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

by Brian Patrick O'donoghue

  Crossing the Burn, the dogs repeatedly quit, forcing Fossett to camp for hours each time. It was a dismal repeat of his experience on the Kusko 300, when the canine work stoppages caused him to scratch. His faith in the Iditarod investment was eroding. The best gear and dogs money could buy wasn’t worth much without cooperation between the team and its driver.

  “I haven’t got any leaders at all,” Fossett said, sounding deeply discouraged.

  I beat a hasty retreat, leaving Fossett to stew about his fate.

  Plettner was appalled. Her leased dogs were fine, but Urtha looked just pitiful. He was shivering and had a pasty, exhausted pallor. Plettner was glad she had waited for him. Takotna was a quiet little village; there wasn’t a better place on the entire trail for an emergency overhaul.

  She steered her rookie inside the checkpoint, entrusting the local volunteers to stuff him full at their bountiful table. Later, while Urtha slept, Plettner arranged for him to borrow a plain snowmachine suit. It was 20 below outside, and the forecast called for colder temperatures in the days ahead. If the schoolteacher was in trouble now, he’d never make it unless he ditched that idiotic parka of his. Urtha had one of those fancy new coats that probably felt good in the store, Plettner judged, but left a musher encased in frozen sweat.

  While I lingered overnight in Nikolai, where I used Petruska’s phone to file my first News-Miner trail report, four checkpoints and some 260 miles ahead of me Jeff King was working up an appetite. He snuck out of Shageluk about ten-thirty that night, managing to leave the other front-runners behind. Four hours later, King mushed into Anvik, where he claimed $3,500 and the gourmet dinner waiting for the first musher to reach the Yukon River.

  The intense musher from Denali Park played down the significance of his surge to the front. The big prize was, after all, more than 500 miles away in Nome. “But I am the one who gets dinner,” King told reporters.

  Using a two-burner Coleman stove, a chef from the Clarion Hotel in Anchorage swiftly dished up a seven-course dinner, consisting of an appetizer plate of assorted seafood, chicken consommé with garden vegetables, sautéed shrimp in gin and vermouth, the hotel’s own black raspberry sorbet, Caribbean lamb medallions, a fresh fruit and cheese plate, and ice-cream tarts. Three types of wine were served — Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noirs, Robert Mondavi Chardonnay, and Kiona Merlot. And for dessert there was chocolate mousse and coffee.

  As he dined under the glare of television cameras, surrounded by a huge crowd of villagers, waiters, and the media, King confessed that hunger wasn’t the only motivation behind his bold breakaway. “I wanted a chance to say hi to my kids on TV.”

  A single six-or seven-hour push, with one or two short snack breaks: that’s how long it took most Iditarod teams to cover the 48-mile run from Nikolai to McGrath. Fossett, the securities firm president, had the same goal when he mushed from Nikolai late Saturday night. But his leased dogs had their rookie figured out. No more than an hour or two outside the village, the team quit again. Fossett fed his dogs a hot meal and gave them a long break. He eventually got them moving, but his leaders soon called another strike. The workers had seized control and were playing fetch with the boss.

  The sled dogs toyed with Fossett for 15 hours before pulling his sled into McGrath. The frustrating experience convinced the stockbroker to sell short and take his losses. Turning the uncooperative dogs back over to Johnson, Fossett scratched, becoming the ninth entrant to do so in this year’s race.

  CHAPTER 7. Story of the Day

  Leaving Nikolai, the trail followed snowmachine routes west through lakes and marshes to the Kuskokwim River. Past traffic had carved a fast, smooth alley for dog teams. Chad was in a cooperative mood, displaying the speed and command response that had made him our number one dog throughout the fall. Barry Lee had left two hours before me, but we caught him without even trying.

  My key chain thermometer read zero. The sun’s low angle created blue shadow dogs, bounding in perfect harmony, touching paws with every step.

  Roughly midway to McGrath, a TV crew from Anchorage intercepted me on a snowmachine. Chad veered off the trail, ran to the reporter, and lay down by her feet.

  “How does it feel to fall so far behind?” the reporter asked.

  I fielded several similar questions about my troubles, while swapping Harley and Raven to lead in place of Chad. He accepted his demotion with joy. Freed from the pressures of leading, he was whining to go again. So were Digger and Cyrus. “Listen,” I told the TV woman, “if you want, the cameraman can ride on up front for a bit. But I’ve got to go.”

  Daily passed us during the media ambush. Bidding the cameraman good-bye, I gave chase, steadily gaining ground as the trail twisted through sloughs and spindly shoulder-high spruce.

  Nearing the Kuskokwim River, I saw a cluster of weathered shelters. Seeing the pole racks overlooking the bank, I guessed it had to be an old fish camp. The place looked deserted now, but in a few months those racks would undoubtedly sag under the weight of drying salmon.

  “Who are you?” The voice came from the trees.

  I blurted out my name.

  “Great, I’ve been looking for you.” A photographer I knew from the Anchorage Times dashed out from behind the camp. He fell in behind the team on a snowmachine.

  As we approached McGrath, the trail snaked through thick woods then abruptly dropped onto the Kuskokwim. Daily, taken by surprise, dumped his sled coming off the hill. When my team piled into his, dogs were sprawled everywhere. The photographer grabbed a shot of us as we straightened out our dog teams in the glow of the setting sun.

  A Times reporter was waiting for me when I parked the dogs in front of Rosa’s Cafe. “How does it feel to go from first to last place?” he asked.

  God, we’re such lemmings. I remembered being in this same place, asking similar predictable questions. Joe Runyan was the first musher to reach the Kuskokwim village that year, followed by Babe Anderson, the local favorite. Like the other reporters pestering the leaders that day, I hadn’t grasped the real story.

  Neither Runyan nor Anderson had yet taken their required long break. They had chosen to push their teams through the Burn, all the way to McGrath, before starting the 24-hour clock. Consequently, their lead was illusory. Most of the other mushers in the race that year were, at that moment, in the process of completing their layovers at checkpoints en route. The incredible part was — they, too, were even then falling behind.

  “The real story is behind us,” Runyan said. “Joe Redington, he’s your story.”

  From Skwentna to Rohn that year, the front-runners had pushed each other, exhausting their dogs as they slogged through miles and miles of soft snow. Temperatures had dropped while Redington was nursing his flu. The trail, packed by the plodding race leaders, hardened to a racing glaze, perfectly timed to catapult Old Joe and Cannonball Herbie Nayokpuk once more into the fray.

  “I feel like an old fox chased by fifty young hounds,” Redington said later that night, stomping his hook into the snow outside Rosa’s. Redington’s astonishing leap into the lead, 400 miles into the race he had founded, made for a good story, but no one considered him a serious contender, not at 70 years old.

  Nayokpuk commanded more respect. The Inupiat musher from Shishmaref, then traveling close behind Redington, hadn’t been a threat since undergoing a heart operation several years before. But his announced retirement hadn’t lasted, and Herbie ended up finishing a respectable eighth in his comeback attempt. His overall record boasted finishes in every top-five spot — except first. At 54, Nayokpuk remained a long-shot contender.

  Two hundred miles later, the Old Fox was even farther in front. By then, the story about his effort was assuming gigantic proportions. Could Redington pull it off? Debates raged in every cabin, seafront bar, or urban office in Alaska. An enterprising songwriter released “The Ballad of Smokin’ Joe,” which got heavy play on Alaska radio stations. Everyone was pulling for Joe.

  Redington remai
ned the leader in Ruby, the gateway to the Yukon River on the Iditarod’s northern route. Adults in the village cheered, and their children ran alongside the sled as Smokin’ Joe’s team trotted up the hill.

  As the first musher to the Yukon that year, Redington earned the feast, which became a great media event. Photographers and cameramen jostled for position as the unkempt, wind-burned musher picked up his dainty fork.

  In the middle of the dinner, Ruby’s checker pushed through the crowd carrying a fat beaver carcass. Seeing the beaver in Em-mitt Peters’s hand, Old Joe set aside the fancy silverware and jumped to his feet. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of crumpled bills. Redington had a dog that wasn’t eating right, and he figured that beaver, a flavorful high-energy meat, might be the cure. So Redington had asked the checker to find a trapper. Mission accomplished, the Athabaskan known as the Yukon Fox knew better than to wait on ceremony.

  Leaving Ruby, Redington’s team met an incoming musher.

  “Brother,” Old Joe shouted, raising one hand.

  “Brother,” said Nayokpuk, returning the gesture. “Hurry,” he added. “Get out of here before they catch you.”

  The trail to Nome was wide open. But Redington’s team balled up outside the village on the frozen Yukon. His leaders weren’t in the mood to hurry away from the cozy village. Redington trudged up front and switched leaders. The team ran a few feet and balled up. He again switched leaders, producing another few yards of progress, then another tangle. He switched leaders again, and again, and again. Dogs were never going to beat Old Joe — a musher for 40 years — in a test of sheer will.

  Nearly 45 minutes elapsed before Redington’s team regained momentum. I got a picture as Smokin’ Joe’s team rounded a big rock wall, finally leaving Ruby behind. The Old Fox was still in front, but those young hounds were gaining. I had my first taste of the woes created by reluctant leaders.

  None of the press realized at the time — and Redington was too protective of his race to point it out — but his amazing drive had already been sabotaged by a race organization screwup. Whereas Adkins complained because his trailbreakers sped too far ahead, allowing the trail to blow in, Smokin’ Joe had the opposite problem. Loping like the wind, Redington’s dogs actually overtook the snowmachines charged with clearing the front-runner’s path.

  To the uninitiated, that wouldn’t appear to be such a bad thing; snowmachiners could surely repass dogs, even the fastest dogs, at their leisure. Perhaps. But such developments inevitably damaged the front-runner’s chances.

  Nayokpuk had earned his nickname, Shishmaref Cannonball, in a telling incident. Leading the race in 1980, Herbie overtook the trailbreakers in Rohn. Unwilling to slow down, he barreled alone into the Burn, where he wasted half a day, lost in the charred forest, because of the lack of trail markers.

  Redington’s problem was the snow. Where he caught the snowmachiners near Cripple, the halfway checkpoint on the Iditarod’s northern route, the snow was deep and powdery. Old Joe pulled into the checkpoint holding a six-hour lead on the young hounds. While others reveled in the hoopla surrounding his arrival, which earned him $3,000 in silver coins, Redington was appalled at the volunteers’ casual attitude. Nome remained his goal — to get there first, the Iditarod’s founder needed a good trail punched through.

  An argument erupted, leading to a further delay. The trailbreakers finally left, but time had run out. It was a sunny day, and the trail was soft, too soft. When Redington tried to leave, still comfortably ahead of the pack after a five-hour rest, his dogs sunk to their armpits, awash in the mushy powder. Old Joe wisely retreated to the checkpoint, giving the trail more time to set. Butcher, Buser, and the other young hounds arrived during the delay, smelling blood for the first time.

  “Good to see you so upbeat,” said race Judge Bill Bartlett.

  “Why not,” I said. “This is fun, and it sure beats working.

  “I’m not staying long,” I added, grinning through the ice clinging to my beard and mustache. “I’m picking up a headlamp, getting a beer at McGuire’s, and then I’m out of here.”

  The time had arrived to execute the Coach’s strategy. McGrath, population 550, was a big noisy village. Iditarod teams seldom get much rest here. And the town has so many distractions that mushers inevitably waste a lot of time. So Mowry’s plan called for giving the dogs a short break, then pushing on to sleepy Takotna, about 25 miles ahead.

  Bedding the dogs near the airstrip, I went shopping for a new headlamp. The prospects weren’t good. Alaska Commercial, McGrath’s main retail store, had already closed for the night. Checker Chris O’Gar came to my rescue. She fetched the manager, who graciously reopened the store and sold me a $32 headlamp. It was a cheap toy, producing a feeble, unfocused beam. But you take what you can get.

  A package was waiting for me at the checkpoint: a box of chocolate chip cookies, baked by Shelley Gill, my old Frontiersman boss. “Congratulations,” read her note. “You’ve survived the hard part. The rest is a breeze.”

  Terhune had planned from the start to take his layover in McGrath. The decision was dictated by his poor eyesight, which necessitated his using extended-wear contacts. Terhune hated the feel of the damn things, but glasses and mushing don’t mix. He could hardly walk outside in his heavy gear without fogging his thick glasses. The choice boiled down to wearing contacts or mushing blind, and McGrath was the first stop where he knew he could count on finding a cabin warm enough so that he could disinfect the lenses without freezing them solid.

  As in most villages, families signed up to host Iditarod mushers. Famous mushers such as Butcher, Runyan, Swenson, or Redington, were coveted guests. Most veterans had friends they stayed with year after year. Terhune, an unknown rookie, landed in a house overrun with three mushers, more than a dozen Iditarod pilots, vets, and judges, and an even larger complement of dogs. Though exhausted, he couldn’t sleep. The noise and clatter left him feeling bitter: big-name mushers wouldn’t put up with cramped conditions like this. Terhune continued brooding until the final tick on that 24-hour clock.

  McGuire’s Tavern holds an illustrious place in Iditarod lore. In years past, when locals such as Eep or Babe Anderson had a shot at winning, loyal friends sought to derail the competition by offering them free drinks. Iditarod has become so competitive that top racers seldom risk visits to McGuire’s anymore. But I claimed a bar stool with pride.

  The bartender greeted me with a bowl of chili. Another Iditarod supporter sent over a free beer. I stayed for about an hour, soaking in the warmth and conversation. Walking to my sled, I tap-danced in my bunny boots.

  At 9:30 P.M., precisely two hours after our arrival, I yelled, “Get up!” Dogs that weren’t already standing rose and stretched. Little Raven began barking. “All right,” I cried, reaching for the hook. “Let’s go get the Poodle Man!”

  The sled slipped forward. Ahead of me, the dogs trotted toward a gleaming string of markers, leading into the darkness.

  Takotna was supposed to be a short 23-mile hop. Three hours out of McGrath, I cursed all map makers and their unholy spawn. This trail climbed forever, bumping over snowmachine moguls, with no end in sight. At last, I saw a cluster of lights. The promised land beckoned. Tiny Takotna was famous for greeting every Iditarod team, from the first to the last, with hot water for the dogs and a hearty meal for their driver.

  The checker, a local musher, was apologetic. “We didn’t expect anyone before morning,” he said.

  Five days had passed since Butcher had led the first wave of teams through the village. With a lull expected tonight, the fire under the water barrel was left unattended. A skin of ice covered the surface of my complimentary “hot water.”

  The walls of the community center were lined with a neat gallery of mushing photos. I found a huge spread of food waiting, and several nice locals eager to host a tired musher. Did I need anything? Anything at all? What did I think of the race so far? Afterward one of the women guided me to a quiet libra
ry, where I bunked out on the carpeted floor.

  I was awakened, as requested, at 6 A.M. The dogs, after more than four hours of rest, would be primed. I felt worse off for my own 90-minute snooze. My body was rebelling, but I staggered to my feet. The race clock was running again.

  The Coach’s strategy called for bolting from Takotna, thus sealing my lead over the teams still napping in McGrath. The concept — so exciting in the kitchen at home — felt awful in the flesh. Before lying down to rest, I had asked the Takotna women for booties I might salvage and for a needle to patch the chewed harnesses in my sled.

  “I wouldn’t use thread on those harnesses. Use dental floss, it’s tougher,” one woman told me.

  Six hours after arriving, I left Takotna, packing a box lunch prepared by the checkpoint volunteers, a big bag of salvaged booties, and a dental-floss dispenser with several needles tucked inside. The Coach’s plan had vaulted me a dizzy three or four spots ahead in the standings, past Lee, Garth, and Daily. Not to mention Peele, who finally captured sly Charlie in the Burn that very morning. Mushing for Ophir, I traveled in sole possession of sixty-second place, approximately 30 hours behind the next teams.

  Little Cricket limped terribly on the road out of town. I checked her over, but found nothing wrong. If the mysterious malady had shown up in a bigger dog, I would have turned around and dropped it at the checkpoint. Cricket was so small that carrying her, if it came to that, wouldn’t be a problem. Watching closely, I left her in the team. She limped for about two miles, then straightened up. Over the 35 miles that followed, Cricket was her old self, keeping a taught tug line and briskly trotting with no hint of strain.