My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--The World's Most Grueling Race

by Brian Patrick O'donoghue

  The Hot Dog Man was faltering. Sensing a chance to catch him, I jumped off the runners and ran, giving it everything I had, pushing my sled up the short hill crowned by the American Legion arch. But it was no use. We coasted into the legion hall parking lot in thirteenth place, 34 minutes behind Barve, the first musher into Eagle River’s checkpoint 20 miles from the start, and 2 minutes ahead of fellow rookie Joe Carpenter.

  I sent friends for a veterinarian to examine Gnat. Two vets promptly appeared. They knelt over the young dog, flexing his limbs and probing for sensitive areas. A local TV crew raced over to catch the action. Just what I need. “Reporter cripples dog. Footage at six.”

  Blaine, Jim, and Nancy tossed the other dogs chunks of whitefish and dished out a meaty broth to those willing to drink. Kelly pulled off any remaining booties, which were reduced to shreds, and checked the dogs’ feet for cuts.

  “Nobody is putting on those booties the right way,” I shouted. “From now on, I am the only one putting on booties.”

  Nancy figured I was freaking out because my mom had sewed them. She didn’t know that I faced a booty shortage. If the bundles I mailed out after the food drop weren’t waiting at the checkpoints ahead, I’d need every last one we had.

  I calmed down after hearing good news from the veterinarians. Gnat’s back was bruised, but it didn’t appear to be serious.

  “See how he acts in Wasilla,” a vet said. “If he looks all right, put him back in the team and see how he handles the run to Knik. That’s only fourteen miles.”

  Coleman watched the action from the second sled, chin planted on his fist. He hadn’t budged an inch since arriving in Eagle River. He looked like a crooked old man to our sister Karen.

  The day was looking good to me. My team hadn’t mutinied in front of the ABC cameras. I hadn’t lost the dogs, or Coleman. We hadn’t been run over by snowmachines, mail trucks, or damaged by any of the freak hazards awaiting people crazy enough to mush dogs through Alaska’s largest city.

  We loaded the dogs back into the truck. With Blaine at the wheel, Team number 2 rolled up the highway, bound for Wasilla, where the serious race for Nome would begin.

  Coleman stayed behind. A nice smooth ride in the van with the rest of the family sounded appealing to him. “It’s nice to have completed my part of the race without a train wreck,” he declared, as my aunt zoomed in with her video camera.

  Descending the hillside, Tom Daily’s leaders decided that the frozen creek below looked more appealing than the narrow trail they had used on the way up. When the chance presented itself, the leaders plunged down the bank. By the time the musher managed to stop the sled, ten dogs were standing on the creek ice below.

  This is absolutely nutty, thought Tom, who could see water gushing through open holes in the ice. His sled was precariously balanced. If he let go to haul his leaders back up the slope, he knew he might well lose the entire team. Fidaa spied a sign alerting hikers about the dangerous cliffs. She wondered what advice authorities had for sled dogs.

  Bowing to the inevitable, Tom launched his sled over the bank, sending the team on a careening descent along the narrow frozen creek. The ice offered nothing for his brake to grab, so Daily concentrated on steering the sled past massive rocks, stumps, and the holes he couldn’t skate over.

  For the first time ever, Fidaa saw her husband was terrified. “Tom, just scratch!” she cried.

  Tired, sweaty, and scared, Daily considered bailing out. His wife, the love of his life, was in danger. Assuming he could figure a way to save her, he might just let go. But the musher thrust such thoughts aside. Of course, he wasn’t going to let go of his dogs. Hanging on to that sled, Tom Daily felt intensely protective of those childlike companions in front. His whole life was tied up in those dogs.

  Eighteen teams skipped past Daily during his team’s adventurous detour. Yet Tom was only two hours behind Barve checking into Eagle River. That wasn’t so bad at all. The bummer arrived in the form of the replacement for his illegal gear. His friend’s wife hadn’t understood. Instead of meeting the team with a legal axe, she brought Tom Daily a bow saw.

  Friends expected great things from Sepp Herrman. The longhaired, blond-bearded German expatriate was a newcomer to the Iditarod, but no one questioned his ability as a dog musher. The reclusive Herrman spent winters trapping out of a remote cabin, 50 miles from the closest road, in the Brooks Range, a mountainous region north of the Yukon River. Sled dogs were his engine of survival in that treacherous, unforgiving wilderness. The trapper’s savvy and grit were matched by excellent dogs. He had several on loan from Rick Swenson. The master musher respected Sepp’s ability to train good leaders.

  Herrman drew position number 71 in the chute, putting his team’s starting time nearly three hours behind mine. High noon overtook him as he mushed those tundra-seasoned dogs through unfamiliar city streets. By that time the snow, trucked into the city for the occasion, was getting thin and dirty. The sun felt scorching. It was easily 80 degrees warmer than the conditions the team had so recently left in the Brooks Range. Dogs capable of breaking their own paths through deep snow and fierce winds, dogs upon whom the solitary trapper routinely staked his life — those same dogs faltered on the warm, well-groomed trail to Eagle River. Twenty miles into the 1,150-mile race, Sepp Herrman was third from last in the standings and was packing three dogs in his sled. His entire race was in jeopardy.

  Larry Munoz rode his big wiener out of Wasilla at eight minutes past four. I was scheduled to depart a minute later. Ushering my dogs toward the chute, Vicki noticed I wasn’t wearing a numbered bib. It was required gear, because the restart was also being televised live.

  Vic sprinted back to the truck and fetched it. Friends were tying on the bib as my name again blared through the surrounding speakers.

  Bobby Lee, seated overlooking the starting chute, was providing running TV commentary. The former race marshal took note of my rapid fall from first to thirteenth position in the overall standings. Lee added that I was still keeping good company for a rookie.

  “I’m sure Brian would be glad if he could keep that position — but he won’t.”

  The safe approach was to leave the White Rat and Rainy in lead. That had been my prerace strategy. On the spur of the moment, I now scrapped that idea. Moving Rat down inside the team, I shifted Cricket into lead with Rainy. Gnat’s tiny sister was much faster than Rat.

  The player change looked brilliant as my little girls set a swift pace leaving Wasilla. Trouble hit when the trail emerged from trees, and we entered Lake Lucille’s glassy, wind-polished ice. Alone, I’m sure Rainy would have made straight for Munoz, who remained visible in the distance, hunched over his sliding wiener. There were scratch marks to follow and a handful of marked tripods. An experienced dog might have noticed such clues. It was all new to young Cricket.

  There were scattered clusters of people, some of them seating on folding chairs. There were cars and trucks, haphazardly parked. Groups of children were playing. Snowmachines were zipping in different directions. Confronted by all these strange sights and sounds, my little girl freaked, peeling Rainy and the team away from the trail at a 45-degree angle.

  I yelled. I hit the brakes along with Troyer, who’d replaced Coleman on the second sled. But the sheer ice offered nothing to grip. Spooked, little Cricket remained on a tear, propelled by 64 additional flailing paws. Both sleds swung wildly behind the team, which twisted like a mad snake. We slammed into several hard-packed mounds of snow before my hook took hold, finally ending Cricket’s charge.

  In the distance, I saw other mushers trotting past us in neat formation. I would have changed leaders, but the situation remained precarious. One slip and Troyer might be on his own. All I could do was coax them. “Go ahead, Rainy, go ahead. Good girl Cricket! Good dogs!”

  The leaders were finally headed in the right direction, when they spotted a spectator’s dog.

  “Put that thing in your car!” I yelled.

  “My
dog has every right to be here,” the guy shouted back, ready to debate the point. The man reconsidered as my excited crew barreled down on his lone mutt. Scooping up Fido, he dove into his car.

  We continued skidding in the general direction of the trail. Just short of a dangerous cluster of spectators and parked vehicles, I again stopped the team.

  “I think we’d be all right if you could just please steer my leaders past these cars,” I called to a woman standing near Rainy and Cricket.

  The woman crouched down and gave the pair directions, pointing out relevant land marks. Cricket wagged her tail, sensing an opportunity to be petted. Rainy held the team in place, but she shied away from the woman. My lesbian didn’t know what to make of a talkative stranger.

  Troyer was too busy laughing to be of any help.

  “Lady,” I shouted, “just grab the dogs. Please, grab their collars and drag them to the trail.”

  As the trail joined Knik Road, my old landlord, Tom Renggli, appeared alongside up in his van, waving madly and pacing my team. Rushing ahead, he parked and greeted me at a road crossing.

  “Need anything, Brian?”

  Several friends were throwing a bonfire party on Knik Lake, the trailhead first used by dog teams hauling gold miners and their supplies to a place called Iditarod. This year Big Sandy had gone all out, renting a portable John for the festivities. As the team trotted past, I urged my landlord to meet us out on the lake. “Look for the John,” I said by way of a landmark.

  He recoiled at the suggestion.

  The van again zoomed by. Minutes later, I saw my old landlord perched on a berm overlooking the trail. Worry creased his brow.

  “Bri, you need a porta potty?” he shouted. “I got one at home.”

  “Thanks,” I said, realizing I couldn’t begin to explain, “but I’m fine, really I’m fine.”

  Tom Daily realized his sponsors were disappointed. They wanted to see more fire in their musher, more dedication toward winning the Iditarod his first time out. As if that were as simple as tying on a new pair of sneakers. They might be generous with their money, but these folks had no idea what this sport entailed. None. Tom’s current objective was to escape town without any more disasters.

  The musher arranged with race officials to drop four dogs from his team at Wasilla. Those he left behind weren’t injured. Driving 20 dogs was just too crazy; after careening down that creek, Daily wanted absolute control. But that hope was crushed before Tom even made it past the restart banners. One of his shoe-company volunteers had meticulously fastened each dog’s neckline to a thin tag clip, instead of to their sturdy collar rings. The weak clips held so long as handlers were there restraining the dogs. As soon as they let go, necklines began popping loose.

  The force exerted by a working sled dog is primarily channeled into the team’s gang line through a tug line, which is clipped to the rear of the dog’s harness. Those tugs were properly connected, so Daily’s dogs were still pulling, and his sled was launched forward. The neck lines served to hold the dogs in neat formation. Without them, the team fanned out like a riotous mob.

  Tom wondered what new bad thing would happen next.

  The first time his lead dog collapsed Bill Peele was thunderstruck. The kindly musher from North Carolina assumed that poor Charlie was stricken with a heart attack, or something else catastrophic. Peele was relieved to detect a strong pulse.

  Charlie’s eyes popped open. He sprung to his feet. Ready to go.

  Peele, 56, didn’t know what to make of it. The lanky, bushy-bearded rookie had no illusions about being a mushing expert. But this didn’t fit with anything he’d learned since coming to Alaska in December to lease a dog team from Redington. Proven Iditarod dogs like Charlie, a trained leader, didn’t crumble in a heap without good reason.

  Knik was less than about ten miles away. Peele would have the dog thoroughly checked out when he arrived. He pulled the hook free and resumed his march. The team had hardly moved before the dog went down again. Peele cursed his foolishness. Charlie was dead for sure. He should have loaded that dog! Yet Charlie’s pulse still felt strong. His chest was heaving regularly. Sure enough, the dog quickly regained his feet. Peele was thankful, of course, but the darn dog’s behavior was mystifying.

  When Charlie dropped for the third time in barely a hundred yards, Peele became suspicious. This time the musher didn’t stop right away. Instead he watched as the team dragged its prone member through the soft snow. Funny thing. The musher sensed that ole Charlie was watching him.

  Stopping the team, Peele knelt over Charlie until the dog finally looked him in the eye. It was as if Peele could read the thoughts underneath that furry brow: “Well, dummy, you best leave me here, cause I ain’t going to Nome again.”

  Peele loaded Charlie in his sled. He told himself he was imagining things. A sled dog couldn’t be this devious.

  It was Mardi Gras time in Knik. Inside the bar, Hobo Jim’s foot-stomping and slashing guitar work had the crowd in a frenzy. The windows were so steamed from perspiration you couldn’t see through them. Outside, the view of the race was blocked by the mobs of spectators, friends, and handlers swarming each incoming team.

  Big Sandy tracked down Kelly and Davis and told them about the party out on the lake. She gave them directions and asked them to guide the team over.

  “No way,” Kelly told the other handler after Sandy had left. “Our job is to GET BRIAN OUT OF HERE.”

  As my team entered Knik, Rainy bravely trotted through the tunnel of parkas. Digger and Spook flinched at the human tumult, but continued forward, ears low. Somehow I picked Marcie’s face out of the crowd. She chased us to the checkpoint and gave me a hug.

  “The dogs look good, Brian. Really good.”

  I had a million things to say. But Knik offered no refuge. The race was ON.

  “Can’t stop here. Can’t stop here,” an Iditarod volunteer shouted, determined to keep me from parking next to my truck. Kelly ran the guy off, then stuffed a Burger King cheeseburger in my pocket. He and the pit crew were cranked.

  While Kelly and Davis unhitched the second sled, Nancy snacked my dogs. I placed on new booties, by myself this time. Cyndi was standing by with the thermos I had asked her to fill.

  “Hot Tang,” she said, “just what you ordered.”

  Kelly pulled Troyer aside. “Look, we can’t let him stop for this barbecue thing.”

  Half a dozen teams had passed mine on Lake Lucille, two more caught us along Knik Road. Countless others were streaming in and out of Knik. I fussed with my sled. Did I need anything else from the dog truck? An important question, since I wouldn’t see it again until my return home.

  “You’re ready. Get out of here!” Kelly said as Dee Dee Jonrowe, a top driver, parked her team adjacent to us.

  Stepping on the runners, I reached for the hook. Troyer climbed aboard one side of my sled; Kelly took position on the other. Jim and Nancy ran ahead of the dogs, leading Rainy and Rat through the crowd.

  Sandy intercepted the team as we approached the open part of the lake.

  “This way,” she said, grabbing the leaders to steer the team over toward the bonfire.

  “What? What?” I said, having completely forgotten the party, where my family and dozens of friends were waiting. Kelly rushed to the front of the team.

  “Forget it. Brian’s not stopping. This is a race!”

  We left Sandy on the lake, looking disappointed.

  My dogs were pulling like an engine in fine tune. I shook hands with Troyer and Kelly, and they jumped off. I was looking backward, waving good-bye to my friends, when the team balled up in a tangle. Both handlers saw it and came running. Another team slipped by as I lined out my dogs. Kelly was waiting on the sled when I trudged back. I slapped him on the shoulder, then turned to the dogs.

  “All right,” I shouted. The dogs chased the team ahead.

  I leaned into the turn rounding the old Knik Museum. When I looked up, there it was, waiting for me:
a curving fence rising toward a gap in the trees — the Iditarod Trail.

  Dandy should be here. Mushing out of Anchorage, the absence of his trusted leader cast the only shadow touching Jon Terhune’s trail. His Kenai-conditioned dogs breezed through the warm passage to Eagle River, climbing a notch to forty-fifth position.

  Watching other mushers streaming through Knik and racing off into the darkness, Terhune’s girlfriend, Dawn, brooded about the unknown dangers ahead. She couldn’t quit thinking about the money, time, and energy being squandered on this mad perversion of a sport. She thought about Terhune’s refusal to return to work the day before, as his company had demanded. Ten years with Unocal and her boyfriend had thrown it away — for what? By the time Terhune arrived at Knik Lake, Dawn was seething.

  “You’re crazy,” she told Terhune. “And Joe Redington should be put in jail for starting long-distance mushing.”

  It was a familiar argument. Terhune didn’t need a rerun. Certainly not there in the middle of Knik Lake. But he let her rage. He was going to Nome, regardless. And he really had no adequate response to Dawn’s main question: “Why do you do it?” Terhune figured the only answer to that was spiritual. You either saw that or you never would.

  “How can you do this for a hobby?”

  “It’s NOT a hobby,” Jon snapped.

  The musher kept his cool. This was Dawn’s scene, and he let her play it out. Three hours slipped away in a breathy cloud of angry words. Every minute of the delay represented a major sacrifice to Terhune. But he knew she’d never appreciate that.