DCHP-2

musher [< mush, v. + -er] Esp. North DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• 1 n.

  a traveller on foot or snowshoe.

  See also: mush ((v.)) (def. 2b)  mushing (def. 1)  

  • c1900  (1963)  Way up north there's a railroad,
    That was built on a track of gold;
    It followed the tracks of the mushers,
    Where they grasped the rocks for a hold.
  • 1921  A musher in soft wet snow can only go at a certain pace. Any attempt to quicken the pace results only in a fall. The shoe cannot be pushed ahead as when the snow is well-packed or crusted. It has to be deliberately lifted, putting the leg tendons to an unnatural strain.
  • 1958  The volunteer was no hardened musher, but a steamboat man named George Williams, who with an Indian companion set off on a terrifying journey

• 2 n.

  a person who drives a dog team.

  See also: dog-driver  

  • 1922  I was to go with a dog-driver or "musher" named Stewart.
  • 1944  [He gave] a brief account of the mysterious mushers on the lake, with their white dogs, and white clothes.
  • 1965  Vern Zoschke . . . topped a field of 11 "mushers" to win the Kingston Winter Carnival's dog sled racing competition.
  • 1966  . . . Paul Ben Kassi [is] the 53-year-old veteran musher from Old Crow [Y.T.].