The best solution to combat calorie loss when the dogs are at rest is a good old-fashioned bed of straw. Of course, the insulating properties of lowly straw are certainly not a new discovery—humans have been using it for everything from bedding to roofing since prehistory. More recently, it’s been conclusively proven that a dog can sleep very comfortably on even a little straw, with or without a dog blanket, at 40 or 50 below zero.
In fact, every big race provides straw at the checkpoints, or allows mushers to ship it out for their teams. The Iditarod ships huge amounts of straw to the checkpoints. Much of it is mailed, but every bale for the remote locations has to be flown in: I personally flew 45 bales into the frighteningly short strip at Rohn Roadhouse for the 1994 race (back before I took leave of my senses and decided to see everything from the ground). But the effort is worth it and it’s most gratefully received by dogs and mushers alike; more than a few exhausted mushers have grabbed a quick nap next to their dogs on an inviting pile of straw.
However, there’s something more to straw that seems to have a special appeal to dogs. Maybe it’s the hint of all the various life forms it has encountered on its journey from the golden fields of autumn to the depths of winter. Perhaps it’s the unexpected, explosive scent of summer in the bleak olfactory wasteland of the long subarctic night. Whatever the reason, introducing sled dogs to fresh straw is like turning kids loose in a toy store. They will nose it, sniff it, poke it, turn it, toss it, roll in it, bounce in it. Ultimately they will circle and circle like their wolf ancestors and finally plop down with the canine equivalent of a sigh of contentment.
Tonight I decide it’s time for new straw for everyone. The dogs can somehow sense when I intend to straw them before I break open the bale. They become even more excited than at feeding time, regardless of the temperature. As soon as I shake out the first armful into the first doghouse, the clamor becomes earsplitting. They all know what I’m doing and they all want their share immediately.
I stop and watch each dog’s reaction to the gift, even though I know I’m keeping the others impatiently waiting. The old veterans are predictable: because they bed down on straw at checkpoints on the long races, they have come to regard it as an omen of respite from the rigors of the trail. Their pleasure is plain to see; they savor the straw almost like a gourmet lingering over a particularly notable meal.
Some of the younger dogs play in the straw in a sort of instant reversion to puppyhood. They drag it completely out of their houses, spread it out, nudge it back into a pile, and jump into it. Whether the straw is in the doghouse seems to be purely secondary, and they are just as likely to sleep on it out in the open.
The puppies—now seven and eight months old—simply go ballistic. They don’t yet really know what straw is, but it’s obviously something different and fun to play with. Considering some of my pups haven’t even figured out what their houses are for and actually seem to enjoy camping out in the cold, I’m not surprised at anything they do.
Their straw ends up scattered to the four winds (which are mercifully absent at the moment), along with their feeding dishes (which they enjoy stealing from each other) and even their houses (which they push around like hockey pucks on icy ground). I make sure some of the straw winds up wherever they seem to be sleeping, usually while they tie me up with their chains and try to lick me to death and chew my boot laces. For the pups, I guess strawing time is really just another excuse for them to play with their most favorite toy of all—me.
A strange game, this mushing business. We learn to take pleasure from the simplest and most unlikely things. Whoever would have thought humble, common straw could lead to such an entertaining and ultimately satisfying experience. I guess it all goes back to the most fundamental rule I’ve learned so far: if the dogs are happy, I’m happy.
The musher’s alcohol cooker is one of the most important items carried on the sled. An outer metal bucket with ventilating holes encloses a special burner and supports a three- to five-gallon pot in which snow or water can be melted and heated. Most mushers fuel their cookers with automotive-variety HEET or equivalent products. Cookers can boil several gallons of water in ten to fifteen minutes under most conditions. The hot water is poured into a plastic bucket containing dry dog food and frozen meat; most mushers normally don’t actually cook in their cookers because of the potential for bacterial growth.
December 10, 1995
Montana Creek, Alaska
My place is barely a mile from the Alaska Railroad and I can easily hear and even feel the trains rumbling by. As I feed the dogs tonight, the evening fast freight is thundering north to Fairbanks. Listening to its whistle moaning through the snow-covered forest, I have to think anyone who genuinely likes trains must appreciate dog teams.
I’ve been a train nut for years; I owe that to my father, who used to take me down to the Frisco yards in my home town in Arkansas to watch the last of the grand old steam engines working out their days on switching duty. When I went to college in Colorado, I spent many weekends exploring ghost towns and the hundreds of miles of abandoned railroads that once linked them. I became intimately familiar with long-gone names like the Rio Grande Southern, the South Park, the Colorado Midland, and the Silverton Northern. And I fell in love with steam engines, spending hours watching them wind through the mountains in one of their last redoubts along the Colorado-New Mexico border on the Denver and Rio Grande Western’s Durango narrow-gauge line.
I suppose steam engines have always held a fascination for many people. They are (or were for their time) a culmination of man’s inventive genius, harnessing the elemental powers of fire and water and steel in masterpieces of engineering. At the same time, they are completely visible: the great wheels, pistons, driving rods—everything is out in the open, not concealed behind impersonal metal streamlining as in a diesel engine or an airplane or a car. Steam engines impart a sense of purpose and raw power in a way matched by few of man’s creations.
And a steam locomotive also has a very human side. The engineer and fireman who serve it are in a kind of symbiosis with their machine, tending its needs as they would a living thing. And the engine seems very much to be alive, breathing smoke and steam, drinking water, eating fuel, and moving in a marvelously complicated rhythmic dance. Add in the deep, lonesome wail of a steam whistle on a dark night, and it’s no secret why the steam engine has remained an indelible part of our culture even though it has vanished from the mainline rails.
The links between railroads and steam engines and dog teams may not be obvious at first glance, but any musher can easily see them. Perhaps the most obvious connection is that dog teams and trains are means to travel, and at least in this country saw their heyday in a previous, less complicated era. They are both the stuff of legends and evoke special emotions in many people. Even the narrow dog trail isn’t a lot different from a railroad track, and there’s an unmistakable resemblance between a dog team pulling a sled and an engine pulling cars.
But the real similarities go much deeper. Like steam engines, dog teams are living, breathing entities requiring special care from their drivers. They must be watered and fed at regular intervals and must have their moving parts frequently checked and sometimes even oiled; all mushers carry various liniments for sore canine feet, wrists, and shoulders, just as steam locomotive crewmen carry oil cans. Checkpoints on the big races could easily pass for water tanks and fueling stops; the dogs can only go so far before they must pause for more fuel for their fireboxes and water for their boilers.
Like the old steam engines, dog teams can be temperamental, requiring patience, tact, and diplomacy, and often as not a firm hand to correct wayward tendencies. Most striking of all, though, is the intense bond between the engineer and his engine, be it mechanical or canine. The old steam engineer came to know every creak and groan and rattle of his steel steed, just as the dog driver knows every signal from his dogs.
And finally, with the old engine crews as with mushers, pulling
into the station or the checkpoint isn’t always the object of the exercise. The trip is the thing, and the stop at the end of the track—or trail—is nothing more than a temporary layover before the next journey.
December 20-21, 1995
Forks Roadhouse, Alaska
The Forks Roadhouse Christmas Race
This has come to be called the Winter of No Snow. Our small area around Montana Creek has been fortunate in having maybe eight or ten inches total this season, enough to make decent trails. Elsewhere, though, it’s been grim. Anchorage is looking at its first snowless Christmas in a decade, and many mushers around Palmer, Wasilla, and Big Lake are still training on dusty trails with four-wheelers.
The newspapers have been full of stories about the lack of snow and how it’s affecting winter activities, especially dog mushing. The Copper Basin has only two or three inches, and Fairbanks only five. Organizers of the big early-season races are starting to become worried, since the historical pattern indicates this may be a really dry winter.
Just 10 miles south of us, Sheep Creek Lodge had to cancel its 100-mile race scheduled for last weekend, which would have been the kickoff for the racing season. They have a little snow, but not enough to connect to our good trails just a few miles north. The only other place with decent running is on the other side of the Susitna Valley, out toward the Peters Hills. This area always has snow because of its location and rising terrain, although this year it’s a lot less than normal, not really much more than we have here at Montana Creek.
When Sheep Creek Lodge cancelled its race, Forks Roadhouse out on the Petersville Road decided on the spur of the moment to hold one of its own. The format is the same: two 50-mile heats on successive days. They’re doing it today and tomorrow (in the middle of the week) to avoid the crush of urban snowmachiners who will infest the place over Christmas weekend.
As soon as I heard about the race, I frantically worked to get our old dog truck over to the local motor surgeons so they could get it running. Once they got inside it they found a list of woes as long as my arm, but they got it sufficiently reassembled for me to put my temporary dog boxes on the back, throw the sled on top, and rumble over to the roadhouse for the race. I sounded like an Alaska Railroad freight train because the muffler system ended somewhere directly under the cab, but here I am at the first race of the season in the entire state, along with 10 other diehards.
Obviously I don’t intend to win anything; this is mainly to see how the dogs will do in the company of some serious mushers, such as Jeff King (the 1993 Iditarod champ), who brought two teams, and Roy Wade, a perennial contender in the local mid-distance racing scene. Steve Adkins, a good friend just down the road who shares our training trails, is also here; he has a good, solid team and hopes to take home a little money if he can.
Of course, Ma Nature played a little joke on us by dumping 10 inches of snow out here last night (we only got two or three at Montana Creek) and the trail is like a good deep-dish pizza: soft and extra punchy. At the musher’s meeting I draw number 3, just like I did at the Sheep Creek race last year, and at the Copper Basin 300 also. As usual, it means I’ll just get passed by everybody else.
After lots of coffee we hook up and hit the trail. This is the shortest day of the year, but it’s starting off as a beautiful one, with lots of fresh snow and a gorgeous late-morning sunrise over the Talkeetna Mountains to the southeast. The race course has been shortened to only 33 miles from the original 50, ostensibly because some of the teams don’t have enough conditioning. This disappoints Steve, who has been running up to 40 miles already on our good trails and was looking forward to taking advantage of the better training we’ve been getting.
I have a good start and my 12 dogs quickly work out all their kinks. We’re cruising and having a great time on what is essentially a training run over a new trail. Of course, Jeff King immediately shows why he is an Iditarod front-runner as he passes everything in sight. He started number 10 or so, but he motors by me about 15 miles into the race like I’m standing still. Naturally, everybody else passes me by the time I get back, but I still have a very good run and a remarkably good time overall—only two hours and fifty minutes for 33 miles, better than 11 miles an hour. I’m only 35 minutes behind King, who has blasted around the course at more than 15 miles an hour. If my guys can hold a pace like this for the Iditarod, I’ll be in super shape.
The next day dawns dreary and we start before the sun is actually up. Several teams have trouble getting out of the gate, and since I’m starting last today my team sees everything. Sure enough, I have to stop half a dozen times for minor mix-ups by the time we’re two miles out. Then I try to pass another musher who is stopped and his dogs manage to get mine into a colossal tangle. Silvertip and Yankee start snapping at each other because Wild Thing is in heat and Pullman, my fast leader, stages a sit-down strike, along with Weasel, who can be very temperamental when she wishes.
My first impression is, “Been here, done this, got the T-shirt.” This is an eerie recreation of my troubles on the Iditarod, when I let a few dogs in heat precipitate everything into the toilet. The musher with whom we’ve knotted up gets his dogs straightened out and then says he’s going to turn around and scratch. I decide there’s no way I’m going back; if I don’t work through this I’m no better off than I was eight months ago.
After 20 minutes untangling and swapping around half a dozen dogs, I’ve got things sorted out. Wild Thing with her feminine wiles is back in wheel where nobody can get at her and old Buck is up front in place of Pullman. Now he has a chance to show his stuff, and show it he does. He starts us off smartly and the remaining 30 miles turn into nothing more eventful than a normal training run. We’ve sacrificed half an hour, but we don’t lose any more. Buck storms across the finish line at a dead run, looking good all the way.
I get the red lantern, but my overall time is a surprisingly fast six hours and 15 minutes for both days, for a very respectable 10 miles an hour. Had we not spent so much time stopped, we’d have had the same time as yesterday. I couldn’t be more pleased with my team. They’ve performed exactly as we’ve trained and Buck has shown he’s just as good as I’d hoped. Moreover, bouncy little Maybelline has been the co-leader all the way on both days. She’s a natural up front, setting a terrific pace and generally having more fun than the law allows. I hope John Barron doesn’t want her back—she’s a keeper and I can guarantee she’ll get her share of leading on the races to come.
As I herd the dog truck back down the narrow, snow-covered road in the deepening four-o’clock dusk, I feel tired but relieved; this has been my first red lantern, but I couldn’t be happier with it. I may not have a world-class team, but the dogs certainly look solid enough to hold their own. If they don’t make it to Nome this time, it won’t be their fault.
December 24, 1995
Montana Creek, Alaska
Christmas Eve again, and not a lot going on. The lack of good snow throughout much of Southcentral Alaska seems to be having a depressing effect on everyone, especially mushers. Aside from the Forks Roadhouse race a few days ago, there’s nothing on the horizon for weeks except going round and round on our local trails as long as our scant snow cover holds out..
The Knik 200 has been postponed; the race follows the Iditarod Trail out to Skwentna, but the trail is bare dirt for the first 20 miles, from Knik out past the Little Susitna River. Worse, the Yentna River—which is the entire far half of the race—is threatening to become one huge lake of overflow because very thick ice has frozen the mouths of side streams all the way to the bottom in places, forcing them to flow out over the top of the river ice.
This could have major ramifications for the Klondike 300 on January 20th (which I plan to run) and for the Iditarod in March because they use the same trail as far as Skwentna. Ron says he remembers a winter in the late 1960s that froze early and hard with very little snow; the Yentna was completely impassable to dog teams for almost 40 miles because of overflow, and
other rivers weren’t much better. Odds are we will have enough snow to run the Iditarod, even if the route has to detour overland to avoid the river, but early races may be postponed until February. This will make for a very hectic race season, and some of the rookies who have to qualify may be out on a limb unless the Iditarod relaxes the qualification requirements.
Our local trails are still in reasonably good shape so I decide to hook up 12 dogs and hit the trail about sunset. I feel being out with the team is the best way I can celebrate the occasion, and besides, they need the miles. After a few pauses in the initial mile or two to straighten out some minor rigging problems and to swap Socks for Pullman in lead (she’s in heat and is getting moody), we make very creditable time around the 20-mile loop. As we reach the turnoff for the dog lot, I decide everything is going so smoothly we might as well keep going for 30 miles. Socks seems a little surprised when I give him a “haw” instead of a “gee” but as soon as we’re steady on the outbound trail everybody speeds up smartly.
After a mile we come to a particularly tricky part of the trail, requiring the team to jump up over a two-foot bank while the musher adroitly levers the sled up behind them. I miss the bank and the sled flips. It’s not a big thing, but I’m upset at screwing up and jump off to pull the sled up the bank. The dogs, of course, do their best to help, and as soon as I get it started over the lip they yank it several feet, pinning me under it with my foot twisted in the bridle at the front of the sled. I try to turn the sled on its side but I can’t get the correct angle, and the dogs yank again. This time my foot gets caught in the brake at the back of the sled while the rear runners pin me flat on the ground.
I’m worried my ankle is about to be badly sprained and there’s nothing I can do about it. As I make one last effort to tip over the sled and get out from under it, Socks starts the team and I pop free. Unfortunately, Socks is heading one way and I’m pointed another, and as I stagger to my feet the team and sled are 20 yards down the road and moving fast. There’s no hope of catching them. I’ve done it again: my Christmas present to myself is to lose the team.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 26