Janelle, 17, began mushing in the spring of 2011, when her dad bought her a team. “In 2009, my family and I sailed through the North West Passage on a thirty foot wooden sail boat. We got to Nome and decided to stay there. In April of 2011, we acquired some Greenlandic Huskies and soon became interested in mushing. Later, we organized a team of dogs from a family moving out of Nome. We mushed those dogs for a winter and they taught me a lot. The next spring we purchased more dogs. I ran the 2014 Jr. Iditarod with the newly purchased dogs, and my dad ran them in several races. This year we have some new pups on the line. With the help of our handler, Tara Cicatello, we are off to a good season of mushing. We finally got some snow in Nome, and the miles are being cranked out. I look forward to providing some competition in the races to come.” Janelle is a senior at Nome Beltz, where she is in the National Honor Society, the Nome Native Youth Leadership Organization, JROTC, student council and cross country running. She said her hobby is cross country skiing. She is applying to the Coast Guard Academy and says she doesn’t expect to continue competitively musher, but she’ll see where it “all takes me.”