Monday, Feb 8, 2010
Jennifer Raffaeli of Fox, Alaska will come on board in mid-April as Denali National Park and Preserve’s kennels manager, the only job of its kind in the national park system. Although it will be a new position for Raffaeli, she is no stranger to the park. She has worked for the past two summers as a park ranger-interpreter in the East District, and as part of her regular duties led the popular sled dog interpretive presentations.
Jenniferi brings to her new position a wealth of mushing, wilderness guiding, backcountry travel, and environmental education experience. She has worked as a handler or guide with sled dog operations in Alaska, Minnesota, and the northern Sierra Nevada in California, and has been an instructor with a variety of wilderness trekking and environmental education programs, including Outward Bound, Leave No Trace, Yosemite Institute, and Environmental Traveling Companions.
One of her passions is rafting, and she has completed some major personal wilderness expeditions in Alaska, including an eight-day long first packraft descent of the Bull River, continuing downstream on the West Fork Chulitna and Chulitna Rivers, and a fifteen-day trip on the HulaHula River from the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Sea, passing through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Her expeditions haven’t been limited to roadless wilderness, as in 2001 she completed a two-month, 2,500 mile, self-supported bicycle expedition from Alaska to Minnesota.
Jennifer is currently spending a second winter dog handling for musher Ken Anderson of Fox, and is very busy preparing for her rookie run in this year’s Yukon Quest, which starts February 6th in Fairbanks. She completed the Copper Basin 300 sled dog race in January 2010.
She is married to Michael Raffaeli, a seasonal interpretive ranger, who is also an avid musher and adventurer.
Anchorage Daily News article Yukon Quest racer is next kennel ranger at Denali Park.
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