by Homer, Jill
The ridge abruptly ended a thousand feet above the sea, and the trail plummeted down the slope on a trail that sliced through thick brush. From the crest of this hill, I could look out toward the last vestiges of forest and the desolate, wind-swept peninsula that was home to the village of Shaktoolik. A thin white seawall split two shades of blue. The ocean was a bottomless indigo, and the land was the same color as the sky — indicating an expanse of glare ice.
My right hand was too weak to squeeze the brake lever, but there was no way to manage this descent with the front brake alone. I shoved my left hand into my right pogie and manually curled each numb finger around the lever until it was fully engaged. I would just have to descend with the rear brake locked in place. Gravity pulled me downward in awkward jerks, digging my right heel into the snow and carving as though the rear wheel was mounted to a ski. It was ugly, but got me down safely. Back at sea level, I pedaled past one final cluster of spruce trees. The forest ended, and just like that, a stiff breeze gave way to a howling gale. I had to put a foot down just to prevent myself from blowing over.
“Hello, North Wind,” I said as I turned to face the gale. My eyes were full of involuntary tears, which froze the instant they hit my cheeks. “We meet again.”
Sideways snow knifed into my face. I quickly turned away and rushed to dig my goggles out of a pannier.
“You should have done this back in the trees,” I grumbled as I pulled the goggles over my balaclava and struggled to adjust the strap as my fingers froze. I expected the wind to worsen after I ventured beyond the relative protection of the Blueberry Hills. But I could not anticipate how quickly a moderate fifteen-mile-per-hour wind could increase to forty miles an hour. It happened in an instant, like flipping a switch.
There were eight more miles to Shaktoolik, traveling due west with a fierce crosswind. The route paralleled the seawall, which was piled with driftwood and blocks of ice the size of small vehicles. Since the coast was impassable, the trail cut along sloughs and swamps just beyond the beach. Wind had polished the surface ice until it was as smooth and slippery as a mirror. Expecting my studded tires to grip into this hard ice was like asking a fork to hold tight to a plate. Since I had almost zero traction, the wind grabbed my bike like a sail and shoved me toward the seawall. Riding south, out to sea, would have been effortless. Riding west was impossible. I couldn’t even imagine turning north.
For now, western progress was necessary, so I stepped to the leeward side of my bike and commenced pushing. The purchase of my studded boots wasn’t much better than the tires. The bike pressed into my right hip, shoving me sideways. I slipped and stumbled countless times. If I dropped the bike, it skittered along the ice for several seconds before coming to a stop. Loud swearing and occasional crying followed, but my temper tantrums were short-lived, because what choice did I have?
“Eight miles, two miles an hour, that’s only four hours,” I consoled myself. Cold wind stabbed at my neck and lower back, needling into my skin through microscopic tears in my clothing. Tears froze to my eyelashes, even though they were protected beneath goggles. The ambient temperature was near zero, which would place the windchill around thirty below. With the wind pushing so hard against me, wrangling the bike became a Herculean task on top of the already strenuous effort of walking. Most of my falls happened when my bad hand gave way. Eventually a gust pushed me over, and my body slid over the ice for two terrifying seconds before coming to a stop. This brief loss of control rattled me to the core.
“The wind is really going to push me out to sea,” I thought. “They’re going to find my body washed up on shore, and wonder why this dumb California tourist went swimming. This is how I die.”
But instead of blowing out to sea, I clawed my way back on my feet. A few minutes later, the wind blew me over again. Hours passed. All of the fretting was driving me mad, so my primitive mind again took control of the wheel. The sun sank behind the sea wall, and the sky turned a deep shade of orange. The trail dipped into a gully that trapped wind-driven snow, forcing me to wade through knee-deep drifts.
Along the coast, golden sunlight streamed through holes in derelict log cabins. This was “Old Shaktoolik,” a village that stood since 1839 but was abandoned in 1967 when a destructive storm forced residents to move to a more sheltered location. New Shaktoolik was three miles downstream on the Shaktoolik River, which parallels the coast just a few hundred meters from tidewater. “Sheltered” was a relative term out on this wind-swept peninsula that probably held more water than land. After five decades, the abandoned village was little more than rubble. I gazed longingly at the disintegrating buildings, imagining the prospect of shelter.
“Three miles, only ninety more minutes to town!” I said out loud, startled by the hoarseness in my voice. This sounded ridiculous when spoken out loud, but ninety minutes is what it took.
Shaktoolik is derived from a Unaliq word meaning “the place of scattered things.” Native peoples have occupied the region for at least six thousand years, and Russians moved in during the 1840s. For nearly that long, white people have been perplexed by Shaktoolik. “The place of scattered things” is still an apt description. The wind blows incessantly here. During the fall, southerly storms slam into the coast, eroding the thin strip of sand on which the village sits. Winter brings the North Wind, and a wooden snow fence on the northern side of the river does little to prevent homes from being buried to their roofs in drifts. Spring arrives late and summer is a deluge of rain and mosquitoes. In 1900, a Nome-bound Gold Rush cyclist called Shaktoolik “the lousiest place you ever saw.” More recently, a Fairbanks-based scientist asked a local elder why Shaktoolik had been located where it was, when just eight miles away there were foothills and forest to provide shelter from the wind, firewood, and better access to building materials.
“We like the wind,” the elder replied. “It brings us fish, and the animals like to be in the wind. The wind is the Eskimo’s friend.”
Beneath violet dusk, I finally pulled onto the ice road that cut through New Shaktoolik. I was shivering because my labored but slow pace was no longer producing enough heat to keep me warm. Survival mode prevented me from becoming traumatized so far, but as I neared safety, a quiet panic intensified. I was deeply exhausted after fighting eight miles of crosswind. The next section brought fifty miles of intense headwind, and just the tiny Little Mountain shelter for respite. I still hadn’t figured out how to eat or drink properly in this weather. What would happen when my body was too depleted to produce heat, but too far from shelter to stop?
A group of children inundated me outside the village school. Many seemed remarkably under-dressed for the weather. They peppered me with questions about where I was from, and became fixated on the GPS unit mounted to my handlebars, asking if they could touch the screen. They continued to swarm as I pushed my bike inside the building. Stepping through the door was like diving from a hurricane into a warm lagoon. Suddenly everything was bright and different, but still chaotic. The gym was filled with people watching a Friday night basketball game, and more children rushed into the entryway to see this visitor and her strange bike. The crowds were nearly as overwhelming as the wind, so I mumbled something about finding the teacher’s lounge and ducked out the door.
Spending a day in a sub-Arctic hurricane is one thing, but re-emerging from shelter — no matter how brief — is violently breathtaking. Ice shards slammed into my face as I stumbled down the alleyway, gasping for air. Just venturing a hundred feet around the school felt as treacherous as winter mountaineering. A group of teenagers passed, wearing only thin hoodies and walking calmly toward the gym. This amazed me. The people of Shaktoolik must be some of the toughest people on Earth.
I found another side door to the teacher’s lounge. This was the room where I set up my refugee camp while I waited out the storm that never went away in 2015. I intended to do the same this year. First I removed all of my outer layers �
�� all thickly coated in rime — and draped them across overturned chairs to dry. While heating water in the microwave, I scrolled through weather reports on the public computer. The forecasts had become even more discouraging. This storm was as good as eternal.
I was sitting at a tiny desk, eating still-crunchy noodles out of a bag when a woman entered the room and sat down next to me. She introduced herself as Gloria, the Shaktoolik School custodian. Gloria was a petite Native woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. Her demeanor was strange — she spoke in terse sentences and her eyes darted back and forth, as though she expected to be ambushed at any moment. We struck up a conversation, and I learned that she’d only recently taken this job after an incident, which she didn’t disclose, left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Before the traumatic incident, she was a health worker. She loved that job, but couldn’t do it now. Her husband was the school’s maintenance technician, and helped her get work cleaning the building, which she was grateful to have. She had a teenage daughter who wanted to go to California and was “very into makeup and stuff.” Gloria herself had never traveled outside Alaska, and had no interest. I asked her how long she’d lived in Shaktoolik.
“Thirty-five years,” she said, which I assumed was her age. She spoke of autumn storms that were becoming increasingly more powerful, carrying away chunks of the beach and a few structures in their wake. Like many in rural Alaska, Gloria worried about the future of her village as climate change ravaged their way of life.
“What is Shaktoolik like in the fall?” I asked, imagining dark skies and salt-water hurricanes battering the driftwood sheds that lined the beach.
“Oh it is beautiful,” Gloria said. “Very beautiful.”
It was clear Gloria genuinely loved her life in this village, even with her traumas and hardships. I admired her simple passions and strong work ethic. In turn, I felt ashamed of my own frivolous pursuits, and for the fear and loathing that I harbored for Shaktoolik.
“It is beautiful here,” I agreed.
Chapter 13
Hello, North Wind. We Meet Again
Somehow the open floor of the Shaktoolik school library felt too exposed, so I set up my nest in cramped space underneath the librarian’s desk. As sheltered from the wind as I could possibly be, I tossed fitfully and shivered on top of my sleeping bag. An hour of fretting finally conceded to sleep, and it was right about then that I sensed another presence and startled awake. Mike was standing over me, still wearing his fur-lined hood and sunglasses. It was after midnight.
“Windy out there,” he said.
“How was the ride in?” I asked.
“That was tough,” he said. “Really tough. I got blown over a few times.”
“Just a few?”
“It’s nice here,” Mike said. “I had a nice chat with Moses, the maintenance guy.”
“I didn’t meet him,” I said. “I met his wife. Talked with her for a while. I’ve been here since seven. When did you leave Unalakleet?”
Mike shrugged. “Maybe noon. So when are you planning to leave tomorrow?”
“I guess whenever you get up,” I answered with a not-subtle groan. “I’ll wait for you.” I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave this indoor sanctuary at all, but I certainly didn’t want to leave before sunrise, alone.
“How long until Koyuk do you think?”
“Conservatively, twenty to twenty-five hours nonstop,” I said. “The trail is not going to be better than this last section, and the weather will be worse. I don’t even want to consider going for it in one day. My plan is to push for Little Mountain tomorrow and assess from there.”
Mike look dazed. He’d left Unalakleet twelve hours ago, still believing he’d roll into Koyuk by midnight. Now, he didn’t balk at my assessment that the next fifty miles was going to take two full days.
“That sounds like a plan,” he said.
I was up by seven in the morning, and stomped around the library loudly enough that Mike stirred as well. The online weather report showed a temperature of eight below zero and north winds steady at thirty-eight miles per hour. The headwind was just as dire as the previous year, and it was even colder. My lower lip quivered. Could I really face this once more? I didn’t ride my bike seven hundred and fifty miles across Alaska only to be shut down in Shaktoolik, again. But I didn’t want to die.
After checking the race tracker, I discovered Beat was in Ruby. I presumed he’d be at the same bed and breakfast where I stayed, so I looked up the number online, pulled a calling card out of my wallet, and picked up the library phone.
On the other line, Beat sounded sleepy and slightly annoyed. “I was just about to leave,” he said. “Peter is going to drop out of the race. He’s okay, just done. Eric shouldn’t be far behind me.”
I pressed Beat for more information about Peter quitting, since it’s rare for an Iditarod racer to make it so far and then drop out unless something goes drastically wrong. Beat speculated that Peter struggled after falling in the Tatina River, and finally lost his resolve when he realized that after everything he’d been through, he was still only halfway through the race, five hundred miles from anything else. I considered this for a moment and then launched into my concerns, which boiled down to conviction that the North Wind would certainly kill me. I hinted for Beat’s approval to drop out of the race myself.
“Just go to the cabin,” Beat said. “Rest up and then decide. You’ve come a long way. I know the conditions are very dangerous, and you have to be careful. But this is what it comes down to.”
“I know,” I said. “This is the crux.”
Beat gave me tips for facing the North Wind: Put on a down coat every time you stop. Don’t expose your skin for more than a few seconds. Your bivy is probably capable of saving your life, but avoid it at all costs.
I’d been naive to believe the Iditarod Trail would let me off so easily. The hand numbness, the battering crashes, the endlessly bumpy trail and fatigue — these were challenges. But I could breathe and I was alive, so it had been all too doable so far. The sea ice was the real test. If I passed, I still might not finish the race. But if I triumphed against my fear of the North Wind, that might be the largest victory of my life — even greater than reaching Nome.
The sky was clear and the wind as fierce as ever by the time Mike and I finally ventured outside. It was ten in the morning, and Shaktoolik’s single street was empty of traffic and covered in drifted snow. We took a minute to readjust all of the layers we’d carefully applied — for me, every single piece of clothing I brought with me besides my down pants, down coat, rain shell, and extra underwear and socks. My goggles were firmly tightened beneath a balaclava and two hoods, but I panicked when a patch of fog appeared inside the lens and loosened them slightly. A piece of windproof fleece draped over my nose and mouth, with a strip of silnylon to capture the moisture from my breath and drain it into an ice goatee below my chin. Mike wore his puffy jacket with the fur-lined hood cinched as tight as possible. Ice clung to strands of fur beneath his chin, which made him look like Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster, with a human nose. I asked him if the hood obstructed his vision.
“It’s like this Chewbacca tunnel,” he replied.
On our way out of town we encountered Iditarod volunteers who directed us to the trail intersection, which I’d already forgotten after one year. Pedaling over relatively clear glare ice, we paralleled a mostly demolished snow wall until it ended. A wooden tripod marked the passage beyond. It was here that we left the last vestiges of wind blocks and turned due north. The wind’s low howls became deafening, and air pushed so forcefully against my face mask that I felt like I was being smothered with a wet towel. All around us was an unbroken white expanse, encircled by distant mountains.
Mike offered to lead, and I tucked in behind him. Drafting off another cyclist in this wind was like hiding behind a telephone pole in a hurrica
ne. In short, why bother? Following a target provided a helpful psychological boost, however. With my head lowered, I admired Mike’s big boots as they churned methodically into an invisible wall.
After forty-five minutes my breathing had become shallow, so I announced that I needed to pee. With not even a blade of grass to duck behind, this task was as incommodious as it sounds. I stepped a few feet off the trail into a knee-deep drift, pulled down four layers of pants and underwear as the flash-freezing windchill slammed into my exposed backside, turned to squat with my face to the wind, emptied my bladder as quickly as possible, then turned around again, admiring the impressively long yellow fan in the snow as I yanked up my pants so hastily that I missed a layer or two. I yanked at my tights wedgie as I sprinted back to the trail.
“How far do you think we’ve gone?” Mike asked as I grunted to lift the enormous bike off the ground. “Four, five miles?”
“Do you really want to know?” I said, and before he could refuse, answered. “Two miles. Not quite.”
“Two?” he said, shaking his Chewbacca tunnel in disbelief. While standing still we faced south, where Shaktoolik’s single row of buildings lined the horizon. They still looked close enough to hit with a stone.
“It’s going to be a long day,” I said.
Over soft, ever-shifting trail, Mike and I churned into the wind. Occasionally closing my eyes to “rest” them, I imagined the world’s steepest sand dune. We were both laboring at that strenuous limit where most cyclists choose to step off their bikes and start pushing. Still, every time we declared a “walking break,” the effort became no easier, and our paces slowed from the two-mile-per-hour range to less than one. My GPS wouldn’t even register these speeds. It declared us stopped, and we might as well have been.