Out in the distance in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, 15-year-old Sophia Johnston heard a familiar sound — a team of sled dogs barking.

Johnston knows her team of nine Siberian-mix dogs is anxious for her arrival when they hear her snowmobile approaching a kilometre away.

Tethered to their doghouses, they jump and bark, demanding her attention. Johnston has had them for a couple of years now.

“They’re spread out just enough so they can’t reach each other because they like to get tangled,” she told Juanita Taylor for CBC Radio ’s Unreserved.

It was a frigid –24 C Saturday in February. Even on cold days, dogs need to be fed.

Johnston was also going to take them for a run this day. That’s their second love in life — after her, of course.

But before harnessing a selected few, she checked on a new litter of pups that her dad put in a tent to keep away from the other dogs and the cold winds. The three newborn pups are nestled in straw in a wooden box with their mom, Sophia’s lead dog, Siti.

Sophia said since Siti’s been out of the pack nursing her babies, the other dogs haven’t been listening as well. As lead dog, Siti typically “puts them in their place,” Johnston said.

Johnston knows their personalities of her dogs very well.

“There’s Buddy, she’s really energetic,” she said, pointing to one that was named by her nine-year-old brother, Myles. Out of the bunch, Buddy is Myles’s dog.

She also points out Bullum — “chubby” in Inuktitut — who’s very affectionate and “loves to hug everybody.” There’s also Kangutaq, who is shy, and friendly Pujuq, and Aklak, who is strong and “runs around a lot.”

Keeping this dog team is not just a hobby for Johnston. She doing it as a way to help preserve her Inuit culture.

“I think it’s a really good tradition. It represents a lot of the hardships of Inuit, you know, and how they had to use their dogs and go hunting and stuff,” she said.

Before snowmobiles, Inuit used dog teams for transportation to move from camp to camp, to hunt and fish, and provide for their families. They could also provide protection at times against predators such as polar bears and wolves.

But in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, over 1,000 sled dogs, or qimmiiit, were slaughtered by police and other authorities across Nunavut and Nunavik.

A 2010 inquiry report from Jean-Jacques Croteau, a retired Superior Court of Quebec judge, found Quebec provincial police officers had killed sled dogs at the time “without any consideration for their importance to Inuit families.”

And in November 2025, the Canadian government formally apologized for its role in the mass killing of Nunavik sled dogs.

The Qikiqtani Truth Commission also investigated similar allegations in Nunavut’s Baffin region and found that a number of factors — including police officers killing dogs — led to a rapid decline in the sled dog population.

Harry Towtongie, the mayor of Rankin Inlet and a sled dog racer of over 30 years, recalls hearing stories about dog slaughters in parts of the Kivalliq region as well. He described how Inuit would travel with their dog teams to a community for supplies (disclaimer: Harry Towtongie is the author’s father-in-law).

“When they went back to their community, their dogs got killed off,” he said.

Government-ordered dog slaughters in the area have not been verified.

‘Amazing time of our life’

In the 1980s, Towtongie says he organized some of the first dog team races Rankin Inlet had seen in decades. The event drew people from all across the Arctic.

Towtongie’s face lights up as he recalls it.

“We did it! People from Arviat, Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cove, Rankin, Yellowknife. They all came in, about 32 teams or something,” he said.

“It’s just amazing time of our life, for that time.”

Towtongie travelled for decades competing in hundreds of sled dog races. But he doesn’t own a dog team anymore. It’s a full-time commitment, he says, and something he isn’t able to do now.

Choking back tears, he says what he misses the most are the friends he made across Canada, “especially my Cree friends.”

Over time, many of those original dog team racers passed away, and Towtongie says the sport became less popular. At the same time, people were taking up other hobbies like hockey.

“People who all had dogs in our era, they are all gone,” Towtongie said.

‘I kept telling her … get your own dogs’

Sophia Johnston first developed her own passion for having a dog team after she was encouraged by another dog team owner in the community, John McLeod.

It was McLeod who gave Sophia her first team of six dogs.

“I don’t know why I talked her into it, but I kind of pushed her that way,” McLeod said, sitting at his kitchen table in a cabin he lives in outside of Rankin Inlet.

McLeod says he moved North when he was young and it was Inuit like his father-in-law and brother-in-law who taught him all he knows about owning a dog team.

That includes making gear like harnesses and whips out of ugjuk — bearded seal skin — and clothing out of caribou to stay warm while running dogs.

McLeod says Sophia would come after school to hang out with his dogs before she had a team and he saw her potential.

“I kept telling her to … get your own dogs and all that, right? And then eventually she did,” he said.

Owning and maintaining a dog team costs money, and that’s why Sophia Johnston’s dad, Kyle Johnston, goes out fishing all year round to help feed the dogs. Sophia’s parents have been supportive of her passion.

“Every two to three days I’m out doing netting, and I also work full time,” said Kyle, who has been teaching shop class at the high school since 2009.

“So you finish a full day of work, suit up, drive out. If everything goes well, you’re back by 10 p.m. at night, have your supper and go to bed.”

Sophia says they also feed her dogs caribou and muskox, animals harvested near the community. And when they’re out of country food they feed the dogs kibble, although that can get expensive.

Kyle and Sophia make a dynamic father-daughter team, caring for the dogs.

“Sophia is pretty remarkable,” Kyle said. “She’ll go one minute from being out there shoveling up all the dog stuff, to cleaning out houses, to do herself right up and go and see some friends.

“She’s a very well-rounded young lady.”

On that frigid Saturday last month, Sophia decided to run three dogs.

She and Kyle strapped on harnesses and lined them up, using a kick sled for Sophia to stand on. Other times she also uses a qamutik, the traditional Inuit way, where she lies on her stomach.

“I get really happy when they’re working together and following directions — but I love the scenery and how peaceful it is,” she said.

Kyle headed out first on his snowmobile, leading the dog team toward the frozen Hudson Bay coast.

The team got going, and Sophia was off.