The 'Golden Compass' Norwegian Pups



Approximately one month after Venla had her 'Mountain' pups we had the opportunity to take two pups c. 1 month older than ours, from Norway. We named the brother and sister Lyra and Pan(talaimon) after the Golden Compass, since we had purchased them from Mikal Laines and his sister, Cecilie Lanes, an author of Saami childrens' books,.

Their mother, Hurre is a good dog (3rd in the Finnmarksloppet 500) and has a great pedigree. One of her grandfathers, Lego, won the Pasvik Trail in 2006 and the other was Lance Mackey's legendary dog, Handsome, who was not only the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Iditarod and Yukon Quest Champion but also won the 2008 Golden Harness Award for leading his team to victory in both races and went on to run Femund-400 2011, FL-500 2010, FL-1000 2011 and Gausdal Maraton 2010, 2011. His mate was Posh by Joe Reddington. (Incidentally, Handsome's Grandmother, Jenna, was also an Iditarod Champion and Golden Harness Award winner with Mike Holtz, and his two of his great grandfathers were also Iditarod Champions: Skip by Dick Mackey and Granite (another of the 'greats'), linked to Joe Redington Sr. and Susan Butcher. Granite was also Iditarod Champion 86, 87, 88 and a Golden Harness Award Winner.

Their father, Rocky had another grandfather, Zorro, from Lance Mackey (Iditarod and Yukon Quest Champion) and other dogs in the line from Robert Sorlie, Sigrid Ekran, Ralph Johannessen, etc. Two of his great great grandfathere were 2003 Iditarod Champions with Skogen / Sørlie, one of which was the Golden Harness Award winner that year a third was the FL-1000 champion.

Finnmarksløpet 1000 Champion, Bergbys Buck (Tore Bergby), 2003 Iditarod Champion, Golden Harness Iditarod 2003, Jeppedalens Tipp (Skogen/Sørlie) are also back down the line.

So essentially, they have some living up to their names to do!

Lyra

Pan(talaimon)