Yukon Quest racer is next kennel ranger at Denali Park

When she's done, Raffaeli will run dogs for the federal government.

The 34-year-old Fox resident has earned the only dog mushing job in the federal government as kennel ranger for Denali National Park and Preserve.

"It's a huge honor," she said on Friday. "I'm definitely excited."

During the winter, the kennel ranger runs a pack of hefty huskies -- larger and stronger than the dogs Raffaeli will race in the Quest -- to shuttle supplies, transport other rangers and researchers, and run patrols.

She could be running dogs through the park for weeks at a time.

In the summer, caring for the dogs, showing them off to more than 50,000 visitors and administrative duties will occupy her time.

Notice of the opening brought more than 100 applications from all over the world for the job with a pay range of $33,477 to $66,542 -- plus a healthy 25 percent cost of living adjustment.

As part of the federal bureaucracy, though, there's more to it than mushing and caring for dogs.

Raffaeli and her husband, Mike, have lived in many places across the country and spent a winter outside Kotzebue -- where their closest neighbors were three hours away by dog sled.

They have been working with Anderson's Windy Creek Kennel since 2008, and Raffaeli has been an interpretive ranger for Denali the past two summers.

The previous kennel ranger, Karen Fortier, held the job for 10 years and wrote a book about Denali sled dogs.

"Karen Fortier was one of the best kennel managers that Denali has ever employed," musher Will Forsberg, who for 32 years lived on the Old Stampede Trail near the park's north boundary, said in November. "She strengthened the park's line of strong, disciplined and very intelligent sled dogs with a very good breeding and training program."

Denali dog mushing dates back to the park's inception.

When naturalist Charles Sheldon needed a guide to assist in his studies of Dall sheep during the winter of 1907-08, he hired veteran Alaska dog musher Harry Karstens, the man who was part of the first ascent of Mount McKinley in 1913 along with Hudson Stuck and Walter Harper.

Sheldon was later part of the long effort to establish Mount McKinley National Park in 1917.

Four years later, McKinley's first ranger was hired. Karstens got the job.

By 1936, 50 adult dogs and 14 pups were housed at the McKinley kennels, and they soon became one of the most popular summertime attractions for tourists.

"You're part of the history," Fortier said. "There's a whole line of dogs we've held on to, and that's special."

Daily News reporter Mike Campbell contributed to this report.