Finally I catch a glimpse of what I recognize for dead certain as an airport beacon. We’re within a couple of miles of Ruby and the end of this nightmare. The road comes to an intersection I know is only a mile from town, and almost immediately I can see the reassuring yellow and silver of street lights across the valley.
But there is one last surprise. The road, scraped down to the ice on this stretch for use by village traffic, plunges down a steep slope toward the Yukon. It’s mostly sidehill with an icy two-foot berm on the downhill side. The dogs know there’s a checkpoint ahead and are accelerating. I have the brake jammed into the diamond-hard ice but the sled still drifts down into the berm, banging into it again and again.
Halfway down the slope is a final hummock of glaciered overflow, sort of a parting insult from the trail to me. The sled hits it and I lose my footing; we flip and I am dragged down the icy road for 50 feet before I can get it and myself back upright and continue to the bottom. We limp past outlying houses and then climb a quarter-mile up the opposite hill to the checkpoint.
I am, as is becoming my custom, the last musher into town. As I check in, I reflect on my current state of affairs. I’m running last in the race. I’m soaked up to my pants pockets in overflow. I’m bruised and hurting in a dozen places from assaults by trees and icy trails. I haven’t had any meaningful sleep in two days. I’ve just come through the weirdest visit to never land I’ve ever experienced. And as I pull off my mittens both of my hands are so outrageously swollen and discolored the checker and the vet immediately send someone to roust out the village public health aide.
Someone asks me what I think of the trail up from Ophir and Cripple. The only line I can dredge from my half-functioning brain is another question: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
I’m so tired and in so much pain I’m not sure I can continue. The thought of scratching is slowly working its way forward from the nethermost recesses of my mind. As I fight off overwhelming waves of fatigue laced with deepening depression I mechanically start to work on getting the dogs fed and settled in. Shortly I become aware of someone standing beside me and look up to see Emmitt Peters, who won the race in 1975. He lives in Ruby and is an old friend of Ron’s and an acquaintance of mine.
Emmitt Peters of Ruby, the “Yukon Fox,” won the Iditarod in 1975, the second Native musher to win the race. His record pace of 14 days and 14 hours was more than five days faster than the previous best; it stood for five years.
Emmitt says his wife, the village health aide, is on her way to check on my hands as soon as I finish my checkpoint routine. Then he says I’m really doing just fine and he’s glad to see me here in one piece with the team in good shape. Coming from him, it’s the highest com pliment and strongest support I can receive. I’m deeply grateful for his confidence. I realize that if he thinks I’m okay, things can’t be nearly as bad as I think, and I don’t have any real reason not to go on.
About then the checker hesitantly asks me if I’m going to scratch; I laugh so hard he must think I’ve lost whatever remains of my sanity: Not only no, but hell no. There’s nothing wrong with the dogs some good rest won’t cure. The sled is still more or less intact, and I can hang on to the handlebar as long as it takes to get to Nome, with or without hands. Emmitt has helped me chase my ghost of Rainy Pass back to its lair and I don’t intend to let it out again.
I do decide to take my mandatory eight-hour Yukon-River layover here, like virtually everyone else in the race has already done after their jaunts up from Ophir. I’m sure if I’ve made it this far I can probably survive just about anything. As the old saying goes, anything that doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger.
As I work on the dogs the northern lights burst overhead in a renewed frenzy. Now they’re no longer the vaguely threatening backdrop for my journey through fantasy land and I can sit back and enjoy their ethereal beauty. As they play across the sky in intricate swirls and shimmering cascades I reflect that the great white expanse I see at the foot of the hill below the checkpoint is really the Yukon. We’ve actually made it more than halfway through the race. In more ways than one, I have to believe it’s downhill from here.
March 11, 1996—The Iditarod: Ruby to Galena (52 miles)
Inside the checkpoint Emmitt’s wife looks over my hands. There’s not much she can do except clean up the bite wounds and give me some antibiotics to combat any infection which might infiltrate the swelling. She agrees with the vet my right hand is broken. It’s grotesque: released from the confines of the mitten it resembles an eggplant with fingers. No broken bones are apparent, but a hairline fracture would do the same thing. She suggests I get it x-rayed at the regional clinic in Galena when I get there. She also remarks Emmitt ran to Nome one year with a broken hand; I feel a little better—at least I’m in distinguished company.
In the meantime I need to get dry, find something to eat, and then get some sleep. For the first count, I hang my dripping gear on racks thoughtfully placed around the roaring wood stove. For the second, the checkpoint has been lavishly provisioned by the townspeople and I graze contentedly for half an hour while I read a handful of faxed messages waiting for me on the bulletin board. All things considered, the messages of encouragement are especially welcome.
I’m warmed by the reception from the people of Ruby. People come and go all evening and everyone has a good word and a pat on the back for the mushers. The town was founded in 1911 as part of the gold rush to this area and the local Athabaskans gradually moved in. Now the almost 200 people live from fishing and hunting and a limited number of jobs, but their hospitality is unlimited, and it’s most gratifying.
But the thing I need most—sleep—will not come so easily. When I lie down on my sleeping bag, the pain in my right hand becomes excruciating, so intense I cannot even think about sleeping. I suppose somehow the swelling is affected by body position. I’ve already taken more of the naproxen but it’s only marginally effective. And I still refuse to use any of the high-powered stuff I’m carrying because it would put me out of the picture even more effectively than the hallucinations which so warped reality for the trip over from Sulatna.
All I can do is toss and turn and try to find a position which allows some relief. By sitting up I can doze off for maybe five minutes at a time. These catnaps are apparently all I’m going to get, which means I’m not going to make much of a dent in my steadily growing sleep deficit. At least the dogs are resting well outside, and they’re the ones who are going to do the hard work. But I think I’m going to make a lot of use of the fold-down seat on the sled in the next few days.
I finally give up trying to snatch fragments of sleep and decide to leave at mid-morning. My right hand is even worse than last night; the swelling is so bad I can’t even make a fist. However, I can still use enough fingers to bootie up the dogs and get ready to go. As I’m working down the line I decide to drop Panda, my two-year-old female. The trip from Ophir has frazzled her more than the other dogs and I don’t want to push her to the point she doesn’t like the trail. I’m happy just to have gotten her this far; she’ll be a first-line dog next year.
There are still a couple of teams left when I check out. Lisa Moore and Andy Sterns will both pass me down the river somewhere and I’ll be the last one into Galena, keeping my tail-end record intact. But I remind myself we’re still moving; that’s more than some teams can say, including one of the early leaders who scratched here because his dogs quit on the river ice.
As we head out onto the mile-wide Yukon I’m awed by its sheer size. It is undoubtedly the least-known major river in the country, even for Alaskans, most of whom have never seen it in person. It’s easily a match for the Mississippi and even had a large fleet of Mississippi-style steamboats working its muddy waters for the better part of a century. The last of the Canadian boats retired in Whitehorse in the 1960s; today the opulent Nenana, the last big American stern-wheeler to work the Yukon, is on display in Fairbanks.
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br /> I wish I had a steamboat as my guys plod down the river in the bright morning light. We’re definitely the slowest team in the race, at least partly because I keep running during the daytime. If I were doing this properly, I’d be traveling on the Yukon mostly at night and giving the dogs quality rest during the day, but I’m out of sync thanks to the Ophir-to-Ruby demolition derby. This is another consequence of being at the back of the pack: I don’t have much leeway to adjust my running schedule to take advantage of darkness or weather because of the constant worry about being left behind.
Additionally, there’s the rule which says we must be into Unalakleet within five days of the leader or risk being withdrawn. Lisa and Andy and I and all the other tail-enders are trying to stay well ahead of that deadline, and so far we’re succeeding: we’ve got until Friday morning to cover the 250 miles and it’s only Monday. In fact, we’re a day and a half faster than last year’s caboose.
The trail down the broad Yukon is good but b-o-r-i-n-g. The modern snowmachine highway is out on the snow-covered river ice; the old mail trail kept mainly to the wooded shoreline because of the vagaries of the Yukon’s yearly freeze-up and the lack of snowmachines and airplanes to easily find a safe trail. The overland route also provided more shelter from the wind and the sun and wasn’t as subject to the drifting that often demolishes unprotected trails.
Most mushers will only run their dogs for two or three hours without a break and a snack. On the vast expanse of the Yukon, and especially during the heat of the day, frequent stops are very important to relieve the boredom and keep the dogs (and the musher) focused.
I’d much rather be in the shade of the spruce trees on the bank as the dogs slow down in the midday sunshine. By two p.m. we’re making only two or three miles an hour; this is no faster than I can walk beside the sled, which I do occasionally to stay awake. Lisa and Andy pass me several hours out. Pullman accelerates to chase them for a few miles but we quickly drop back to all ahead slow as the faster teams pull away.
Finally the cool of the late afternoon perks everyone up again and we’re turning a respectable seven or eight miles an hour. As the sun sets we come through a slough I know is within 10 miles or so of Galena. I’ve flown into this place so many times over the last 20 years I know almost every hill and tree by memory, and for once being on the ground isn’t much different from being airborne—only slower.
The town was founded in 1919 as a steamboat landing for a lead mine whose ore was lead sulfide, or galena. Athabaskan Indians in the region gravitated to the town over the years, but its major feature—the airport—was built as an Army base in 1941 during the massive pre-World-War-II buildup in Alaska. The airfield became a major stop for thousands of Lend-Lease planes heading to Russia, and later evolved into a frontline Cold War fighter-interceptor base.
That’s where I came in, flying C-130s out here for many years to bring in everything necessary to keep a modern 500-man military base operating at peak efficiency. The base was put on caretaker status in 1993 but the town still has almost 600 people and is one of the biggest settlements on the Yukon River in Alaska.
Galena hugs the shore of the Mississippi-size Yukon River. The regional airport and a small inactive Air Force base lie behind it, sheltered by high levees to protect against the spring floods.
As we come in sight of the familiar lights of Galena it’s just dark. I turn my headlight on for the final miles into town. Overhead, in a reprise of last night’s standing-ovation performance, the aurora is already gearing up for another evening of celestial fireworks.
Suddenly I realize this is deja vu: For a moment it’s the 1994 race and I’m standing on the river bank at Galena watching the headlamp of the last-place musher work slowly down the Yukon toward the checkpoint as the northern lights flare over the Brooks Range. Fast-forward to 1996: Now it’s ME bringing up the rear of the race, MY light out on the river. The musher out on the ice I thought could just as easily have been me IS me. And in a deliciously ironic twist, Lisa Moore—the tail-ender whose light I watched two years ago in this very same place—is already at Galena watching me.
It’s all too much to take and I can’t restrain myself from laughing out loud. As if sensing my feelings, the dogs accelerate across the river and up the bank into town. We steam into the checkpoint in good order, in last place but definitely still in the race. This has been a particularly satisfying arrival, another milestone on what I’m guardedly starting to believe is going to be a successful trip to Nome.
But first things first. Taking care of the dogs consumes an hour and a half, after which I head into the checkpoint to see the M.D. who’s volunteering as the communications person. He takes a look at my right hand and pronounces it fractured, and then arranges for an x-ray at the local clinic. Surprisingly, keeping the hand jammed into the heavy cold-weather mitten has acted as a whole-hand splint and has kept the swelling down. It still puffs back up once the mitten is off, but at least I can get some use out of it on the trail.
Mileposts are virtually unknown on the Iditarod, but the people of Kaltag are kind enough to provide a marker on the seemingly endless, featureless run along the Yukon River.
The x-ray is inconclusive; nothing is obviously broken, but that doesn’t rule out a hairline fracture, which still seems the most likely diagnosis. The doc says to keep taking the anti-inflammatory pills and check the hand at subsequent checkpoints. He sends out a fax advising vets down the trail to examine my hand the same way they would check one of my dogs’ feet. I wonder if they might decide to drop me from the team if it starts to look too bad.
March 12. 1996—The Iditarod: Galena to Nulato (52 miles); Nulato to Kaltag (42 miles)
By the time we’ve gotten the x-ray done and I’m back at the checkpoint, we’ve killed four hours and it’s well past midnight. I grab some food and then try to get some sleep. No luck—same as last night in Ruby. The best I can do is nap sitting up, even though I really, really need some serious shut-eye.
By four a.m. I decide I’ve spent too much time here trying to chase sleep that’s not going to come. I groggily bootie up, hook up, and head out. Again, I’m not the last one out but certainly will be bringing up the rear at Nulato, 50 miles away. The lights of Galena take forever to slide from view even though the dogs are actually doing fairly well in the predawn cold. And it is finally cold, maybe 20 below, enough to help keep me alert. I have to stop to pull on some more layers of insulation but it feels good to be back in temperatures resembling what we’ve trained in all winter.
We motor on down the river as the day slowly fills the sky behind us. We pass all the landmarks I remember from two decades of flying: Pilot Mountain, Bishop Rock, the village of Koyukuk. Andy and his greyhounds pass me at Koyukuk—once again putting me in the race caboose since Lisa left ahead of both of us—but we’re still making reasonable time. Almost before I realize it we’re running past a long riverside ridge which leads to Nulato, another Athabaskan village on the west bank of the river.
The village was already ancient when the Russians founded a trading post here in 1838. In 1851 Athabaskans from up river raided the town and massacred 53 people, mostly local Natives but also the Russian manager and an English naval lieutenant who was looking for information on a lost polar explorer (and who may have unwittingly precipitated the attack). Today Nulato is one of the larger villages on the river with more than 300 people, but the local economy is still largely based on subsistence.
The trail makes a last grand swing across the Yukon to Nulato and we clamber up the bank to the checkpoint. I’m the last one in, of course, but my timing is back on track and I can let the dogs rest a few hours during the heat of the afternoon. I don’t intend to spend very long here; Kaltag is less than 40 miles away, after which we make the big jump out to the coast at Unalakleet. Besides, the weather forecast is for snow to move up from the Aleutians overnight, and I’m not big on getting caught out on the river in it.
While I’m feeding the dogs, L
isa decides to move out for Kaltag. She arrived here a couple of hours ahead of me on the run over from Galena and, like me, wants to keep moving. I wave to her as the checker leads her team to the outbound trail and her dogs start down the steep bank to the river below. She gets about 100 yards out onto the white expanse when her dogs decide to quit.
I watch as she tries to motivate them to go again, but they will have nothing to do with the forbidding void of the Yukon. After 10 minutes of cajoling she throws up her arms in resignation and simply drops anchor in place. She marches back up the hill to the checkpoint, muttering she’ll wait the dogs out no matter how long it takes. I know she’s intensely frustrated and a little worried: this is what happened to her on the 1994 race. By the time she reached Koyuk, less than 200 miles from Nome, the dogs just wouldn’t go at all and she had to scratch.
The Koyukon Athabaskan village of Kaltag on its high bank marks the end of the 150-mile journey down (or up) the mighty Yukon.
After my dogs are squared away I head into the checkpoint and offer Lisa some reassurance. If nothing else, her dogs will certainly follow Socks when I leave; she’s far from stuck. But she says in no uncertain terms her team will leave under its own power, or else; I understand exactly what she means and appreciate her determination. She wants to conquer this problem on her own, just as I did back at Rainy Pass.
While our teams rest outside—mine in the dog lot and hers on the river—we munch on brownies as we watch the live satellite telecast of Jeff King’s triumphant procession down Front Street and under the arch in Nome. He simply walked away from Martin Buser and the rest of the field after Kaltag. He didn’t set a record, but he’s only a couple of hours slower than Doug Swingley’s nine-day cannonball run of last year.
Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers Page 40