couldn’t switch hands — and whoever held on the longest won,” Tysver said.

When the competition kicked off at about 10:20 p.m., Tysver was one of 10-plus sledding enthusiasts with their arms above their heads as they stood in the brisk October night. Part of the competition’s appeal, Tysver said, was the challenge — that and “It was boring just going to sleep.”

As the hours dragged on, Tysver said he became more and more committed to winning, though he already had a sled at home. Tysver passed the hours by talking with his competitors, and by the time the field narrowed to two, he had learned the guy standing next to him didn’t have a sled of his own.

So just after 8:20 a.m., when Tysver had been declared the winner, he savored his prize for a moment before turning it over to the second place finisher.

“He’d been a handler for another guy and had finally got his own dogs but didn’t have a sled,” Tysver said of the man.

The gift-giving may not have seemed like a big deal to Tysver, but it made an impression on Joel Nelson of Clear Lake, a long-time racer and an acquaintance of Tysver’s family. When the two spoke at a dryland race in Cannon Falls later in October, the conversation turned to the Streeper auction. It was then that Nelson said he had a gift for Tysver: a lightweight, aluminum sled with a cost Tysver said could easily surpass $2,000.

“I guess I was just in awe,” he said.

Months later, Tysver has put the sled to good use, competing in the Third Crossing Sled Dog Rendezvous near Frazee in late January. Tysver owns 11 racing dogs, with many of them a greyhound, husky, pointer mix.

“It’s just really addicting being out there with the dogs,” he said.

The people aren’t bad, either, as Tysver’s experienced first-hand.

“Everybody in the mushing world is really nice.”