OUTDOORS B1
SPORTS A5
Enjoying snowshoeing, sans snowshoes
Baker wrestlers best Nyssa, 52-23
IN THIS EDITION: LOCAL • OUTDOORS & REC • SPORTS
Serving Baker County since 1870 • bakercityherald.com
JANUARY 22, 2022 • $1.50
COVID
cases
near
monthly
record
QUICK HITS
—————
Good Day Wish
To A Subscriber
A special good day to
Herald subscriber Cyndee
Cottrell of Baker City.
BRIEFING
—————
Local students on
Montana State
dean’s list
BOZEMAN, Montana
— Two local students were
named to the academ-
ic honor roll for the fall
semester at Montana State
University.
Hayden Owen of Durkee,
and Michelle Williams of
North Powder were both
named to the dean’s list by
earning a GPA of at least
3.5 in at least 12 col-
lege-level credits.
Concert in Pendleton
limited to family
members
Due to rising COVID
cases, the Oregon East
Symphony’s youth orches-
tra concert on Jan. 27 in
Pendleton will limit atten-
dance to family members.
This change came after the
printing of Go! Magazine.
Chili feed, singalong
Jan. 23 at Wolf Creek
Grange
NORTH POWDER — The
Wolf Creek Grange in North
Powder will have a chili
feed and singalong on Sun-
day, Jan. 23, starting at 1
p.m. Cost for the chili feed
is $5 per person, and $10
for a family.
WEATHER
—————
Today
36/15
Mostly sunny
Sunday
33/16
Partly sunny
Monday
34/17
Partly sunny
Full forecast on the back
of the B section.
The space below is for a postage label
for issues that are mailed.
Hospitalizations,
deaths statewide
have dropped
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Onlookers cheer Sofie Kaaen of Baker City and her dog team as they take off from the start of the Eagle Cap. Extreme Sled Dog Race at
Ferguson Ridge Ski Area on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. Kaaen was the lone competitor in the 22-mile juniors race.
Baker City girl competing in
Eagle Cap Extreme sled dog race
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Sofie Kaaen is used to
starting a race among a pack
of competitors.
She’s not used to doing
so while balancing on the
back of a sled being pulled
by five enthusiastic and ath-
letic dogs.
Kaaen, a 14-year-old fresh-
man at Baker High School
who placed 37th at the Ore-
gon Class 4A cross-country
championships in Novem-
ber, has swapped her run-
ning shoes and shorts for in-
sulated boots and other attire
more suitable for an arctic
excursion.
On Thursday afternoon,
Jan. 20, Kaaen guided her
team of five dogs for 22 miles
through Wallowa County’s
backcountry in the first stage
of the Eagle Cap Extreme
sled dog race.
She said her debut as
a musher was all that she
hoped it would be.
“It was pretty exciting,”
Kaaen said in a phone in-
terview that evening from
Joseph, headquarters for the
race, which returned this
year after being canceled in
2021 due to the pandemic.
“Everybody was very sup-
Sofie Kaaen/Contributed Photo
Sofie Kaaen managed to get a selfie of herself while competing in
the Eagle Cap Extreme sled dog race on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, in
Wallowa County.
portive and I learned a lot
from the veterans.”
That assistance actu-
ally started long before the
mushers led their teams
away from the start at Fer-
guson Ridge Ski Area east
of Joseph.
Kaaen said Chantelle
Chase, a musher who also
lives in Baker City and is
competing in the Eagle Cap
Extreme, helped train her
dogs, including on days when
Kaaen was at school.
“She was a huge help,”
Kaaen said of Chase, who
is competing in the 31-mile
race this year.
(There are also 100-mile
and 200-mile races.)
Kaaen’s entry into compet-
itive mushing is not exactly
coincidental.
Her grandfather, Wayne
Kaaen, is a longtime musher
who competed in the inaugu-
ral Eagle Cap Extreme in Jan-
uary 2005.
Sofie said her grandpa,
who lives in Halfway, has
been a valuable mentor.
“He would always teach me
stuff and tell me about mush-
ing,” she said. “He helped me
with getting dogs and train-
ing them.”
She has three dogs, two of
which were part of her team
on Thursday, Jan. 20.
Ellie May, who is the lead
dog, and Sparky, the wheel
dog, are both 11-year-old
Alaskan huskies.
As wheel dog, Sparky is the
first dog in front of the sled.
He’s the strongest runner,
Kaaen said.
With 11 days left in the
month, January 2022 was close
to setting a record for most
COVID-19 cases.
The Baker County Health
Department reported 40 new
cases on Thursday, Jan. 20.
That brought the monthly to-
tal to 430.
The record for a month is
465 cases, in September 2021.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity (OHA) reported on Thurs-
day, Jan. 20, that although new
cases statewide rose by 11%
for the period Jan. 10-16, and
testing also reached a record
weekly high with 320,710 done
from Jan. 9-15, the number
of both newly hospitalized
COVID-19 patients, and deaths
related to the virus, dropped.
There were 441 newly hos-
pitalized patients from Jan.
9-15, compared with 486 the
previous week.
And the OHA recorded 83
COVID-19-related deaths
from Jan. 9-15, 20 fewer than
the previous week.
The total number of
COVID-19 patients in Ore-
gon hospitals has increased,
however, to 981 on Jan. 20, up
by 204 from a week earlier.
In a forecast released on
Thursday, Jan. 20, the Oregon
Health & Science University
projected that the surge driven
by the highly contagious omi-
cron variant will peak on Feb. 1,
and then cases will drop rapidly.
Breakthrough cases
Although experts say the
omicron variant is more adept
at infecting vaccinated people
than previous variants, Or-
egon’s latest report of break-
through cases — infections in
vaccinated residents — showed
a significant decrease for the
most recent week.
See, Race/Page A3
See, COVID/Page A3
Wolf Committee awards
$87,000 in compensation
County
discusses
ambulance
service
BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com
The Baker County Wolf
Depredation Compensation
Committee on Wednesday,
Jan. 19, approved $87,000 in
payments to county ranch-
ers whose cattle were killed
by wolves last year, who
have missing cattle, or as
compensation for work they
have done to deter wolves.
The committee received
requests from about 10
ranchers, mostly in the east-
ern part of the county.
Wolves from the Look-
out Mountain pack killed
at least nine head of cattle
and injured three others
from July through Septem-
ber 2021. Those repeated
attacks prompted Curt
Melcher, director of the Or-
egon Department of Fish
TODAY
Issue 107
12 pages
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife/Contributed Photo
Two wolves from the Walla Walla pack in Umatilla County photo-
graphed by a remote-controlled camera on Jan. 13, 2017.
and Wildlife (ODFW) to
authorize state employees
to kill eight wolves from
the pack.
Classified ....................B2-B4
Comics ..............................B5
Community News.............A3
Committee members are
Baker County Commis-
sioner Mark Bennett, Curt
Jacobs, Tom Van Diepen,
Crossword ...............B2 & B4
Dear Abby .........................B6
Horoscope ..............B3 & B4
Evan Kaseberg, Levi
Bunch, Cindy Birko and
Shella DelCurto.
Birko and DelCurto were
absent from the Jan. 19
meeting.
The committee approved
compensation for these
ranchers who had animals
killed or injured by wolves
last year:
• Deven Thompson, one
calf, $850 (full amount re-
quested)
• Phillips Cattle Co.,
$3,120 for three dead calves
(full amount)
• Glenora Wright,
$2,509.15 for two steer
calves (full amount)
• Carlton Anderson,
$850 for one calf (full
amount)
Letters ...............................A4
Lottery Results .................A2
News of Record ................A2
See, Wolves/Page A3
Obituaries .........................A2
Opinion .............................A4
Outdoors .................B1 & B2
Baker City wants
to continue as
ambulance
provider
BY SAMANTHA O’CONNER
soconner@bakercityherald.com
Baker County Commis-
sioners discussed the Ambu-
lance Service Area contract
with Baker City, a vital source
of revenue for the city’s fire
department, during a meet-
ing Wednesday, Jan. 19, at the
Courthouse.
Commissioners didn’t make
any decisions about the con-
tract and will discuss it again at
a future meeting.
See, County/Page A3
Sports ...............................A5
Turning Backs ..................A2
Weather ............................B6