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I'm Kate Dehlin and I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my Tamaskan Dogs Zephyr, Fahren, Graphite, Pyrite, Vesper and my Alaskan Noble Noque. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona but my love for wildlife and the woods motivated me to pursue college else where. I moved to Michigan and enrolled at Northern Michigan University. I started working towards two degrees, a film degree and a zoology degree. I later droped the zoology degree because I wanted to spend more time in the outdoors observing wildlife and I realized I didn't need a degree for that. I spent more time in the woods entwining my love for film with the my love for the woods. I graduated from Northern Michigan University with a Bachelor's degree in Digital Cinema and a minor in Outdoor Recreation. After getting college out of the way I was ready to have dogs back in my life. I knew just which one I wanted, I had stumbled upon the Tamaskan back in 2007 and knew I would have one someday. I got Zephyr after being on the waiting list for nine months. I fell in love with the breed. Almost every waking moment I delved into the breeds history and lines, then into genetics and very much decided I wanted to contribute to this breed so I registered as a breeder with the Kennel name of Basalt Tamaskan.
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When I was a very young child I picked a VHS to rent at our local blockbuster, the Movie was Sebeart (1985) and though at the time I was too young to even follow the stories in the cartoon, I got my first glipse of sled dogs. I do believe though not consciously aware at that age a path had been set that dogs and mushing would become a huge part of my life in the future. Soon after I was caught hooking up the family dogs, cat and even giant iguana to a laundry basket ingauging in imagitive play. I asked to rent Seabert many more times afterwards and would take turns with my younger brother being the dog and pulling each other around the house through obstacle courses in laundry baskets or our dumped out book bin.
When Balto came out I was hooked after seeing it in theaters and likely ran the VHS until it didnt work anymore. I almost permently had the complete guide to dog breeds checked out from my schools library. I read Hatchet, and then all of Gary Paulsens books about dogs and dog sledding. In middle school I started running the family Border Collie and German Shepherd in front of my BMX bike. I didnt know this was a sport at the time and got many odd looks. My exciment of being able to get them up to 10 miles didnt excite anyone else. In highschool I read many mushers books about dog sledding, and read any other book about dogs. I got my first autograph from a Iditarod winner. I started voulunteering with the Arizona Humane Society, I proclaimed I would run Iditarod my senior year of high school after reading so many mushers accounts of the race. This was before ever even living in a cold climate or being on a dog sled.
In college I discovered my dicomfort in extremely cold temperatures so quickly scratched Iditarod from the future. I did volunteer for the UP200/Midnight Run/Jack Pine 30, 2008-2012. Zephyr brought me to actually get behind a dog sled after years of imaginative play, books, and experimenting with the family dogs, in 2012 when Zephyr was eight months old I hooked him up to a sled for the very first time. I waited about another year before I hooked him up with a real team, it took me a while to find a mentor and I found that at Snowy Plains and started working with them in December of 2012. My first run with a team and Zephyr was magical and I would be lying if I didnt cry. I was truly hooked. I went and watched the first Ironline Race in 2013. In 2013 I voulunteered for Up200 in Munising for the entire race weekend. All of which gave me more intrest in racing. I met Liza another young Musher in 2013 while she was starting to look for mates for herlead dog and finding out she was going to school with what I graduated with was really cool. We started a friendship. That winter I parted ways with Snowy Plaines and started to work along side her team as well as doing a lot of filming. Her and her team gave me the oppertunity to race for the first time. It was amazing experience. I entwined my life as much as I possibly could with the team an ended moving out to the kennel when Liza took sole ownership of the kennel and dogs. I have been given so many great opertunities it was a pleasure to work along side her and her dogs and handlers from 2013 to 2016.
Zephyr and Noque are now retired from racing but the dream of owning a complete team of Tamaskan Dogs isnt that far behind. Too the future.
This I stewed over for almost a year. I wasnt sure I wanted to use my last name to always tie my puppies back to my family or come up with something else. I grew up with my mom taking me rock hunting so have always been a rock collector and Columnar Basalt has always been a favorite of mine. It's hard and tough but has structure. In the Fall of 2011 I registered it with the TDR.