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

by Brian Patrick O'donoghue

  “It’d be like trying to go fishing in a ten-foot skiff in forty-foot seas,” commented Dean Osmar, a fisherman destined to win the race two years later.

  The Shishmaref Cannonball shot 22 miles out onto the exposed sea ice before the storm proved too intense for even his leaders. Humbled, with his dogs locked in tight balls, the musher spent a long, sleepless night shivering in his sled bag. In the morning, Herbie Nayokpuk turned his team around and returned to Shaktoolik.

  “I’ve been out many years in the cold,” Nayokpuk told a reporter. “But that was the coldest night I ever spent.”

  Swenson had won the 1982 race, with Butcher trailing 3.5 miles behind. It was the pair’s first one-two finish and foreshadowed the rivalry that dominated the sport in the next decade. Nayokpuk spent a day regrouping and then mushed into Nome in twelfth place, slipping from Iditarod’s top ten for the first time.

  Three years later, in 1985, Libby Riddles clinched her victory in a similar situation. Arriving in Shaktoolik on a stormy afternoon, a few hours ahead of Barve and Swenson, Riddles fed her team and then agonized over whether to set out along the 58-mile trail to Koyuk. She was packing, yet struggling with her decision, when Barve mushed into the checkpoint. The blocky printer couldn’t believe the woman was even considering going out.

  “If it’s anything like what I just came through, it’s impossible,” Lavon declared.

  “That set me,” Riddles later wrote. “Impossible? This was the whole point of all the work and energy I’d put into the last five years.” Infuriated by Barve’s macho certainty, Libby climbed on the runners of her sled and pulled the snow hook.

  “Okay, gang,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  It was zero out, but the wind chill amounted to 56 degrees below as Riddles mushed out of Shaktoolik that afternoon. She didn’t get as far as Nayokpuk. She hadn’t passed Lonely Hill, hadn’t yet reached the beginning of the 30-mile run across the sea ice, when the storm halted her team for the night. Though morning brought no relief, Riddles stayed on course, struggling through another day of storms before she mushed into Koyuk after 24 hours on the trail. The other mushers weren’t far behind, but Riddles rode her hard-won advantage to Nome, finishing 2 hours 45 minutes ahead of Dewey Halverson.

  Everyone in our group knew Libby’s story. And nobody, least of all me, wanted to duplicate her heroics. Riddles had been reaching for the crown, $50,000, and lasting glory as the first woman ever to win the Iditarod. Our motivations were far less grand. We had, at best, a belt buckle and a finisher’s patch waiting if we made it. There were other, less tangible, rewards — such as the right to raise a beer with Hobo Jim and sing, “I did, I did, I did the Iditarod Trail.” We also faced, perhaps, a lifetime of regret if we flamed out in the remaining miles.

  Today’s sky was clear over Shaktoolik, signaling a tiny window ahead. We meant to push through before Nature slammed it shut. By 4 P.M. everyone was packing to leave. Daily hadn’t yet arrived. Doc and the others weren’t going to wait — and neither was I.

  Just the other night in Unalakleet we were talking about the Red Lantern. I protested when Daily said he wouldn’t mind getting it.

  “Better watch it,” I said. “I heard Barry say that same thing. Garth too. Start thinking the Red Lantern wouldn’t be so bad, and the next thing you know — you’re history.”

  The Red Lantern was becoming a curse. And Daily appeared to be another victim.

  There was an undercurrent of panic as we broke camp. Vague rumors were circulating about more storms on the way. I nearly lost it on Rainy when I saw her bite through another harness seconds after I had slipped it on. I smacked her on the nose with my mitt and yelled. The lesbian seemed not to hear me. Her lips were tight. Her attention was completely absorbed by the exodus taking place around us.

  My spares were shredded. I decided to let Rainy wear a crooked harness for a while and see if that made an impression. I mushed from the village at 4:45 P.M., led by a unrepentant bitch trailing webbing in the snow.

  The trail again rose into rolling hills. Gunnar Johnson repeatedly passed Terhune and me. Each time, his team bogged down as soon as he was in front, forcing us to pass again. Terhune finally exploded.

  “If you pass me again,” he yelled at Johnson, “I’m going to knock you right off that goddamn sled.”

  “My team’s faster …”

  “Your dogs are as fast as the team in front,” Terhune snorted. “They won’t go nowhere without somebody to follow.”

  His point was demonstrated as Herrman’s team overtook us. Latching on to the superior team, Johnson left us behind.

  “Good riddance,” Terhune shouted at the vanishing hitchhiker.

  CHAPTER 11. Off to See the Wizard

  Lonely Hill rose from a flat frozen marsh, a solitary sentinel guarding the Iditarod Trail’s entrance to Norton Bay. At the foot of that towering rock stood what, on clear days, you’d have to call a crude plywood shack. On bad days, when searing winds whipped the barren coast, grateful travelers found those worn boards a priceless sanctuary.

  The shelter looked bleak and unappealing when I caught the others there. A quick visit inside did nothing to change my opinion. Then again, it was a hospitable night. No wind to speak of, it was relatively mild, with darkness just slipping over the gray horizon. And there was comfort in the company gathered at Lonely Hill. Only Daily was missing from the convoy.

  A faint breeze was rising. Cooley wanted everyone to agree to stick together crossing the ice. Plettner protested. She didn’t want to play nursemaid, as she had out on the Yukon. Her dogs were faster, she pointed out, so she had to keep stopping and waiting for the slower teams. Stopping at some arbitrary exposed place, midway across the ice, sounded awful cold to her.

  I didn’t like the idea any better. I may have needed help with the deep Yukon snow, but this was entirely different. I was confident that Rainy and Harley, even Chad, Raven, and Rat, could handle the ice. My team was slower, not slower than everybody else’s, but definitely slower than Plettner’s, Herrman’s, Cooley’s and, perhaps, Williams’s. Traveling with the convoy compounded the speed differential. Speedsters shot ahead, then rested awaiting us slow pokes. As soon as teams like mine closed the gap, the fast drivers took off again. The net result was that the teams in the rear of the convoy were getting progressively less and less rest, resulting in our slowing down even more.

  Scar was curling so tightly at every pause that he looked like a pretzel. Digger still leaped like a pogo stick when the team paused, but that bouncing exuberance seemed reflexive, almost zombielike. Even Harley seemed a bit shell-shocked, but his trembling had always been disconcerting. I argued that my dogs would be better off setting their own pace.

  Cooley hung tough. “Every team in this group is going to get to Nome” he declared. “And that means we’re going to stick together tonight.” He suggested that we all go inside the shelter to discuss it.

  Plettner was sick of discussions. The group was making her crazy. She pictured herself holding a machine gun and laughing as she shot us down. Rather than waste more time, she agreed to Cooley’s plan. I went along, albeit reluctantly. Each musher pledged to watch out for the team directly behind. We came up with a code for the headlamps. One blink meant “everything is all right.” Two blinks: “I’m in trouble.”

  Based on the order of our arrival at Lonely Hill, Don Mormile owned the last spot in line crossing the ice. He approached me before we broke camp.

  “I’m having some trouble with my leaders …”

  Mormile was a ceaseless complainer. He whined about checkpoints, about race officials, and about his dogs, which were leased from Redington. I didn’t like Don Mormile. I didn’t trust him. But my personal distaste faded when I saw the fear in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you go in front,” I said. The parade order made no difference to me. Not with Nome still 200 miles away. “But you better be watching for me, Mormile. You better be watching.”

  Tom Daily
enjoyed the climb out of Unalakleet. He hadn’t expected to see so much timber this far north. The sun was so inviting he lay on his sled and napped atop one of the hills. He awakened feeling refreshed.

  Reality was waiting in the marsh below. Clouds rolled in, hurling a bitter wind at the Red Lantern musher and his dogs. The only encouraging sign came from Bogus. From the moment he hit the coast, the dog had undergone a personality change. His tug line was taut, and he trotted with the enthusiasm of a pup.

  Daily assumed he would catch us in Shaktoolik. But all he found waiting behind the armory were empty beds of straw and a loose pile of race-related trash.

  “Oh, you Iditarod mushers. Thank God you’re the last one.” As if it weren’t depressing enough to find us gone, the village checker’s sour greeting stung.

  “Let me use a bathroom, and I’m out of here,” Daily said.

  The armory’s compost toilet was overflowing owing to heavy use from earlier racers. Tom was directed to a nearby house. The family was very friendly. They ushered him into a room with a toilet in a corner. He was taking off his gear, layer by layer, when he noticed a little Eskimo girl watching. He tried to shoo her from the room, but the little girl kept sneaking back inside, delighted by this new game with the oddly costumed stranger.

  “Nothing comes easy on this Iditarod,” the musher mumbled.

  Conditions became hellish after Daily left Shaktoolik about eight that night. Loose snow shot across the hard drifts making it tough to see. And while Bogus set a good pace, he kept veering from the marked trail. “Gee! Gee! Gee!” Daily felt as if he had shouted the command a thousand times.

  Daily sensed his dogs were nearing their emotional limit. He was being sandblasted by the wind and was starting to doubt his own judgment. The trail ahead looked awful, but Tom wasn’t at all sure he could find the way back to the village. Less than 15 miles out from Shaktoolik, Daily’s sled abruptly stopped. Curling into balls, his dogs lay down in the storm.

  Begging my way onto the Associated Press plane one year, I got a look at what mushers faced crossing Norton Sound. The pilot, Larry, swooped low over several teams so Rob Stapleton and I could get pictures. The light was magnificent. The sun, already low on the horizon, threw long shadows off the dog teams, which were cutting a straight line through patches of white snow and dark blue sea ice. As Larry circled and banked, Stapleton and I leaned out the windows, chewing up film in our motor drives.

  Mushing across the ice wasn’t bad, not at first. The dogs were rolling. My runners neatly sliced the crusty mounds. In the areas free of snow, numerous white cracks showed through the dark ice, but the visible depth of the fractures was actually a comfort. I caught Mormile whenever I pleased. He was conscientious about checking on me. Every five minutes or so he turned back and flashed his headlamp, awaiting my response. The bouncing lights of the full convoy stretched out half a mile or more into the darkness. Odd shouts floated back across the ice, mixing with the wind and the steady crunch of sleds on the move.

  It was the perfect moment for listening to my much-traveled Miles Davis tape. I was still amazed at the journey the tape had made. A race volunteer had found it on the trail leaving Rohn, where the tape had fallen out of my overturned sled. It had then been sent ahead to Unalakleet, via Iditarod’s air force, and the checker there surprised me with it. I had the tape with me, but it was purely a good-luck charm. My Walkman had quit. Too bad, the trumpeter’s wail would have suited this forlorn place.

  Another annoyance: my thermos was empty. I had meant to refill it when I melted snow for cooking in Shaktoolik. But I had forgotten and used all the hot water for mixing dog food. I was thirsty.

  As the temperature dropped, I reached inside the sled bag and pulled out my parka. Wearing the coat loosely over my shoulders helped, until it got colder. The parka zipper was icy, and I had trouble sealing it. I needed that full hood — the breeze was turning vicious. Balancing on the runners as the sled continued to bump and slide across the ice, I gripped the zipper tab with Channellock pliers. I had worked the zipper to just below my neck when the goddamn tab tore loose. Lurching backward, I almost fell off the sled. I swung my arms until I regained my balance on the runners.

  The hood on my parka now became a wind scoop, funneling the subzero breeze into my chest. I held the neck of my parka shut with one hand, while I gripped the sled with the other. Hunched over the handlebar, I concentrated on keeping Mormile in sight. Northern lights were rippling overhead, neon green, soft white, and hints of red, but I was in no mood to appreciate them. I was cold, damn cold. Too cold to care.

  Later, I don’t know how much later — time having become secondary to the absolute necessity of clinging to the sled and staring at Cyrus’s and Rat’s steps as they ran in wheel — I came upon the others. They were stopped for some reason, talking and snacking their dogs. I watched them, making no move to get off my sled.

  “You OK?” Terhune asked.

  I had trouble even processing the question. And when I sorted “yes” from “no,” my mouth just wouldn’t work. I shook my head. By then, I was surrounded by headlamps.

  “Drink this,” someone said, handing me a cup of warm juice.

  The liquid was startling, rolling down my throat like fire. I drank several cups and felt the energy spreading through my body. Snapping out of my delirium, I babbled about the zipper. “You need a shell, something to block that wind.”

  I dug out Nora’s shell. It was too small to fit over my big parka, but it might fit between the parka and the snowmachine suit. The zipper was still locked under my neck. The others helped me duck out of the stiff parka and slip on the lightweight shell, which was really too tight for this purpose. I felt like a mummy as they lowered the parka back over my head, but the deadly chink in my armor was closed.

  Gripped by the cold, I’d stopped eating, a telltale sign that I wasn’t thinking clearly. As I revived, I felt ravenous. But I was careful. I hadn’t forgotten the story of the musher who had knocked himself out of the Quest with a handful of M&Ms. Popping them in his mouth on a 40-below night, he gagged as they froze to his mouth and throat.

  I settled for gnawing on a rock-hard brownie. Then I took care of the dogs. Their ears perked as they heard the rustle of the stiff plastic snack bag. They were tired, I could see that in Rainy’s brown eyes, and in the way Cricket, Screech, and Scar sprawled, wagging their tails lightly as I approached with the goodies. Harley stood stiffly, trembling with anticipation. Only Pig and Cyrus showed no signs of fatigue and leaped for the chunks of sausage fat and frozen whitefish.

  The rest stop abruptly ended when Tom Cooley called our attention to a low black fog swallowing stars on the horizon.

  “A ground blizzard is coming,” he said. “We better run straight through.”

  Low-blowing powder was streaming across the ice, parting on contact with the dogs like water around boulders. Eye-level, visibility wasn’t bad, but the wind penetrated my face mask, making my cheeks ache.

  Crossing a dip, Spook caught a foot in the lines. I let him hop for a few seconds, hoping he would clear it on his own. No such luck. Mormile pulled away as I stopped to clear the tangle. Nothing to worry about.

  I ran back to the sled. Yanked the hook and …

  Harley had doubled back and was humping Raven.

  “Harley, no!” I ran up front and tried to separate them. Too late. They were locked together in the unstoppable romance dance, indifferent to the blizzard gathering force around us.

  “Why now. Why now,” I groaned.

  Mormile’s light steadily sailed away. I looked at my watch, marking off 20 minutes, wondering how far ahead the others could get in that span of the dial. Would I still be able to see their lights? Two, three minutes passed, Mormile hadn’t turned around. I cursed him, calling on the stars to witness his perfidy. Finally, he turned.

  One blink. Was I OK?

  How to explain? Hell. I returned one blink. “A-OK here,” sure. So I was trapped on the ice with
a storm bearing down, waiting for Harley to get his rocks off. Up front, the lesbian was trying to mount Screech. The other dogs were watching me. Scar and Pig looked envious. Cricket was shyly wagging her tail. I started laughing and petted them. I wasn’t scared, and I wasn’t alone. These 13 friends of mine provided plenty of company.

  Mormile, much farther away now, turned his light back toward me again.

  I blinked once, sending the “A-OK” message. I was delayed, but there was no serious trouble to report from the Norton Bay Sex Club.

  Mormile slowed down and waited for me. The musher directly ahead of him, Terhune, stopped when he lost sight of Mormile’s headlamp. In theory, this should have put the brakes on the entire convoy. But Gunnar Johnson, traveling in front of Terhune, never looked back. The chain was broken.

  Daily couldn’t let the dogs quit on him. Not here, crossing an exposed, windy marsh. He grabbed Bogus by the collar and dragged the team forward. It was a struggle, but he got the dogs moving. Tom didn’t know anything about the shelter cabin at Lonely Hill. Somewhat miraculously, he found it anyway. Being inside the rickety structure was better than being outside. Daily was tempted to bring in his dogs. That was against the rules, but who was going to know? He sighed. He would know. Daily wasn’t comfortable with that, and he hadn’t come this far to be disqualified by a stupid mistake.

  Daily started a fire with the alcohol left by Plettner. After feeding his team, the musher became depressed. Partly, it was the storm, which was really howling now. The surroundings didn’t help. The cabin was filled with trash. He could tell it was mostly from other mushers. Iditarod mushers trapped here, like he was now. While the storm rattled the shelter’s exterior walls, Tom Daily busied himself, cleaning house.

  Harley and Raven didn’t get to savor their rendezvous. The second they separated, I put the lovers to work chasing Mormile, who had slowed to wait for me.