Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers

by Mike Dillingham

  We decide to move up onto the barrier dune and try to run along it until we can pick up what Slim said is a less-drifted part of the trail closer to Shaktoolik. Once we’re up on the dune we find it varies from 30 to maybe 60 yards wide. There are numerous patches where the scouring wind has left a surface of hard-crusted snow.

  I start to work Socks from patch to patch, zigzagging back and forth across the top of the dune line as we inch our way ever closer to Shaktoolik. He never falters as I give him a constant stream of commands: “Gee; haw; little gee; okay; over haw; okay, go on; little haw; go on....”

  Periodically we must turn into the teeth of the wind or plow through wind-packed three-foot drifts which collapse as the team clambers over them. Sometimes we must skirt stunted clumps of willow bushes or thread between driftwood snags sticking up out of the snow or retrace our steps when we reach a dead end. But Socks remains as steady as the wind itself, following my commands as if we did this kind of thing every day.

  After two hours of the most intense command work I’ve ever done with a team I see trail markers ahead on the dune. As we break through one last drift I see an open trail, actually a narrow road for ATVs, stretching ahead toward a shadowy cluster of buildings on the horizon which must be old Shaktoolik, two miles this side of the new town. I turn and shout to Lisa, who’s following 50 yards behind me. We’ve broken our way through and Shaktoolik is only five miles ahead over a fast trail.

  We don’t even notice the 30-mile-an-hour quartering head wind as we accelerate down the road. We’ve just beaten—at least temporarily—an implacable, impersonal adversary which had every intention of destroying us if it could. It’s an exhilarating feeling and the dogs seem to understand what we’ve accomplished. We’ll certainly have more battles to fight but we’ve won this one.

  The outline of old Shaktoolik, abandoned when the new village was built in 1967, grows steadily closer. Like many Native villages, the actual townsite has changed many times over its 1,000-year history, although it has remained in the same general area. Old Shaktoolik dates from the 19th century; it, in turn, replaced an earlier village somewhere close by, but still near the mouth of the fish-rich Shaktoolik River with access to the fishing grounds of Norton Sound. It is now a ghost town, although it sees much traffic from its nearby successor.

  We are approaching the two dozen buildings of “Old Shak” end-on as we run the track up the barrier dune. Perched on a low rise, they float above the haze of the ground blizzard. From our viewpoint they appear to coalesce into a single structure looming like a castle above the featureless expanse. I know it’s an optical illusion aided and abetted by fatigue and stress, but it seems like we are knights of old charging home toward Camelot after a grueling quest.

  Soon enough the shining castle resolves itself into shabby, weathered wooden buildings with windows broken and doors ajar. One or two houses seem to be occupied and Socks tries to turn us into their yards; I urge him back onto the road to the new village, now visible a couple of miles farther on. I estimate the wind is gusting to more than 40 miles an hour and I want to get into the checkpoint without delay.

  As we pull out of the old town, I am startled to see three six-dog teams materialize out of the blowing snow ahead. They are making almost 20 miles an hour and rocket past my surprised workhorses before they even have a chance to react. The drivers wave as they pass, and I return their greeting. I’ve heard Shaktoolik has rediscovered dog mushing in the past couple of years and these must be village teams.

  It’s only fitting: the Natives in this region are Malemiut Inupiats, who over the centuries developed a hardy breed of work dog bearing their name—the Malemute. These are the first non-Iditarod teams I’ve seen since the race started. They certainly look good as they vanish into the blizzard, heading back the way we just came.

  In a few more minutes we enter Shaktoolik’s single street. It is ridged by semipermanent four-foot drifts, the result of a winter’s worth of north wind whistling between the houses. The drifts would be worse if not for the half-mile-long, eight-foot-high windbreak fence paralleling the slough to the north, protecting the entire village. This is probably the windiest checkpoint on the race, and no one likes to spend any more time here than necessary for fear of being delayed when the gales come up—as is happening now.

  Old Shaktoolik sits abandoned on its low line of dunes next to the Bering Sea. The town moved to a new location a few miles west in the 1960s.

  It’s been more than 20 hours since we left Unalakleet, and most of that time has been hard work breaking trail, fighting the wind, and banging through drifts. We’ve spent almost five hours just on the last 12 miles into Shaktoolik. The dogs will require some rest here before we tackle the 60 miles up to Koyuk across the ice of Norton Bay, all of which will be into a nasty head wind. So much for our goal of making it to Nome in time for the big banquet Sunday afternoon; we’ve lost a full day to the whims of Mother Nature since Kaltag.

  The checkpoint is in the local National Guard armory; the teams are parked behind it, out of the direct wind. There is only one team here: rookie Mark Black scratched just before we arrived. He was running with the group ahead of us but got delayed leaving Unalakleet. By the time he pulled out yesterday morning, just before we got in from Old Woman, the wind was already increasing and he had a rugged 15-hour trip through the Blueberry Hills. He had to do it on his own and didn’t get in until midnight.

  His team apparently didn’t want to buck the wind this morning, so he felt he had to scratch. Lisa and I are sorry for him and wish we’d had a chance to talk him out of it; we’ve both been there and know how easy it is to fall into the mental black hole. We agree he would have been a perfect candidate to join our slow freight to Nome, and we could have used the company.

  For the moment our concern is for Andy, who didn’t keep up with us as we were working our way over from the shelter cabin. Slim says the village teams who roared by us are part of a local race; they will check on his progress. In the meantime I busy myself with getting the dogs fed and as comfortable as possible.

  As I’m walking back to the checkpoint with a bucket of water for the cooker another team comes in from the direction of Koyuk. I see immediately it’s not a village team, which means it’s an Iditarod team which has turned around. The driver gives me a “Hi, how are you?” as he passes and parks his team beside mine behind the armory. I spend the next 15 minutes getting my cooker going and then head into the checkpoint to see who the returnee is.

  As I come through the door I’m shocked to see the driver who so casually greeted me a few minutes ago stretched out on the floor, looking very, very ill. He’s surrounded by an agitated cluster of people headed by the vet, who is a volunteer from Australia. This is well beyond my scope and I stay out of the way, but I hear muttered words like “heart attack” and “stroke” along with “medevac.“

  The musher is Bob Bright; he’s a marathon runner from Chicago who finished the race in 1985. He left late this morning and got seven or eight miles toward Koyuk before he decided something was badly wrong and decided to turn around. If he’d continued he would likely have died of exposure in the increasing wind. Apparently his good judgment saved his own life, and the race organization has him on a plane to the hospital in Nome within a couple of hours.

  Later in the afternoon we hear Andy is on his way in. He apparently left right behind us but lost our trail in the drifts. He’s had even a worse time than we did crawling across the wasteland and we are extremely glad to see him. By the time he pulls in the wind is up to 40 miles an hour with higher gusts and the snow is like tiny bullets when it hits exposed skin. Even sheltered behind the armory it’s all we can do to feed the dogs and keep their straw where it will do them some good.

  No matter how bad the weather, we can’t bring a dog inside a building, not even a remote shelter cabin. The dog must be dropped and the musher may have to scratch—as happened to Andy last year within sight of Nome. We’re nowhere near tha
t extremity but I doubt the team is getting quality rest in the swirling gusts. I pile more straw around the most exposed dogs and drag some unopened bales over for extra windbreaks.

  New Shaktoolik stretches along its single street, sandwiched on a spit between the Bering Sea and a slough of the Shaktoolik River. The massive snow fence behind town offers some protection from the incessant north wind. This area is consistently the windiest on the entire race. The trail to Koyuk exits through a gap in the snow fence.

  The only exception to the no-dogs-inside rule is if a vet wants to bring a dog in to work on it. Yankee needs a couple of precautionary stitches as a result of his set-to with Bear and Silvertip last night and the vet decides it would be better to bring him into the armory for a few minutes to do it. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a dog inside a checkpoint and I’m sure it’s a new experience for Yankee, who is strictly an outside dog even back home.

  The fun begins when the vet produces his suture needle and 75-pound Yankee, my biggest and arguably my strongest dog, decides he’d rather be in the great outdoors. I’m working to hold him steady but it’s like trying to restrain a rodeo bull. I’m actually more worried I’ll get stitched instead of him as the vet hovers and strikes like a cobra.

  The vet, however, seems completely unconcerned and neatly closes the cut in his bobbing target, somehow missing the various parts of my anatomy in close proximity. Once the deed is done Yankee almost demolishes the door on his way out with me hanging on. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about his being pulled from the race because of being inside; I just hope I can get him in the airline kennel to ship him back from Nome.

  Late in the afternoon we receive word four drivers who left Shaktoolik early this morning finally straggled into Koyuk after a nine-hour crossing. Three of them—Aaron Burmeister, Rob Carss, and Ararad Khatchikian—had already had a rough 15-hour trip from Unalakleet. They were stuck here in Shaktoolik for 15 more hours waiting for a break in the storm-force winds.

  The fourth driver, Dave Branholm, had been here for almost two days after his leaders had a meltdown coming up from Unalakleet. He tried to follow several groups to Koyuk but had to turn back each time. Finally his leaders condescended to follow Aaron’s group and he made it across with them. It was no picnic, with 30-mile-an-hour winds and blowing snow, but they made it. Now they’re out of the wind zone with clear sailing to Nome. They even have a good chance to make it to the banquet on Sunday; we’ll just have to follow when we can.

  We remaining exiles decide to get some rest so we can try to leave tonight when the wind is supposed to die down a bit. About seven p.m. I wake up and look outside. The checker walks over and says to go back to sleep because the wind is pushing 60 miles an hour and isn’t forecast to abate until tomorrow morning. I don’t even wake Lisa and Andy; we are pawns of the weather god and may as well make the best of our extended stay here by catching up on sleep.

  The wind howls around the armory all evening. We get up and feed the dogs again about midnight and it’s brutal outside. The dogs are doing okay but the wind chill in the open is 110˚ below zero. Despite my best precautions I refreeze the tips of a couple of fingers I froze back in the Klondike 300 in January. Of course, the flash-frozen digits are the only ones still working on my broken hand. Now when I try to pick something up it’s like using chopsticks because the fingertips have no feeling. I wonder to myself if I can apply for some kind of disability when the race is over, because I’m going to have a hard time even signing my name for a month.

  March 16—The Iditarod: Shaktoolik to Koyuk (58 miles)

  The wind finally begins to die down after sunrise. We’ve enjoyed the local hospitality for more than 20 hours and it’s definitely time to move on. Lisa, Andy, and I are ready to go by mid-morning and we head out of town against a mere 15-mile-an-hour breeze. We cross the slough behind the village and pass through what is locally called the Gate, the only gap in the endless Great Wall which fends off the north wind.

  Looking back to Shaktoolik from the trail to Koyuk, the village’s few dozen buildings form a thin line along the ice- bound shore of the Bering Sea. There is not so much as a shrub for 60 miles north across the ice of Norton Bay.

  As we move out onto the blinding white expanse beyond the windbreak we must look again like a trio of armor-clad knights sallying from the safety of the shining castle on a great and uncertain crusade—and that’s just about how we feel, given the events of the past few days. Koyuk is 60 miles away and the wind is going to come up again during the afternoon; our crusade today will probably be a long one.

  The wind stays mercifully light as we work the 15 miles across the low-lying peninsula behind Shaktoolik to Island Point, a 200-foot rock jutting up from the edge of Norton Bay. We pass the old shelter cabin on the point and shortly drop down a 30-foot embankment to the ice of Norton Bay. Andy is in the lead but his leaders falter as they start out onto the drifted and utterly flat expanse of the sea ice. Lisa’s team balks as well, leaving Socks to be our guide across the void.

  The old master doesn’t even hesitate as he trots up the blown-in trail at his usual stately pace into the now-increasing wind. Lisa and Andy fall in line astern as we marshal our oceangoing convoy for the voyage to Koyuk. Although we will be miles from land on salt water, we’re not exactly adrift on the deep sea because we can easily see the hills and mountains which virtually surround the bay. We can clearly make out the low mountain dead ahead under which lies Koyuk, 45 miles distant. At night the red light on a radio tower above town is said to be visible almost from Shaktoolik.

  Koyuk is another Malemiut Inupiat village of 100 people which has been here at the mouth of its river since before the Russians. Around the turn of the century it became a major supply point for gold mines on the Seward Peninsula. There was even a coal mine in the area which supplied Nome for many years. Today there aren’t any booms underway and the village residents maintain a largely subsistence lifestyle buttressed by a few jobs, mainly with various government agencies.

  As we trek across the bounding main the wind picks up to 30 miles an hour or so but Socks continues his metronomic 10-minutes-a-mile pace. I put down the seat on my sled and settle in for a long ride. By sitting, I’m also helping the team by ducking out of the wind and cutting the drag, yielding a welcome extra mile an hour or so. For the next six hours we watch the hill behind Koyuk rise above the horizon with maddening slowness. I doze off repeatedly but Socks never misses a beat; he’s racking up more steak dinners than he can eat in a year.

  The 50-mile expanse of open sea ice across Norton Bay from Shaktoolik to Koyuk is utterly featureless. Mentally, this is probably the toughest leg of the race for the dogs.

  Eventually the wind dies down and I stop for a break. Andy has been keeping up with me and Lisa has dropped a ways behind. As Andy and I chat and toss some snacks to our dogs while Lisa catches up, we notice something on the trail in the distance behind her team, which is still almost a mile off. As the team comes closer we start to make out the object in the distance: it is Lisa, apparently on foot. Her team is chugging unconcernedly along without her.

  In other circumstances this would be a cause for alarm, but now it’s just something else to break the monotony, and is even a little funny. I ask Andy to watch my dogs and I mosey back down the trail toward Lisa’s oncoming team. Brains dutifully pulls the team up to me, stops, and waits patiently while I turn everyone around. Then I drive them the mile or so back to Lisa, who is casually hiking up the trail after her wayward puppies.

  She laughs as I pull up and sheepishly admits she dozed off and got deposited on the sidelines when the sled hit a bump. Of course, the team wasn’t going to do anything out here on the ice except follow Andy and me, so she was never in any danger of losing them. This is another advantage of hanging together back here at the tail end when we’re not at our effervescent best.

  The sun sets behind Mount Kwiniuk on the run across Norton Bay to Koyuk. The 2,000-foot mountain is o
n the coast near Elim, 60 miles southwest of Koyuk. The trail passes directly beneath its steep flanks.

  Besides, I’m glad for the opportunity to repay her—at least in part—for her help the other night when I almost lost Yankee. I hop onto her sled bag for the ride back to my team, where we all have a brief celebration: we’re within striking distance of Koyuk and we’ve finally left the heavy winds behind, for awhile anyway.

  Even after we finally make out the individual buildings of Koyuk it still takes an hour to cover the last miles. We pull into the checkpoint on the beach at sunset. Our plan is to rest for several hours here and then head southwest down the coast, stop briefly in Elim, and then run over to White Mountain. The total distance is under 100 miles and we hope to be in White Mountain tomorrow night. From there it’s only 77 miles to Front Street and the end of our journey.

  We are the only ones here. The four teams in Aaron Burmeister’s group that escaped Shaktoolik yesterday are already at White Mountain. They will be in Nome tomorrow in time for the banquet, which starts at four in the afternoon. The checker suggests we leave as soon as possible while we have good weather and a good trail in front of us and for once we agree. The run over to Elim promises to be fairly innocuous and we intend to be on the road after midnight.

  As we work on the dogs some of the village kids are hanging around. They are interested in candy and the charcoal hand warmers which seem to have become a popular item everywhere along the trail. Unfortunately I don’t have any of either to spare because one of my bags was rifled here a few days ago along with nine others, including one of Andy’s. It’s the only place this has happened on the race and the village elders are much embarrassed. Luckily we can make do with what we’ve carried from Shaktoolik, so the damage is more symbolic than severe.