Where dogs arepart of the family

Bertrand Bellencourt.

Your host. A professional wilderness guide and expedition leader, he is at home on a sled, in a kayak or a canoe, on the trail, with a fishing rod and in winter survival. He is a Wilderness First Responder, an Emergency Medical Responder and a trained firefighter. Having spent most of his life in the bush, it is where he feels safe and at home, and nothing pleases him more than watching others discover it. Some seasons, he also guides in Churchill, Manitoba, among the polar bears of Hudson Bay.

Born in France, Bertrand has loved dogs, huskies above all, for as long as he can remember. He discovered mushing after moving to Canada, with his own husky, Kowey. The day they met their first real sled dogs, Kowey was more excited than Bertrand had ever seen him. That day, the journey began.

He started guiding in 1999 and has led dog sledding expeditions since 2001, working for several outfitters in northern Quebec. In 2008 he moved to the Yukon, Canada’s last frontier and the El Dorado of mushers.

In 2015 he founded Boreal Kennels in Carcross, on the South Klondike Highway, 70 km south of Whitehorse. For more than ten years, the family business has welcomed travellers from around the world, with a team of huskies descended from his very first dog, Kowey.