Growing up in Wiscasset, Heidi Sutter always wanted to live somewhere with a lot of open land and not many people.

From photographs she saw of Alaska, it looked like it fit the bill. The daughter of Janet Spinney of Wiscasset and Scott Sutter of Edgecomb, moved there in 1994, at the age of 18, right after she graduated from Wiscasset High School.

She's still there, 20 years later, loving her life on the glacier-fed Chistochina River. The 38-year-old wife, mother and schoolteacher is also a dedicated musher with a kennel full of huskies.

“It's definitely a lifestyle,” Sutter said about mushing.

“I can't imagine not doing this,” she said in a telephone interview from Alaska on December 19.

Sutter first got into mushing when she answered a newspaper ad for a handler, a job that amounts to being a musher's apprentice, she said.

She learned about running the dogs and taking care of them; she got paid in Seven-Up and Snickers bars. (These days, handlers usually get a stipend, she said.)

Sutter enjoyed using the outdoor survival skills that mushing requires. “It was totally up my alley,” she said.

She and husband Darrin Lee now compete in mid-distance sled dog races ranging from 100 to 500 miles, and long-distance ones that go 1,000 miles.

About 80 sled dogs and 50 people live in Chistochina. That's fine by Sutter. She grew up around dogs and likes the close relationship with them that mushing brings.

“It's a solo journey, you and your dogs. And you're going through difficult conditions, blizzards and everything else. I'm always amazed at what the dogs do.

“You put your total trust in them and they put their trust in you.”

Each dog's place in the lineup gives it a certain job. The dogs in front provide the speed and steering, Sutter said; the ones in the back, nearer the sled, provide power and get the sled over and around obstacles.

Sutter and Lee, owners of KMA Kennel, train their dogs year-round. When there's no snow on the ground, the dogs are hitched to a four-wheeler instead of a sled. On hot days, the dogs cool off in the river.

Then, there are the extremely cold times, when Sutter’s “Artic Oven,” comes in handy.

The insulated tent stays warm inside, even at -40 F, Sutter said. A wood stove in it dries items and heats water for the dogs' food.

“You're experiencing nature the whole time,” Sutter said of the mushing life.

She was glad she missed one brush with nature in November 2012, however. She saw bear tracks, but never encountered the grizzly who made them.

“There's nothing scarier than seeing bear tracks,” particularly at that time of year, she said.

She would not have expected a grizzly to be active in November. So it may have been sick or hurt, potentially making it more dangerous, she said.

In addition to mushing, Sutter and Lee haul wood, water and supplies with their dogs.

The kennel's website at www.kmakennel.com, has profiles of the dogs and information about sponsoring them; the site also shows hats and other fur items Sutter sews and sells, yet another part of her life in the Copper River Basin.