Tara Lyons introduced Tanya McCready, co-founder of Winterdance, an Ontario dogsledding tour company that operates out of the Haliburton Highlands, Canada, alongside Algonquin park.  Owned and operated by husband and wife team Hank DeBruin and Tanya McCready-DeBruin, with help from their 4 dogsledding children, Logan, Dustyn, Michaela and Jessica.  What started out 21 years ago as a dream is now a reality as Tanya and Hank enjoy sharing their story and building the bridge between the corporate world and their 1000 mile arctic dogsled race.  Their mission is to inspire teams to overcome challenges and reach their goals through improved teamwork, leadership and vision.

 

Tanya thanked the Rotary Club of Belleville for the opportunity to speak today about Winterdance.  Twenty-seven years ago, Tanya was living in Guelph and attending the University there and studying engineering.  A simple decision to go to the local Mall to look around, ended up with the purchase of Colt, their first Siberian Husky who changed their lives.  They were smitten with stories about Alaska and dogsledding and corporate life as an engineer was not what Tanya had hoped for so they started looking at options.  Why not start a dogsled business and in 1991 they purchased property in Haliburton, loaded up their cats and dogs and headed north.  It turned out their new property was not what they had envisioned, in fact, nothing was finished, no home, no kennel and Tanya was 8 months pregnant.  It seemed they were up against challenging odds, but Tanya and Hank refused to quit, in fact, Hank's goal was to train and enter a dog sled race called Iditarod in Anchorage, Alaska, a 12 mile course where he would spend 10 to 14 days in the Alaskan wilderness with a sixteen dog team.  There were 80 teams competing in this race and just to put things in perspective, one team would be the length of a tractor trailer.  After chasing their dream for 13 years, the adrenaline and instinct kicked in and off he went, gone into the wilderness.  Unfortunately the 2010 race ended in disappointment, especially to Hank and their first book is entitled Iditarod Dreamer that provides details about Hank and his rookie team's journey. It was a painful end and Hank felt he had failed himself, his family, his dogs, the community and guide.  Down, but not for long, they signed up for the 2011 Yukon Quest and Hank placed 13th and again in 2014 he placed 8th.  The Yukon Quest is a 1000 mile cousin to the Iditarod and their second book is a story about Hank's journey of a 1,000 miles.  People are encouraged to read Tanya and Hank's two books to capture their amazing story about endurance and hard work.  True grit that they happily share with so many people.  You can google Winterdance or email Tanya at Info@winterdance.ca for more information on dog sled tour packages.  They entertain 2000 guests every winter.

 

Peter Malone thanked Tanya for sharing their incredible story, through difficult times that they turned into a success story and business.  A story about survival and determination, family and love.  Very inspirational.