Looking for Alaska

by Peter Jenkins

  We crashed, though that’s not the word Jeff would use, up and over little mounds; the dogs would be over and going down while I was just coming up the front side. The mounds were like frozen heads in the trail. Occasionally, the lines holding my sled to Jeff’s would grow slack, then snap forward when the force of the pulling dogs caught up to it. I could tell from Jeff’s voice that this upset him. He explained to me that during a long-distance race, loose lines without the proper amount of pressure on them put great stress on the dogs. Every time the lines that connected to the sled went slack and then “caught up,” it stressed the dogs’ joints and legs and muscles, especially those of the wheel dogs, the two closest to the sled. There was a way to bend over the bumps to keep the pressure on the lines equal, and there was a way to drag your heel on the snow when going downhill to keep the sled from running too fast. Riding the sled required much more concentration than I could ever have imagined.

  How would you like to be hooked up to this? The Tustamena 200. PHOTO BY PETER JENKINS

  After maybe five miles I was somewhat relaxed on the runners. I was practicing adjusting to all the undulations on the surface of the ground, and I could see that if it was done right, over several days it would demand less energy of the dogs and certainly put less stress on them. Then, without warning, we came to a steep creekbank; the dogs never slowed; they even sped up. It seemed to head almost straight down, then we hit the ice of the creek, blown clear of snow. When we hit the ice, my sled began sliding sideways at a runaway speed. Plus my sled pulled Jeff’s a bit to the side too. I was now sliding at a ninety-degree angle to the long, straight line of these thirteen blazing dogs. Half of them had already begun zooming out of the other side of the creek. I could tell this was not going to be elegant. I hit the creekbank, bang, and it sounded as though the sled would shatter, but it didn’t. I smashed into the bank, came off the sled, which turned over sideways. The impact threw Jeff off his feet, but he did not release his grip even though his sled too was knocked on its side. Jeff held on with both hands. The dogs pulled him and the sleds up and out of the creek and across the bumpy, frozen ground. He was telling the dogs to stop, and they finally did. I ran out of the creek the best I could. I knew the way I’d hit I would have some bruises and knots, and I did.

  “That was a pretty good fall. Those second sleds really whip on the ice. You all right?” Jeff asked me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I wasn’t ready for that one, though I’m not sure even if I was I could have hung on.”

  “And can you imagine, after running the Iditarod for five days or seven days, and you hit something like that. People fall off their sleds, it’s a good way to lose your team. Sometimes they don’t stop until they get to the next checkpoint or get tangled in something.”

  That crash illustrates what makes dogs and mushers such performers at the most extreme levels. It shows why they must be so qualified. They don’t play out their game in a climate-controlled dome or stadium. They don’t run across a place like California or Pennsylvania that has a comparatively mellow climate. Besides California and Pennsylvania are not large enough playing fields for the Iditarod. They need almost twelve hundred miles. They don’t play out their game on a smooth wood floor where there is no concern about running full speed into a steep riverbank you couldn’t see or were so sleep-deprived you forgot it was there. How many baseball games have been played in a whiteout, on top of the frozen Bering Sea, with winds blowing forty miles per hour? How many extreme sports events have contestants swim across an open lead in a frozen river near the arctic circle when the air temperature is thirty-eight below? And if they did, imagine the hype, the breathless announcer. The Iditarod, the Kuskokwim 300, represent what is Alaska. They pit people and Alaska’s beloved sled dogs against all that Alaska can offer up. They race across and through whatever comes. They don’t brag about where they’ve been or how they got there. They don’t want comfort or luxury. They don’t whine. They are all as tough as they come, they have to be—Alaska requires it.

  The Iditarod captures the essence of Alaska. The most populated town the Iditarod travels through is the mostly Eskimo village of Unalakleet (pop. 714). To race eleven hundred–plus miles, pulled by dogs while standing behind them on the runners of a sled, from Anchorage to Nome—it’s like racing from Dallas to beyond Aberdeen, South Dakota. Or from Atlanta to past Albany, New York, or from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon. Imagine taking off from Chicago in the dead of winter and mushing to Casper, Wyoming. Nowhere Outside could you travel that far without encountering farm and ranch fences, towns, cities, traffic. You can run the Iditarod without running into any man-made obstacles. Though nature certainly has much in store.

  Nowhere else I’ve ever been has nature and the environment been so dominant, the most powerful force. Man has created his own worlds in so many places; he seldom even has to enter what’s left of nature. A few trees here, some squared-off grass “lawn” there. Alaskans have so much respect for Mother Earth that it would not be right to stage their biggest “event” on a man-made playing field. Alaskans don’t live out their lives in controlled environments; they want to see who among them can handle and move through their real world, not just to survive but to cover one hundred–plus miles a day.

  “For the first ten years of mushing, when I fell asleep, I fell off the sled. Now I fall asleep, my body is used to the movements and I stay on,” Jeff said.

  There off to our right sitting on a stump surrounded by white was a great horned owl. Moose tracks were everywhere, crossing the trail we ran on.

  Jeff’s long mustache was covered in frozen condensation from his breathing; he figured it was thirty below, at least. Jeff was so comfortable on the sled he would stand sideways on one runner with both feet and talk to me. I saw him change clothes going down the trail, search for things inside the sled. He pointed out Red, his long-legged leader. Jeff said when Red was on the move, he had a high-stepping gait and slanted slightly to the side at times. Several of the dogs would occasionally reach out and grab some snow in their mouth.

  A gust of wind blew down from the mountains on our right. Jeff explained that some mushers are understandably afraid of the wind when they first feel its strength. The wind is alive, a being, it must be understood, used, not feared like all mighty powers. A famous Eskimo rescue team from Shaktoolik wears a patch on their jackets and hats that reads, “The wind is the Eskimo’s friend.”

  Mystic Mountain was somewhere to our right. There was nothing south of us but the mountainous and the mystical. Being in a place this cold and silent and empty of human clutter had a spiritually powerful impact on me that I had not expected. I thought I’d be freezing and feeling lonely, but it wasn’t so.

  Back in Jeff and Donna’s kitchen there’s a rusted, well-used metal cookie tray. On it are many small, white rectangles with magnets on the back. Each dog being considered for the 2000 racing season has a magnet with its name on it. As the training continues, some of the second stringers, such as maybe Nickel or Pumba, may even make the top team. There may be injuries to the big dogs, the number one team, or the ravages of age may begin to show up, as compared to the unrelenting hunger that shows in the younger dogs. Some dogs want not only to push themselves but will demand the highest levels from those in the team with them. On our team today were the best of this early season, Red and Jenna, proven Iditarod leaders. There were Hanky and Whitney and Chip, Zazu and Beta, Conan and Hump, Paris, Raven, Deer, and Boogles. Jeff would watch them move as one, and you just knew he was thinking, “These dogs are the most beautiful, powerful, unbeatable team there is.” He also knew that all mushers thought this sometimes while they trained their teams in splendid isolation. Jeff was trying some of Joe Garnie’s dogs; he had leased Joe’s team from last year’s Iditarod. One of Joe’s dogs was in the wheel and was fussing with the other: two males, an antagonistic look, a growl, some stiff-legged posturing. Joe’s dog was attempting to exert his dominance over Jeff’s dog. The wheel dogs, clos
est to the sled, are often the strongest, largest, and therefore most resistant to the physical punishment of long-distance running.

  Their different characters prompted Jeff to think about the analogies he finds, and studies, between professional human athletes and professional dog athletes.

  “Look at those dogs.” Jeff pointed out from the sled while we sped along. He was always concentrating, always learning, always the teacher. He was his own most important pupil.

  “I think about the NFL quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Jim McMahon, or Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. With Montana and McMahon, you had Montana, polite, shy, unthreatening, until he’s on the field with the ultimate champion’s heart. With McMahon, you had the outspoken, controversial human who refused to lose, sacrificed himself to win no matter how bleak it looked. I’ve had dogs I’d compare to both of them. I’d rather have the self-contained Montana-type model, but I’ll take a champion’s heart any day I can get one.”

  We popped unexpectedly into a frozen swamp area. I adjusted and stayed on the sled, though it was rough and jolting. Jeff stood on one runner. He spoke for several minutes about his feelings on this year’s team in the making. His dogs Bryan and Dude had just been demoted to the “puppy” team that Shawn would run in the Iditarod. The idea of the puppy team, I heard Shawn and Jeff say, was to not push them, but run somewhere in the middle to back third of the pack. Let the young dogs have fun their first Iditarod, see which ones shine, strive to lead. Give them all kinds of rest, then if they make the varsity, they already know the trail. Once they’ve run it, I’ve heard mushers say, the dogs always remember the trail. They even know it during whiteouts and wicked storms when the wind can be their enemy.

  Storms that smash through a race can cause inactivity, passive panic, even tragedy. They also create opportunities for the best leaders, the daring and the able, to pull away and win. It’s how Libby Riddles became the first female musher to win. At that time she was Joe Garnie’s partner, living in Teller. Leaders smell the trail when they can’t see it. They smell dogs that have passed and snow machines that have gone by. Jeff remembered one storm so bad that some dogs tried to hide from their musher. Red and Jenna, however, got more aggressive because they knew how terrible this storm was, and they knew they had to get through it or continue to suffer in it.

  We’d just passed a bull moose who’d lost his antlers. Jeff at first thought the moose was not going to leave the trail, which is another major potential catastrophe, but it finally moved off in time that we didn’t have to stop. It is impossible to back up, and it is extremely difficult to get off the established trail, especially if the snow is deep. Jeff told me about a time one year a week before the big race when a moose was in the trail and attacked him and his team. It wouldn’t give up its space on the trail. Moose become vulnerable to wolf attack when they get in the deep snow, so they prefer packed trails. Jeff had to dive off the sled into a hollow area beneath a spruce tree where the snow had not collected because of low branches. The moose slashed at one of his dogs with its lethal hoof, and the wound required seventy stitches.

  “You know,” Jeff said after our moose strutted into the willows, “leaders of lesser constitution will let the wind, after being buffeted by it for some time, blow them off course. Their will is weakened. Great leaders will stay on course and push through it. Like in the ’98 Iditarod, big ol’ Red and little Jenna did just that. Generally two great leaders are better than one, they give each other confidence.”

  FLYING FACE-FIRST THROUGH THE AIR

  We had climbed in altitude and were traveling in some deeper powder. I was listening to Jeff, then lost some of my concentration on the sled, and we hit something and I was flying face-first through the air. I landed in some soft powder. Jeff stopped the sled; as I jogged back, he smiled slightly and said, “Outstanding landing, sir.” I took it as a compliment, and we got going again.

  One of Joe Garnie’s dogs, Jazz, who was supposed to be one of the best, wasn’t enjoying himself—he just wasn’t having fun. Jeff demoted the dog but never gave up on him. Who knew, maybe Jazz missed the Eskimo village of Teller, his home on the Bering Sea, above Nome and so different from here in the interior. Walt, another of Joe’s dogs, had a hitch in his gait. Jeff was letting him rest, putting him in the barn at night. Now Jeff was noticing a two-year-old named Kanga. He seemed to be the only rookie who could keep up with the veterans.

  Jeff stopped. Even though Jeff’s top team was pulling an extra sled and me, we were well ahead of Morten and Helge, who each had a team. Jeff was always racing, racing himself, racing anyone around. He wanted to make sure the apprentices were doing fine; this was their longest trip so far on a dog sled too. In about ten minutes they appeared, running smoothly, no problems. Jeff wanted a report. Morten and Helge were athletes themselves and gaining significant confidence as mushers.

  A few miles across the trail, we came to a long incline; I stepped off the runners and ran a bit. That radically helped the circulation in my feet. Jeff looked back when he heard my heavy footsteps, and I thought I saw a slight smile through all the ice that covered his blond-brown mustache. About halfway up the hill, about half the team turned and looked back. Then fifty yards later, two-thirds of the team looked back. It seemed to me they were looking past Jeff at me. What kind of a load is back there anyway, the look seemed to say. We slowed down. I got off and ran again, and we sped up. I got back on when we were almost to the top, and the whole team but Jenna looked back.

  We’d been on the trail three hours. Jeff said the team was running in excellent form. Their gait was a really fast walk, except for Jenna and another small female, who ran sometimes and fast-walked when we slowed just slightly. Jeff said he was getting a positive feeling about this year’s racing, but he would know more after some shorter races. Jeff said he might run the Copper Basin 300 the second week in January, he wasn’t sure yet. He planned to run the Knik 200 on New Year’s Eve; he always did, as it was near their home. That race did give him confidence; that week there was a slight cold snap at Jeff and Donna’s and it got down to fifty-seven below. One of their daughters was having a slumber party and Jeff had to stay and fix the plumbing. Morten ran the team instead and won. Jeff would race in the Kuskokwim 300, one of the toughest races and one of his favorites, on the last weekend in January. Then just before the Iditarod, which begins the first Saturday in March, he wanted to run the Tustamena 200 on the Kenai Peninsula. It too would go well; he would win. Paul Gephardt, a musher many people thought was a future star, came in second. People around Alaska were talking knowledgeably about Paul’s amazing lead dog with the awe that comes when a superstar is in your midst.

  Right before we got to Kate and Larry’s cabins, a bit over four hours after starting, we reached the top of a big hill. The trail ran through a stand of evergreens, a healthy, dense cluster. The dogs were not tired, they were speeding up. The trail was level and the powder up here was deep. Jeff let out a holler of joy based on the thrill he must have felt moving so effortlessly through the clean, cold spirits of winter. He yelled out some command; the dogs could clearly feel his thrill, it’s transmitted to them. I was holding on tight, hyperalert because we were traveling so fast. The dogs and us, as a single unit, were soaring through the powder.

  We came out of the wilderness to a little open runway for a Super Cub. Jeff told us to get ready, we were about to make almost a ninety-degree turn and then we’d be there. He obviously didn’t want to slow down the dogs. I didn’t slow down, my sled whipped out in the brush, I bent down, leaned left, and made it. Whoa, what a rush. Jeff told me as we both braked, easing toward the log cabin we’d sleep in, that last summer a grizzly had come around here. A Super Cub was parked out on the grass strip. The bear liked red, the color of the plane, or didn’t like planes, whatever—it stood up on it hind legs and tore up the wing fabric covering, did $15,000 in damage. Alaska insurance agents get these kinds of “animals and equipment meet” calls more than you might think. The guy wh
o owned the plane taped up the wings with duct tape and flew it to Fairbanks to be repaired.

  Kate Wood and Larry Mead had their own kingdom out here near Gold King Creek. In some way, that whole concept of your own kingdom is why people love living in Alaska. You can carve out your own world and be completely (or however completely you want) surrounded by the natural world. Kate came to Alaska from Maine to go fishing for grayling. Her boat broke down, she had this feeling that she didn’t care if she went back to Maine or not. No offense to Maine or anyplace else, but there is no comparison when it comes to Alaska, she told me. A year later, Kate, a registered nurse, sold her farm in midcoast Maine and moved up. Kate and Larry became partners and have had this place for several years. You can’t call it a B&B; it would have to be a B&B&L&D, plus. Kate served us a dinner that night made on her woodstove, just Jeff, Morten, Helge, Larry, and me. It was exquisite food. There were homemade breads and cakes and pies and jellies and relishes and meats. Here was a place where there was time to cook, to bless your creations, to share them with strangers who don’t stay so long. I remember Jeff saying this would be the best of both worlds, the thirty-five below and the potential brutality of the trip, and then the pampering of Kate’s homemade food and Larry’s sawmill, where he milled his own lumber and had used it to build their sauna. Jeff said he had nothing to prove anymore, he could tough it out enough in the races, he didn’t have to beat up himself or his dogs anymore in training with Kate and Larry’s place available as a halfway point. Amen, brother.

  Before we ate, before we even met Kate, the dogs were all unhooked from the sled and bedded with fresh straw. Larry had water heated so their food could be mixed. Our cabin with four bunk beds had a woodstove going; it had heated the water. There was a wire “clothesline” for our frozen mittens and damp felt boot liners and wool hats. There was a place to hang our Trans-Alaska suits to dry; we could dress just in fleece pants and vests and coats. This cold is filled with clean spirits and dry landings; there is almost no way to get wet and cold unless you run into the dreaded overflow. It was warm and cozy inside their kitchen with Kate’s big-mama cooking stove, and the living room and dining area had its own woodstove too. We sat up for hours after our meal, telling each other story after story. Larry told one about the time thirteen wolves surrounded the cabins and came down to the creek and out on the ridge. I don’t quite remember how they knew there were thirteen, but they did, and Kate and Larry have no reason to exaggerate. When you’re flushed by racing across the wild and filled with Kate’s food and wine and herbal tea, there comes a state where the moment, the stories, the company, are just appreciated for their existence. The details are not stored in the memory. Jeff, Morten, Helge, and I took a sauna. My bumps, bruises, and sore muscles were warmed, toasty and sweaty. Morten and Helge jumped into the snow nude. Little thirty-nine-pound Jenna, who watched Jeff’s every move, was allowed into the cabin with us. She was probably as close to Jeff as any of his dogs. She slept in the bottom bunk with him.