Photos by Derek Crowe
| Hugh Neff grew up in Evanston, IL., a suburb of Chicago. After wandering around the United States for a few years he discovered Alaska and the world of dog mushing. The true start to the world of dawgs started though with Maverick, a yellow Labrador that taught him more about life than any human could. "If one animal could contain so much love and energy, what about ten or twenty?" Hugh started working for sprint musher Bill Mitchell, who along with Curtis Erhart and a few local mushers in Fairbanks provided limitless training and the opportunity to feed and clean up for over 200 dogs on a daily basis. A few years later Hugh would be an apprentice to Curtis’ legendary father, Lester, in the native Athabascan village of Tanana on the Yukon River. Lester taught Hugh about life in the Alaskan bush as well as passing along dog wisdom. From there it was on to Nenana where Jerry Riley, Ray Fox and other assorted locals caught a glimpse of the vision. During this time Hugh met Rich Doran who was building a cabin at Murphy Dome. Rich’s support helped to build the foundation of the Laughing Eyes Kennel. |
| Hugh then went on to work for and train with Ramy Brooks, Gareth Wright and Paddy Santucci in Minto and Manley Hot Springs. It was here that Hugh first started with village races. Next Hugh moved on to Coldfoot and worked at the “Northern-Most Truck Stop” and trained in the Brooks Range for the next two years. This northern training ground helped Hugh and the pooches develop into long-distance racing. Hugh’s first Yukon Quest in 2000 was with only ten dogs to start the race, but they battled through and ended up finishing in 13th place, earning the "Challenge of the North Award". In the summer of 2003 Hugh and Tamra met while Hugh was working at the Yukon River bridge on the Dalton Highway and Tamra was touring the north by army jeeps. Within a year Hugh had moved to Skagway with the dogs to do summer tours and Tamra had moved to Whitehorse, Yukon (an hour north of Skagway). That summer they found their home at Annie Lake and began to set up the kennel. |
| Over the last four years in the Yukon Quest his squad has slowly moved up in place in what is considered the "World's Toughest Race". In 2005 Hugh and Lance Mackey lead the second half of the race, with Lance coming across the finish line in 1st, and Hugh in 3rd (William Kleedehn snuck up from behind to take 2nd) all within an hour of each other. In the 2009 Yukon Quest, Hugh and William lead the second half of the race all the while being featured by a German film crew from ARD. An excessive time penalty assessed to Hugh and an unbroken, unmarked trail on Eagle Summit (requiring an 8 hour wait until daylight) resulted in the team missing first place by just 4 minutes. He and Sab (who came first) broke the existing Quest record by over 3 hours. |
| The Iditarod has been Hugh’s DREAM for many moons however. Having read Lew Freedman’s Iditarod Classics, Hugh became obsessed with the Great Land and "The Last Great Race on Earth". For eight years he prepared for the Iditarod when folks would get a chance to see what the Laughing Eyes Kennel team was all about. In his first year entered in the Iditarod in 2004, the team finished in 22nd place and Hugh earned the title of 'Rookie of the Year' for being the first rookie to cross the finish line. Since 2005 Hugh has been one of the few squads to complete the Yukon Quest and Iditarod in the same year. They have now completed both races in the same year a record 5 times in a row. This past year the squad finished the Iditarod in 15th place, a career best. The spent the first 800 miles in the top 5 of the race when a raging wind storm and 30 below temps held up a majority of the front 20 teams for over 30 hours and changed the outcome of the race. The history of the Laughing Eyes Kennel however, is more than a story of people, places and races. The true story lies in the dogs themselves. Please have a look at our dog pages. |
