trucks claimed spots near the mushers’ clubhouse. The snouts of curious dogs poked through holes in the boxes mounted on the rear of the trucks. Some barked frantically; others harmonized in a howling chorus.
Iditarod veterans Ray and Diana Dronenburg had brought over a dozen dogs to the track that morning, planning to let one of their kennel sponsors compete. Afterward they would take larger teams out on a serious training run. The sponsor was late. The Dronenburgs went ahead and drew for him, pulling the third position. With time running out, he remained a no-show. Diana asked if I wanted to fill in.
No one could challenge my credentials as a “cheechako,” a gold-rush term for newcomers to the North. Originally from the East Coast, I was just starting my second winter in Alaska. I’d never touched a dogsled. My professional driving experience consisted of two and a half years of driving a cab in New York City.
Within moments, I was wearing the number 3 bib and testing my balance on the thin sled runners. Diana coached me on the dogs’ names. Ray held them back.
“Three! Two! One!” The sled jerked forward, and we were off.
I wobbled around the opening turn, precariously maintaining my balance. Then I nearly fell off trying to imitate a real sled-dog racer, kicking my heel backward to spur on the dogs. I didn’t dare shout “Gee” or “Haw,” uncertain which of those fundamental commands meant right and which meant left. Instead I yelled “Hike, hike, hike,” a mushing term for “go.”
Tongues flapped. Paws flew. Aside from my idiotic cries, the only sound was the panting of the dogs and the whisper of sled runners slicing through the snow.
“Now this is Alaska!” I cried, feeling exultant.
I covered the looping 3-mile trail in 12 minutes, 7 seconds. Good enough for thirteenth place. Better yet, it was 2 minutes faster than Mowry. In the story that resulted, Tim compared his defeat at the hands of this “tall, skinny political reporter” to “a cowboy losing a bull-riding contest to an accountant.”
“A dark day for the sportswriters around this country indeed,” he wrote.
That had been four years ago. Driving dogs leased from Joe Redington, Sr., the founder of the Iditarod, the Mowth had gone on to race in the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest and two Iditarods, winning the “Most Improved Musher” award for a twenty-seventh-place showing in his second trip to Nome. I’d reported on more big races than Mowry had, but I hadn’t mushed dogs more than a handful of times. It was madness to even consider running the Iditarod. But if I didn’t try, the missed opportunity would torment me forever. Aware that I was taking action more significant than anything likely to occur on the Senate floor, I signed the application, listing myself as “driver” for a dog team I didn’t yet possess.
Those who live in dog country dissect the Iditarod’s entry list like the Yankees’ batting order on opening day. So I wasn’t surprised by the question that greeted me as I entered Blackie’s Goose Bay Bar in Knik on the return trip from Juneau. “Brian, whose dogs are you using?” yelled Marcie, who was working the bar.
Drawing a brew, she quizzed me about my plans. We talked about budgets, places to train, and who might have extra dogs to sell or lease. Messages were waiting when I got back to Fairbanks late that night. Marcie had a deal. A whole team was for sale. Twenty-eight dogs. Excellent bloodlines. Many were related, she said, to a dog named Elvis from Swenson’s kennel, a claim that later proved untrue. Bottom line: $4,000 cash.
The dogs belonged to a young Knik musher named Spencer Mayer. He was what Marcie called a “dream musher”—a guy who put together a good team, trained the dogs to perfection — but never quite got it together to enter races.
Spencer was married, with a young child. He’d landed a construction job in Dutch Harbor, a booming port in the distant Aleutians. It fell on his father, Herman Mayer, to tend the dogs. Spencer’s father had a four-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicle he wasn’t using. Marcie and Kevin needed one for training their dogs in the off season. Just watching that fine machine sitting there rusting was more than Marcie could stand.
“Herman,” she said. “sell me the four-wheeler.”
“I’m not selling my damn four-wheeler,” he said.
“Herman, you’re not riding it! Give it to me!”
“Well,” Mayer said, “I tell you what. You sell my son’s dog team, and I’ll give it to you.”
Marcie always got her way.
Mowry wanted to close the deal without delay. Old Joe Redington had repossessed his dogs, and Tim didn’t want us to miss out on these affordable replacements. I wasn’t so eager to buy an entire yard of sled dogs. I had planned to ease into mushing, lining up lease deals for training in, say, October. But Mowry had it worked out: He would buy the kennel and rent me a team for $4,000. He had already talked to his father about a loan. The Old Man was agreeable. It was the sort of livestock investment that made sense to his folks back at Mowacres Dairy in New York.
The deal landed me a team for the race at a price within my budget, and it provided me with a coach and kennel partner. The Mowth wouldn’t be racing this year, but he owned his own sled dogs at last.
When she felt like it, Raven was our kennel’s speed queen. Refreshed by a full belly and a four-hour nap, she was having fun on the return trip from Skwentna as we made tracks toward the Klondike finish line. Bounding gaily, the princess and Rainy set a blistering pace down the hard-packed river trail. It was a windless, balmy night. Sipping chicken-noodle soup, I danced aboard the sled runners, keeping time to a Stevie Ray Vaughan tape wailing through my Walkman. The river here was about 100 yards across. The ice was concealed under a rolling white avenue. Steep banks rose on either side. Old trees leaned inward at the high-water mark, dark silhouettes against the deep blue sky.
The party ended 10 miles from Yentna Roadhouse. Beast was stumbling. The young female kept tripping on the lines and falling with a glazed look in her eyes. The fun gone, Raven began balking, drawing back against the neckline connecting her to Rainy and searching for any escape.
“It’s OK, princess,” I whispered, stroking the trembling girl between the ears. “You did just fine tonight.”
I switched Raven back and placed White Rat in lead. An extremely intelligent female, she remained my personal favorite despite a tendency to slack off at every opportunity. Rat was on her best behavior tonight, but Gnat, a meek unseasoned male, seized every pause, dip, or tangle to sit down.
We’d covered 120 miles in less than 24 hours, and both Gnat and Beast verged on surrender. Mowry had warned me about this: “The thing with young dogs is they have to get past that point where they think they’re going to die.”
I took a long break and gave the team a snack. The breather refreshed everybody. Afterward Gnat and the Beast shared the work, holding their lines tight as the team hauled my sled up the steep bank fronting Yentna Station, Dawn was breaking through a mist of sprinkling rain.
Other racers were discussing the wisdom of laying over at the checkpoint, delaying their final push until the cool evening hours. It was unseasonably hot—30 degrees. Too hot for sled dogs. But I wasn’t listening. Rummy with lack of sleep, I had a raging case of finish-line fever. We were running in the top ten. Who knows how high we could go?
I made arrangements to drop Gnat and Beast at the checkpoint. Had I stayed and rested through the day, I could have taken them with me. But I was no longer treating the Klondike as a mere qualifier, with added benefits as a training run: I had shifted into racing mentality. While the other dogs rested, I went over my sled, dumping every ounce of unnecessary weight. In the process, I set aside the sac holding the team’s snacks. I planned to put it back absolutely last so that it would remain within easy reach.
Five hours after our arrival at Yentna Station, I pulled the hook, sending my dogs charging over the bank. Sunshine had burned away the clouds. Over the next hours, it baked us. My Fairbanks-conditioned dogs were reduced to plodding.
It was sundown by the time we finally reached the junction of the Yentna and the Big Su. This kind of passage always scared me. The broad river’s uneven surface hinted at unseen forces that might suddenly break loose, leaving unlucky travelers swimming or clinging to teetering chunks of ice. But soon I was treated to a view that brushed fears aside. The sinking sun was firing a rosy salute along Mount Susitna’s curves. From the west, a headlike ridge rose to a mountainous shoulder, dipped, then expanded to a hip, which descended in a leggy sprawl. Or maybe Susitna was resting on her back, showing off her bosomlike ridge. From either perspective, it was easy to see why locals called the formation Sleeping Lady.
