March 20, 1994
Front Street, Nome, Alaska
I’m standing on Front Street in Nome under the burled arch at the end of the Iditarod Trail. It’s early Sunday evening. The cold sun is just setting over the Bering Sea to the west. Wind is gusting from the north and snow is whipping from every cross street. At the far eastern end of the street, where the road from Safety Roadhouse and Cape Nome turns off the beach, I can see a police car with its red and blue lights flashing, escorting a solitary musher and his team back into civilization after the long, lonely journey from Anchorage.
The musher is Ron Aldrich, whom I’ve known for 20 years and who is my next-door neighbor at Montana Creek, 100 highway miles north of Anchorage. In addition to being one of my oldest friends in Alaska, he is also one of the group of dedicated mushers who helped rescue dog mushing from its snowmobile-induced near-extinction in the 1960s and 1970s. He ran the first Iditarod in 1973, and the initial Yukon Quest almost a decade later. He’s always had good teams, placing in the top 10 in the late 1970s, but he was never a real contender.
This is Ron’s first Iditarod in 15 years; it is his seventh trip to Nome. Remarkably, next month Ron will celebrate his 69th birthday. He ran the inaugural Iditarod when he was 46—my age—after a full career in the Air Force that began as a B-17 pilot in World War II and included a number of years in Alaska in the late 1940s. Ron retired to Alaska in the early 1960s and ran a commercial dog team, hauling freight in the Susitna Valley. He still lives in a cabin with no electricity and no running water—and swears he prefers it that way.
His reasons for running the race this year are several. One is that Dorothy (or Dottie, as we all knew her), his wife of almost 50 years, passed away a year or so ago after a long illness. Ron probably won’t admit it, but preparing for and running the race have been a helpful focus to get him through a difficult time.
Just as important, Ron is a serious dog musher. In Alaska this carries a special connotation, denoting a kind of addict, someone who is always planning for next winter, always dreaming of trails yet to explore and races yet to be run. Mushers may outwardly resemble ordinary human beings, but there is something not far beneath the surface making them different. They know another way of life, an alternate existence at cross-purposes with modern civilization, which they can never completely shake. They may break away from the dogs for months or even years, but they almost always come back in one way or another. Once infected with the mushing virus, there is no cure—there is only the trail.
Musher Ron Aldrich and his team work their way up the chute to the finish line in the 1994 Iditarod after two weeks on the trail.
I became aware of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in 1975, soon after I arrived in Alaska from a tour in Southeast Asia. In fact, I pulled into my new assignment, a C-130 Hercules pilot at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, just before the third Iditarod got underway. The race wasn’t much known outside Alaska then, but when I met Ron not long afterward, my interest was piqued. A couple of years later Ron loaned me three dogs for my cheechako (beginner’s) race at the Montana Creek track. I finished second and couldn’t believe it.
I began volunteering for the Iditarod in the late 1970s, flying amateur radio operators along the trail in my venerable Cessna 170. Every year, I became more intrigued by the race and the heritage it represented—and by the mushers who ran it and the army of volunteers who supported it. My Air Force flying reinforced my interest in the race, sending me to countless villages and remote locations around the state. I became fascinated by the unending variety and vast solitude of the Last Frontier, as well as its astonishing array of ancient cultures.
After completing my tour, I endured a five-year absence from Alaska while the Air Force steered me to warmer climes and higher headquarters. I flew my Cessna back to Alaska every summer on leave, eventually returning for another tour at Elmendorf in 1985. I quickly resumed my involvement with the race, which had grown into an internationally famous event. By then, the Iditarod volunteer pilots had coalesced into the Iditarod Air Force, a more or less formally organized group donating their flying skills as well as their own planes. The IAF—already becoming something of a legend in its own right—carried everything from dog food to sick dogs to dog doctors among the 20-odd checkpoints.
I reluctantly left Alaska once more in 1988 for another Outside engagement (this time in the Pentagon), during which I traded my old Cessna 170 for a heavy-duty Cessna 206, which I continued to fly north every summer. After several interesting but intensely frustrating years inside the Beltway, I retreated to Alaska for a last assignment and subsequent retirement. I promptly reenlisted in the IAF once I was back in Anchorage, fully intending to fly for the race well into the next century.
In 1991, I was trapped at Unalakleet, with several other pilots and numerous mushers, by the ferocious storm that swept the coast during the race. I almost wrecked my airplane at Shaktoolik in 20-below zero temperatures and hurricane-force winds while trying to pick up 11 sick and injured dogs. At the same time, the maelstrom threw the entire front end of the race into chaos less than 100 miles from the finish. When Rick Swenson incredibly pushed through the howling blizzard to gain his fifth victory, with Martin Buser not far behind him, I started to wonder what kind of people would willingly put themselves through such punishment year after year—and why.
In 1992, I worked the rear of the race while Martin Buser blazed a new record. Then I waited in Nome for the tail-enders while one of them, Bob Ernisse, whom I’d helped sponsor, almost died in a storm not 40 miles back down the trail. He finally made it in—not with his team but aboard a medevac helicopter. When I got a chance to see him I was shocked by his frost-ravaged face and bandaged, frostbitten hands. He broke down in tears because he hadn’t completed the race, and swore he’d do it again and finish it. As I talked to him, I could only ask myself, “Who are these people?”
In 1993, I helped fly out dogs of another acquaintance who scratched at Finger Lake. I then hunkered down with my plane as yet another raging storm battered the coast and pinned down the last half of the race. I watched in awe as a pack of never-say-die drivers and their dogs banded together and finally pushed through everything to pass under the burled arch in a grand 17-team parade, even though they all finished out of the money. I looked on as my friend (and former Iditarod Air Force chief pilot) Bert Hanson plodded into Nome with his dogs after two and a half arduous weeks on the trail. He was followed a day later by rookie Lloyd Gilbertson, dead last, but with a smile a mile wide as he carried his Red Lantern across the finish line. My overriding question was, “Why do they do it?”
Nome, the City of the Golden Beaches, lies on the north shore of the Bering Sea. More than 20,000 people lived here at the turn of the century during the height of the gold rush. For a year the beaches themselves yielded gold to anyone who could wield a shovel.
This year I was the only IAF pilot who stayed with the back of the pack all the way from Anchorage. Martin Buser rewrote the record book for a second time, thundering into Nome even as I watched the last-place musher, Lisa Moore, toil into Galena. I flew overhead as Lloyd Gilbertson was evacuated from a lagoon at the foot of the Blueberry Hills north of Unalakleet, 1,000 miles into his second Iditarod, after he spilled his sled and broke his leg; he said he’d be back. I also looked on as my friends Bruce Moroney and Diana Dronenburg conducted a nationally televised courtship while both of them ran the race—he for the first time, she for the sixth. And only a couple of hours ago I hugged Bob Ernisse after he finally fulfilled his promise of two years ago, finishing 43rd after a fortnight’s journey.
But I’ve been following Ron, and several other mushers I know, with more than casual interest. I met Ron at several checkpoints along the trail and managed to overfly him a dozen more times. As I watched his slow, steady progress, and talked to him along the way, the impossible thought of running the race myself slowly began to germinate.
Now I’m standing in the swirlin
g snow on Front Street waiting for Ron to make the last few blocks to his 45th-place finish. There aren’t many people here because the huge awards banquet has been underway across town for two hours. Almost everyone in this end of the state is there. In the finish chute with me are only a handful of race officials, the odd bystander, and Martin Buser. Martin is personally greeting every finisher under the arch, no matter the time of the day of night, and he has left the banquet—his banquet, really—to come out here in the blowing snow to welcome Ron.
As Ron’s team pulls into the fenced-in chute for the last 100 feet, there’s no more doubt in my mind: I can no longer stand here and watch others complete this journey. I must do this myself, no matter what it takes.
Martin Buser (right), winner of the 1994 Iditarod, greets Ron Aldrich (bib number 14) after his finish. Ron, a veteran of the first Iditarod, finished his seventh trip to Nome in 45th place—at the age of 68.
April 10, 1994
Amber Lake, Alaska
Today I’ve dropped in on the annual Iditarod Air Force post-race party at a remote cabin northwest of Anchorage belonging to one of the pilots. As I’m exchanging flying “war stories” of the recent race with other pilots and a few mushers who showed up, I mention my intention of running the race to Diana Dronenburg (now engaged to become Diana Moroney this June). She immediately offers me four dogs and I don’t know what to say, since I haven’t even thought about building a team yet.
I only talked to Ron a few days ago to seek his tutelage and assistance. I hadn’t even thought about getting dogs this soon. But I can’t turn down an offer like this—Diana has good dogs, as attested by her 19th-place finish this year. These are older second-stringers, of course, but still superb sled dogs. I agree to pick them up in a few days when I can get into Anchorage. At least Ron has already said I can keep my dogs at his place, along with his kennel of 50 or so.
As word of my folly becomes generally known at the party, other pilots seek me out to shake my hand and congratulate me, although I’m not quite sure for what. After all, my total mileage on a dog sled can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
I fly back home later with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I see a grand adventure about to begin; on the other, I’m not sure how I can ever carry through on my brave resolution. Only time will tell.
April 25, 1994
Montana Creek, Alaska
Quite unexpectedly, I’ve become caught up in the fever of mushing. Until a week ago I hadn’t been on the back of a sled since my cheechako race in 1978. I wasn’t even worrying about getting a full team together until this fall. Now that’s all changed and I can’t wait to get going.
Last week I took the four dogs Diana gave me on a 10-mile run over our local trails. Ron loaned me old Smith, his main leader, and I couldn’t have gotten lost if I’d tried, but it seemed like a glimpse into a magical world I’d only heard about. To watch and feel the dogs running smoothly and silently through the soft spring snow was like nothing I’d ever known. It seemed my odyssey to Nome was beginning on an auspicious note.
And now, just like that, I have a complete team for next year. My friend Bert Hanson, a longtime Iditarod pilot, has run the race twice (in 1990 and 1993) and is looking for a place to board his dogs for the next year or so. He’s not planning to run in 1995 because of an injury, and he has offered me the use of his dogs if I will look after them at Montana Creek. Ron agrees to this arrangement, since the dogs will technically be in his kennel.
Bert’s only proviso is that his daughter, Kim, can pick 10 of them to run the Junior Iditarod the week before the Iditarod itself. I readily agree, since the Junior Iditarod will serve as an excellent training run in its own right. Besides, Kim and some of her friends will come up on weekends to help with the dogs. Bert also agrees to help me out with sleds, ganglines, and lots of other important accoutrements I can’t even identify yet. I’ll still drop 6,000 bucks or so over the next year (maybe a lot more), but it could be worse: some people willingly pour 20 or 30 grand into a run to Nome.
But I have a sneaking suspicion I might be in this for more than one trip. I already look at the four dogs Diana gave me—Weasel, Blues, Eddie, and Bear—as something of a family (I’m not married). Everything is rapidly becoming much more complex than I first thought. It’s obvious I didn’t figure on my relationship and commitment to the dogs themselves. Nobody warned me about this, but I can’t see turning back now.
The coveted Iditarod belt buckle is awarded to mushers when they finish their first Iditarod. Mushers receive only one buckle no matter how many times they make it to Nome. The buckle cannot be bought or acquired anywhere else. There are many more Super Bowl or World Series rings than Iditarod belt buckles.
Every musher who makes it to Nome receives the distinctive Iditarod finisher’s patch. Unlike the belt buckle, mushers receive a patch every time they finish the race and can buy more if needed. However, only Iditarod finishers can receive or buy the patches.
May 25, 1994
Iditarod Headquarters—Wasilla, Alaska
For better or worse, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. I’ve told everyone I’m going to run, and now it’s time to make it formal.
Ron and I made the trip to Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla this morning for the first day of sign-ups for the 1995 race. Ron has agreed to run the race with me; he said he had so much fun he wants to do it again. However far into his cheek his tongue may have been, we’re both in line now with our $1,750 entry fees because we want to commit ourselves before we change our minds.
We’re in good company: Martin Buser is here, as are Diana Dronenburg and many top finishers from this year’s race. When I walk up to fork over my money to race director Joanne Potts, with whom I’ve worked for many years, she does a world-class double take: “I didn’t think you were really going to run!” she exclaims, as I produce the hard cash to back up my intentions.
As I pocket my receipt, it dawns on me I’ve really stepped off the deep end. Joanne certainly isn’t alone in her disbelief. I’m the last person anyone thought would run the race. In fact, I’m the last person I thought would run the race. But on the ride back to Montana Creek with Ron, the reality starts to sink in. I’d better learn how to spell m-u-s-h-e-r, because in a few months I’m going to have to be one.
June 2, 1994
Anchorage, Alaska
Diana and Bruce are getting married today. I’ve known them both for a number of years and I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
They both ran the race this year, he with a team of her second-stringers mixed with some of Bert’s dogs, the same ones I’m now starting to train. Bruce ran the four dogs Diana has given me and they did quite well. Of course, Diana finished 19th and Bruce finished somewhere around 55th, but that wasn’t the point.
About halfway through the race, after Diana had pulled far ahead of Bruce, he proposed marriage to her on his knees on the runners of his sled—in front of a CNN camera team. His bended-knee plea became the talk of the race and got national news coverage for several days.
Diana was still on the trail and didn’t find out about it until she got to Nome a couple of days later. The CNN folks played back Bruce’s televised proposal for her in the finish chute under the burled arch. On national TV she accepted, and sent Bruce a fax at Unalakleet, 250 miles back down the trail, that simply said “YES!”
Since Bruce was an Iditarod Air Force pilot for some years, those of us in the IAF contingent at Unalakleet tried to think of something appropriate to do with Diana’s fax when we saw it come in. We considered dropping it to him while he was still on the trail from Kaltag, and even thought about changing the “yes” to “maybe” or something equally tantalizing. In the end, though, we just put it up on the bulletin board in the checkpoint, carefully folded to conceal its contents, and put Bruce’s name on it.
Anyway, today is the big day and the church is full of mushers, pilots, and other race people—a good cross-section of the Idit
arod “family.” A Channel 2 news team is here and they get their camera’s worth when Diana comes down the aisle preceded by Ruby, her lead dog, who is decked out in a frilly lace harness. During the vows, Ruby steals the show as she wanders through the audience to everyone’s great amusement, apparently more interested in finding a handout than watching her owner get married.
The ceremony is over quickly and most of the wedding party repairs to the reception. The balance of the celebrants—namely, the race pilots—head for Lake Hood airport and seaplane base, where a multi-ship fly-by is quickly organized. I hop aboard a friend’s plane as a passenger since my big Cessna is based all the way across town. Once everyone is airborne and assembled into a loose formation, we head for the new municipal golf course, where the festivities are underway in the expansive clubhouse. As we roar over the tees and greens (scrupulously maintaining the appropriate altitude required by FAA regulations, of course) I can see a score of jerked putts, shanked drives, and one-finger salutes.
We zoom past the clubhouse in a manner to suitably arrest everyone’s attention and then pull up into a reasonable facsimile of the Air Force Thunderbirds’ “bomb burst” maneuver. After we return safely to terra firma (or aqua firma, as the case may be) and put the airplanes away, we rush back to the reception. A good time is subsequently had by all.
I’m not planning to get married out on the trail, but this is the kind of thing that has drawn me ever closer to the race over the years. I’ve heard people say the mushing community can be a tight-knit one, almost a big family. What I’ve seen today certainly hasn’t done anything to disprove this theory.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 7