Waivers for dog sledding operators

A dog sledding waiver has to describe an activity most guests have never tried. Falls are the most common incident: a sled can tip on a corner, catch on a rut or stop suddenly, and guests who drive their own team can lose their grip or balance. Guests should understand that steering and braking a sled takes effort and that a team doesn't always stop when asked.

Cold is the second theme. Temperatures can sit well below minus 20, the wind on a moving sled makes it feel colder, and frostbite and hypothermia are real risks on a long run. Your waiver can remind guests to dress for the conditions and to tell a guide early when they get cold.

Then there are the dogs. Sled dogs are strong, excited working animals. They can jump, pull, nip or tangle in their lines, and guests meeting the team in the kennel yard should know that. Trail conditions complete the picture: ice, overflow on frozen rivers, deep snow, trees, stumps and wildlife on the trail.

WaiverNorth doesn't write this text for you, and it shouldn't. You publish your own wording, ideally reviewed by a lawyer, and every published version is locked, so you can always show exactly what each guest agreed to.

Mushers need enough information to plan the run and to reach someone if something goes wrong. A typical form collects each guest's full name, date of birth, email address, phone number, country and postal code, plus an optional emergency contact with a name and phone number.

Custom fields cover what is specific to your kennel: the tour date and booking number, whether the guest wants to drive a team or ride in the sled, their approximate weight for balancing teams, any fear of or allergy to dogs, and previous experience. You decide which answers are flagged for your guides, so a guest who reports a dog allergy or a medical condition is seen before the run, not halfway through it.

Custom fields range from 2 on Basic to 25 on Business, and every answer is searchable in the console and part of the CSV export. Every answer is stored with the signed waiver, so the record shows exactly what the guest told you on the day.

Many kennels sit at the end of a long road with little or no mobile coverage, and guests who didn't sign from the booking email still need to sign before they meet the dogs. The WaiverNorth kiosk runs on a tablet, installed from the browser, and keeps accepting waivers without a connection. Signed waivers wait in a queue on the device and upload on their own once the tablet is back in range.

Cold is hard on tablets. Batteries drain quickly below freezing, and screens stop responding to gloved fingers. Keep the kiosk inside the warming hut or the office, where guests sign before they gear up, and bring the tablet back in after each group. A spare charging cable and a stylus on a string solve most other problems.

Kiosks are unlimited on every plan, so a second kiosk in the tour van or at a remote trailhead costs nothing extra.

Dog sledding is a family favourite, and children often ride in the sled while a parent drives. Each child needs their own waiver, and because minors can't sign a legal release on their own, the form asks a parent or guardian to sign when the date of birth is under your age of majority. You can require the child to sign as well.

The age of majority is set per waiver: 19 in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and the three territories, and 18 in the other provinces. A minimum age stops guests who are too young for your runs before they sign.