I hit the panic button with 36 hours remaining until supplies were due at Iditarod’s Fairbanks collection drop center. I called Anna, my photographer friend Nora, Sam the editor, Wilda and her husband, Charlie, everyone I knew — begging for help. Sunday, the yard was full of helpers bagging toilet paper, fish, spare underwear, batteries, headlamp bulbs, and runner plastic.
Wilda dragged along her dad, who was visiting from Kentucky. He pitched right in, chopping meat with an axe. Our whole operation fascinated him: the dogs watching from the woods; the sleds leaning on the shed; even the cabin interior, strewn with harnesses, lines, and cold-weather gear. The day spent helping an Iditarod musher became the highlight of his Alaska trip.
By nightfall, the work party had filled 60 sacks, each color-coded for one of the 21 checkpoints where we mushers could expect to find our provisions waiting. The next day friends and I delivered the sacks to a local freight company that was assisting with the race. My contributions were weighed, sorted, and added to the pallets bound for various checkpoints. Freight handlers waited until the pallet loads reached about 6 feet tall, then stepped forward to seal them with giant rolls of plastic wrap. Fairbanks handled only a third of this year’s Iditarod field, yet the sheer tonnage was immense. My team’s load alone weighed 2,094 pounds and cost me $523 to ship.
Rounding a turn, I saw a moose on the river ahead. It was a tall bull, plunging through deep snow. The dogs quickened their trot as they caught sight of him. I lifted my foot off the brake, letting the dogs break into a free lope. It was unlikely the moose would change direction and bother us, but you never knew. Moose are unpredictable as hell.
I didn’t want any surprises to mar this gorgeous day. It was 15 below, just cold enough to envelop the team in a flowing fog of exertion. The sun hung low over the river, creating orange streamers between the blue trees. Seven dogs were pulling my sled. The sunlight set their breath ablaze, wrapping the team in a warm glow.
As we neared the river, the trail rose and fell along a series of man-sized dips. Topping one of the rises, I saw a dark mound ahead. The trail dropped again before I could make it out. Something odd was coming up. I braced as the sled climbed another slight hill. Hair, I could see hair. A moose. Oh God.
Then I realized it was dead.
The dogs slowed to sniff the carcass. “All right! All right!” I cried, forestalling any thoughts of stopping. Where there’s one, there are often others.
“A person’s crazy to go out without a gun,” Rattles had said. “With all this snow, those moose are desperate. They won’t give up the trail.”
I didn’t even own a gun, so I was a real Alaskan oddity. I’d arranged to borrow Cyndi’s.357-caliber pistol for the race. The gun was waiting for me 360 miles south. Here in town, Madman had offered me his old rifle — if I ever got around to picking it up. I’d been trusting luck to dodge the sort of encounter that postponed Susan Butcher’s first appearance in the Iditarod winner’s circle.
1985 was supposed to be Susan’s year. No woman had ever won Redington’s Great Race, but Butcher had placed second in two of the three previous years, and her 17-dog team led the race crossing the Big Su. Traveling through a spruce thicket soon afterward, Butcher and her dogs came upon a large cow moose blocking their path. The musher threw her sled over and braced for the moose’s charge, which, experience told her, would carry the brute through the team. But this angry cow was far more destructive. Wading into the middle of the team, the moose reared on its hind legs and began stomping and kicking.
The carnage lasted for about 20 minutes until fellow racer Dewey Halverson mushed to the rescue. He emptied his.44-caliber special into the enraged moose, which continued kicking dogs until the last bullet brought it down. Susan’s dog Johnny was dead. Another dog named Hyde died after five hours on the operating table. Two more needed surgery, and thirteen others were injured. The distraught Butcher scratched, clearing the way for Libby Riddles’ march to glory.
This year Alaska’s interior was reeling from an invasion of the long-legged brutes. Starving, irritable from battling the unusually deep snow, moose were in no mood to mingle peacefully. Finding it easier going on packed trails, roads, and railroad tracks, many refused to surrender their right of way to anything, including trains. The carnage was particularly gruesome along the northern railroad corridor. It got so bad that the Alaska Railroad provided counseling for engineers freaked by the nightly gore. At least locomotive drivers knew they would come out on top. Moose held the advantage over unarmed mushers.
Dave Dalton, a fellow Fairbanks musher, could testify to that. A few miles after leaving his kennel, his Dalton Gang team had met an angry moose head-on. The moose’s charge didn’t do any damage, but it was likely to get a second shot. The team had no other route home. Dalton had his pistol ready on the return trip. Sure enough, the moose was waiting. It flared its nose and barreled into the team. Taking aim, Dalton squeezed the trigger.
The gun jammed.
The moose crashed into the sled, sending the musher flying. The Gang made a clean getaway. Dave’s situation remained ticklish. He was chest-deep in snow, looking upward at a huge bull that was snorting with anger.
Very, very carefully Dalton backed away from the trail, watching the moose the whole way. When he was safely out of view, he slowly circled around the trail’s new owner and walked home. He found the Dalton Gang waiting for him there.
I’d had my own creepy moments — nights when the dogs’ ears had suddenly perked up and the headlamp had revealed fresh tracks ahead. So far, today’s carcass was the only moose we’d actually touched. Close enough. I was a fool for putting off getting the gun from Madman.
Leaving the river behind, I relaxed. That dead moose was miles behind us. The trail broke into the open, crossing several fields, then turned down a narrow tree-lined tunnel. Midway down that shaded passage, like apparitions, two menacing brown shapes rose from the snow ahead. It was a large cow and her calf. They blocked our path, only 15 yards ahead. The dogs were wild to chase them. I dug in with the brake, but the soft, deep snow offered almost nothing to grip. It was a struggle holding them back. No way could I secure the sled and turn the team around.
The cow moose was eager to avoid us. She lurched into the woods, but the calf wouldn’t follow. It continued stumbling down the center of the trail, breaking through the crust with its spindly legs. The cow took a parallel course, plowing a new path through the deep snow blanketing the woods.
The dogs clawed steadily forward. It was all I could do to maintain a gap. The trail finally emerged onto a plowed road. The moose scrambled to get away. I let off the brake, and we chased them until they ran back into the woods. Another crisis, passed.
Mowry and I dropped by Madman’s the next day. We left toting a.306-caliber rifle.
Training an Iditarod team made a mess of my working life. At top speed my dogs covered, maybe, 10–12 miles an hour. Add in the time required to get the team ready, then put them away, and it took as long as four hours to complete a 20-mile training run. Try to take a team 50 miles, and a whole day would be shot.
My bosses at the paper were supportive. Sam, the city editor, had grown up with a dog team. He knew what I was talking about when I’d show up an hour late, explaining that Rainy had got loose again and danced, just out of reach, for 45 minutes. But even Sam failed to grasp my overall predicament. Owning a recreational dog team didn’t compare with preparing for the Iditarod.
Take the meat shipment from Montana. For nearly a week, Mowry and I were on call, waiting for word from Rick Armstrong, the organizer of Two Rivers’ bulk delivery. The day Tim fled east for the holidays, I found a message waiting on my return from the airport. Naturally, the damn delivery truck was finally here. And I was already late to work.
Rushing over to the pickup site, I found Joe Garnie and half a dozen other mushers waiting by the semi in their empty pickups. Garnie was from Teller, an Inupiat village northeast of Nome. He’d recently moved to the Interior.
Like the knuckle hop, ear pull, and other traditional contests held at the annual World Eskimo-Indian Olympics, sled-dog racing has long been a source of friendly rivalry among Alaska’s regional and ethnic communities. Athabaskan mushers from the Interior river villages held the edge during the early 1970s, dominating the established sprint circuit and Redington’s new race to Nome. Advances in nutrition and conditioning strategies helped mushers such as Rick Swenson and Susan Butcher eventually outdistance the Athabaskan drivers, but the kennel bloodlines of most champions were still rooted in the Indian villages.
