Since she was a child, Julie Baker of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has wanted to ride with sled dogs—called mushing—and live in Alaska. To Baker, working for more than four months this summer in Alaska’s Denali National Park is an experience of a lifetime.

“Being at Denali National Park, with one of the largest tracts of protected wilderness, is an amazing opportunity to see what life can be like without extraneous influences from man,” Baker says.

A senior in the IU Bloomington School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER), Baker, 23, plans to complete her bachelor’s degree in August 2005 after her internship is done. At IU, Baker is a student in HPER’s Recreation and Administration Department, and her focus is outdoor recreation and resource management. She would like to be a musher and manage Denali or another park in Alaska. “I'd love to mush in competitive races such as the Iditarod and Yukon Quest some day,” Baker says.

This summer, she will work with 30 sled dogs who are on vacation. Baker talks about her internship and what she hopes to learn from it.