Bowland Trails
Is the home of John & Mary Carter, their two young boys, George and Bob, the boys 'Nana and Grandad', Doreen and Gary, over 40 Satanta Siberian Huskies, three Scandinavian hounds, a farm collies, two Maremma sheepdogs working as Stock Guardian Dogs, a flock of registered Hebridean sheep, some rescue hens, a Whitebred Shorthorn bull and the Glasclune Fold of Highland Cattle.
Our life with huskies all began when John was encouraged by a friend to try running his Brother and Sister-in-Law’s Siberian huskies – and once tried, was immediately hooked so began training and competing with their huskies initially. He soon got his own husky puppies which were added to the team once they came of age. John later imported two Siberian Huskies, Barrow (AKA Bow) and Superior (AKA Scoop), from one of the top racing kennels, Lokiboden, in Canada in the early 90’s – The majority of our Siberian huskies within our kennel are descendants of ‘Bow’ and he was also the inspiration for ‘Bow’land Trails name. .
Mary began handling and training with her friend's huskies, and eventually ran a borrowed team in the mid to late 1990's, getting her own huskies in 1999. John and Mary met through racing and training huskies, and married in 2007 at Bowland Trails .
We both like to get the very best out of our dogs, and consequently we have both won a multitude of British and Scottish championships with our various team sizes from 1 up to 8 dogs. Internationally, John has gained many podium places racing at Dryland European & World championships with 6 and 8 dog teams. Just recently, November 2017, John won the title of WSA World Dryland Champion, racing at the World Sleddog Association World Championships in Italy with his 8-dog team and took a bronze medal at the International Federation of Sleddog Sports World Dryland Championship in Poland.
In 2015 Mary became the IFSS World Champion by winning the World Cup with their 8 dog team, and also took 3rd place in the world cup that same year with their 4 dog team. In 2016 Mary was crowned IFSS European Champion with her 6-dog team, and in November 2017 won the Silver Medal at the IFSS World Dryland Championship in Poland.
John moved here on Halloween 2001 - and set about creating a network of trails on the 220 acre site for running his Championship winning Siberian Huskies in harness as well training other peoples lead dogs to be good command leaders.
Mary moved from Norfolk to live with John at Bowland Trails in 2006. Life took an interesting turn with the arrival of our two sons, George & Bob. They both love the huskies and also compete - both becoming British Champions in their junior categories this season.
Here is a clip of our life here, produced by a lovely photography student from Ohio University, Susannah Kay, who stayed with us a few years back as part of her studies. Needless to say, Susannah is now a professional freelance photographer.
Since then, apart from the sleddog training activities, and after many requests, we now offer the very popular Siberian husky rides – where people can take a ride as a passenger with a large team of our huskies.
Bowland trails has hosted a multitude of sleddog race events each year for various clubs and organisations. Bowland Trails often hosts the Sled Dog Association of Scotland Championship final in March, has hosted British Championship races and had the honour of hosting the European Canicross Federation European Championship race event in 2015 – which attracted competitors from 13 nations across the whole of Europe.