Minnesota company and employee cited for reckless driving in Alaska crash that killed 3 sled dogs

By MARK THIESSEN
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Both a Minnesota man testing a snowmobile for his employer and the company have been cited for reckless driving after the machine slammed into a sled dog team and killed three dogs in December. The State of Alaska charged Erik Johnson and Minnesota-based Polaris Inc. on Feb. 8 with the misdemeanor. Polaris says it believes its employee was operating safely at the time. The crashed occurred near the interior Alaska community of Cantwell. The musher told an Alaska state trooper that he turned his headlamp on when he saw snowmobiles coming at him on the Denali Highway. Johnson told the trooper that he saw a faint light but didn’t know what it was.