Charlotte Wolf of Wolf Moon Kennels near Brainerd posed with her team of sled dogs. She will provide dog sled rides this Saturday, Jan. 7, at Ice Fest in Breezy Point.

"They love, love, capital L-O-V-E, love to pull," Charlotte says of her dogs' most prominent character trait.

Though they may be outspoken and rambunctious in the lot, the dogs are sleek, powerful and absolutely silent as they pull a sled or cart, jumping over each other and the gang line attaching them to the sled as they go.

The dogs are not large, as one might expect them to be; they are relatively small and extremely friendly, desiring only one thing: to pull a sled.

Charlotte, of Wolf Moon Kennels near Brainerd, has been a musher (driver of sled dogs) for 20 years now. She's at the ready to give dog sled rides at the Breezy Point Ice Fest on Saturday, Jan. 7. Even without a lot of snow she's prepared to give sled dog rides with a cart for guests to sit on as the dogs pull them along.

Charlotte got started dog sledding when she'd watch the John Beargrease race along the North Shore. She and her cousin would get up early in the morning to go to the next checkpoint and watch the teams.

Charlotte had read an article in a dog sledding magazine by a woman named Diane Leafgren during one of those races. The article intrigued her, and fate would have it that Leafgren was about to come in second place at Two Harbors, where Charlotte and her cousin were spectators.

Her growing interest in dog sledding led Charlotte to talk to Leafgren.

"She came in, and I waited until all the interviewers and everybody was gone and I said, 'Um, do you, uh, you know, um, like, uh, ever need any, um, help or anything?' and I was just so nervous, you wouldn't believe it. And she said, 'Yeah, I could always use extra handlers.'"

And so, Charlotte got started with dog sledding.

Being a handler is similar to being an apprentice. Charlotte did much of the grunt work for Leafgren, and in return Charlotte learned about something she really loved.

Charlotte's life later took her to Nome, Alaska, where she worked at a missionary radio station. Nome also happens to be the endpoint of the "Last Great Race": the Iditarod.

Most famous of all dog sled races, the Iditarod is more than 1,100 miles in length, from Anchorage to Nome. Simply finishing the race is a major accomplishment, Charlotte said.

Though she has never raced in the Iditarod, she has qualified for it twice. It took a 200-mile race to do so, and it's considered an honor to qualify.

Charlotte lived in Alaska for 10 years, where she met her husband and was a handler for another musher who eventually allowed her to mush teams of dogs in smaller, local races.

After 10 years in Alaska, Charlotte came back to Minnesota to help take care of her parents. She came back with several pets, but no sled dogs. In her free time, she tried to teach her shepherd-elkhound mix to pull her on a converted toboggan. That was about as close as she ever thought she'd get to mushing her own team.

"I didn't ever anticipate I'd have my own dog team. That was like dreamland, way out somewhere," she said.

But then, Charlotte was invited to a dog sledding potluck, where she met someone who needed to find a home for 12 dogs. She couldn't take all 12, but she and her husband decided to take on four of them.

"I was just going to have four, and it was just going to be so I could give myself and a friend or my husband or whatever a ride, and just have fun with it," Charlotte said.

But then, a strange turn of events occurred. She was at a finance class with her church, and Charlotte shared with the class that she just got four sled dogs.

The manager of Grand View Lodge in Nisswa happened to be in the same class.

"I hadn't even had them (the dogs) 24 hours and I met the manager of Grand View and he said, 'Hey, we gotta talk.'" The two worked out the details and not long after, Charlotte was mushing for guests at the resort. Sometimes up to 50 people would be awaiting a ride.

"Fifty people over a two-hour period for four dogs is too much. So then I started to borrow a few, and get a few more, and now I have 16. And it's just grown," she said.

Today she continues to mush dogs for local resorts and retreats, just as she will for this year's Ice Fest in Breezy Point.

There are no reigns on a dog sled; all the steering is done with commands. The dogs run on three basic commands: "Gee," (pronounced with a "J" sound), which means right; "Haw," which means left; and "Hike," which is go.

There is no stop command. Stopping involves putting on the brakes or digging a hook into the snow and providing enough resistance that the dogs stop.

Even with the resistance of a brake or snow hook, the dogs still want to run. Charlotte explained the importance of keeping hold of a harness, the sled, the gang line or anything, really, to keep the dogs from running off without the musher.

"They'll take off. So I've dragged behind the sleigh many times. Anyone who does this has. You just hang on for all you're worth, and eventually they'll slow down," she said.

Charlotte explained that while many people may think "mush" is the command for "go" on a dog sled, "hike" is used because it has a sharper sound. "Mush" tends to be lost in the noise of the sled, while "hike" is easier to hear.

Charlotte said that back when she would watch the dog sled races on the North Shore, it was a red-letter day.

"It was like the Super Bowl and the NBA finals and everything all rolled into one for us," she said.

Now, she owns her own team and sled dog business, which seems to be a dream realized.

"I never thought I'd get to this position," she said. "It's getting paid to do what you most like to do. It's really enjoyable."