Bill Gallea for Ultimate Iditarod

RUBY THURSDAY
CINDY’S SWIFTS
TYRELL’S TALE
MELANIE’S MAGIC
DEAN’S DISEASE
POWERFUL PLANE

RUBY THURSDAY

Hi, again, from Ruby. This village on the Yukon River is so friendly and so delightful that we in the plane decided to stay over another day. Daniel is forging on ahead by “snow-go”, as snowmobiles are affectionately called here. Staying here allows us to see most of the teams in the Race as they come through, whereas Daniel can keep tabs on what’s going on in the front of the pack.

Yesterday afternoon was clear and brisk, with virtually no wind. Local folks tell us that that is distinctly unusual. It is well-known among the mushers also that “the wind always blows along the Yukon”. Last night we were mesmerized by another fantastic showing of the northern lights.

This morning when we awoke, it was actually warmer. This is because it had clouded over, and was snowing lightly. Now by afternoon there is a light breeze blowing, but snowfall has stopped. I’m sitting in the library of the Ruby school, home of the Ruby Ravens, writing this on my trusty laptop. The students are taking standardized tests here today, so it is very quiet.

New leader, Otis, along with Kubota and Crackle rest while Cindy rests in Ruby

CINDY’S SWIFTS

One of UltimateIditarod’s readers emailed me with a request to detail all of the dogs in Cindy’s team. I’m thrilled to be able to introduce you to her canine heroes, as I know them quite well…having raised many of them from the time they were born.

In lead leaving Ruby this noon were Willow and Otis. Willow, and her brother Ophir (also in the team), are two pups from our “Iditarod Litter”, named after Iditarod checkpoints. Their sister, Ruby, is now with another kennel, but had been with both Cindy and Jim in their last Iditarod starts. Their mother, Streak, was in my Iditarod run in ’96, and also finished with Cindy in ’98. Their father is Dave, a famous leader of Martin Buser’s, and father of many Iditarod dogs.

Otis is a striking white dog that Cindy bought from Linwood Fiedler. He had been on Linwood’s team in 2001, when he finished second in the Iditarod. Linwood did not sell him as a leader, and during the whole of the training process, and our pre-Iditarod racing in Oregon, he was generally near the back of the team, often in wheel position. But last year while Jim was traveling between Ruby and Galena, he found that the dogs who had been leading for him early in the Race did not want to lead any more. Only Willow would lead, and Jim wanted her to have a partner to share the responsibility. So…almost out of desperation, he tried Otis in lead…and he ended up running the entire way to Nome as a leader – most remarkable!

Then there are the brothers, Gibson and Cruise. These dogs were from a litter we shared with Jeff King about five years ago. We had bought their mother, Monroe, from Jeff, with the stipulation that we breed her twice to a male of his choosing. For one litter, Jeff chose Jake, a key lead dog for him in his ’96 Iditarod winning run. We kept the movie star theme for naming the pups in the litter (Monroe was named for Marilyn Monroe). One other interesting tidbit is that the first dog Jeff picked from that litter, Meg, (named for Meg Ryan), is today running in Cali’s team. Cruise is a really interesting dog. He has finished every race he has ever entered, including three Iditarod’s. He isn’t very smart, but he has a huge heart! He doesn’t lead, but he pulls harder than any other dog in the team. He has a most unusual way of drinking water out of his water can at home. Instead of standing on the ground and drinking like every other dog, he gets up on his house, and puts his weight on his flexed wrists, with his butt high in the air. Then he puts his nose way down and drinks out of the can from above!

Also in the team are two more of Streak’s pups from a more recent litter: FloJo and Tiger. Streak is an all black female, and the father of the litter is an all black male named Killer (who’s really a big sissy). All five pups were black and we named the litter after famous African-American athletes. FloJo is the nickname of Florence Griffith Joyner, an Olympic track star. And of course everyone knows Tiger Woods.

Filling out the rest of the team are Don (whom we’ve written about), Sancho, Kubota, Rumor, Tyke, Crackle, Joni, Duchess and Cecil. Duchess ran with Jim in his rookie Iditarod in ’99, when he ran yearling dogs for the Seavey kennel. He bought her from the Seavey’s after that and so he got to run her last year, and she finished for him. Joni is from the folk-singer litter. Her father is Red Won, who was on Martin Buser’s winning team in ’94. Red Won was a key leader for both Cindy and me in our first Iditarods. He’s still at Snowcrest Kennel training puppies.

By the way, Cindy’s team left the checkpoint at lunchtime today looking very strong and eager to move down the river.

Tyrell and his dogs all run uphill into the Ruby checkpoint at lunchtime today.

TYRELL’S TALE

Tyrell arrived at the Ruby checkpoint a little after Cindy left. He had a very interesting encounter with two moose along the Yukon about thirty miles upriver. They didn’t want to get off the trail. He moved his team in starts and stops for about two miles, as the moose reluctantly kept ahead of the dogs. At a couple points they started acting rather cranky, as if they might charge the team to make THEM get out of the way.

Tyrell told me he had his gun out. He was of course hoping desperately to get by peacefully, with both dogs and moose safe and sound. But it was a smart move. First of all, if the moose had started to charge, he could have used the loud report of the firearm to try to convince them to stop their attack. But in the worst case scenario, if the moose started stomping the team, he would have sacrificed the moose to save his dogs. That would have meant a really long and arduous unplanned stop, however. For the mushers are required by race rules, as well as by hunting ethics, to field dress the animal and preserve the meat so it can be used by local folks as food.

Then the moose did attempt to leave the trail, and that’s when Ty learned why they were so unyielding. One of them promptly fell over! It turns out that the surface of the Yukon River is a fairly hard crust of snow, covering a thick layer of overflow. The moose couldn’t stay on the crust, and they would get stuck in the deep slush and lose their balance!

So with the moose back on the Race Trail, Tyrell decided his only way out of this predicament was to take his team around the moose. He was a bit fearful that he and his huskies would also break through the crust and be stranded in watery slush, but luck was on their side. He was able to go almost completely across the wide Yukon to the opposite bank, and then back on the trail when he was safely past the tired moose.

It will be interesting to see if Jim, who is coming behind Tyrell by about two hours, encounters the same challenge.


MELANIE’S MAGIC

I stopped by the team of Melanie Gould who was parked by Cindy, and getting ready to head out a little later. I asked her if she had any stories so far, and at first she said ‘no’. But when I asked her if she had had any magical moments, she stopped and described the aurora both the last two nights. Tuesday night’s display was especially stunning. And she described it as her most special time so far this Race.

I happened to be up at 2AM Wednesday as well. A reporter’s work is tougher than you might realize! So I saw the same light show that Melanie found so magical. At first a bright band of green light went directly overhead from east to west. Then the band started to move, subtly at first. Then it took on the shape of a braid, or helix, that twisted just like a barber pole. Then the ribbon of light started to dance wildly, and took on a variety of colors including bright shades of pink fringing the green. By this point it looked as if the Great Spirit had a luminous, multicolored silk scarf, which was waving wildly in the solar wind…right over our heads.

Dean Osmar and a Vet check out one of Dean’s dogs

DEAN’S DISEASE

I talked with Dean Osmar as he was leaving the community hall, which serves as the checkpoint headquarters in Ruby. He looked fine, no worse than any other musher at this point in the Race. But he told me that he felt so sick he was thinking of scratching. Apparently he caught some type of gastrointestinal infection, and is battling cramps, and loose stools leading to dehydration. He thinks he may have caught the bug just before departing Fairbanks from an undercooked hamburger.

Dean and I go back a long way. I was Race Marshal for Montana’s Race to the Sky in 1990 when he came down from his home in Clam Gulch to compete. This, incidentally, was also the first dog race that Doug Swingley ever entered. On the very first night, Dean took a spill while mushing downhill on a treacherous section of trail, locally called the “boulder chute”. He hit his forehead on a rock, which caused a laceration that went all the way to the bone. He arrived at the next checkpoint, all bandaged up, but joking that “at least he didn’t hit any vital organs”.

Since I’m an emergency physician when not out on various wilderness adventures, I offered to fix him up right there on the spot, so he could continue on, and avoid having to scratch. We borrowed some suture material from the veterinarians, and I put in two layers of stitches. Once back on the trail, he caught up with the racers ahead and went on to win!!

This year we continued our doctor/patient relationship. After hearing about his problem, I arranged to get him some appropriate antibiotics from the Race veterinarians. He’s thinking seriously about taking his 24 hour break here. That will allow him to rest, catch up on his hydration, and hopefully continue on tomorrow.

View of our plane and our yellow Arctic Oven tents on the river at Ruby.

The Otter’s shadow on the snow as we skim just above the Yukon.

POWERFUL PLANE

Before we get too far into the Race, I want to share with you how we’re traveling the trail this year. Last year, Tyrell and I snowmobiled the whole way, and provided our own support. That is, we had to drive the machines, interview mushers, take video and photographs, then write articles, edit photos, update the web page, and finally upload everything by satellite phone to the internet. Plus we also had to fix our machines, prepare our own food (Iditarod doesn’t feed the media), and – maybe – get some rest.

We knew that to do a really good job, it would be better if there were also air support. The crew in the plane could land at a checkpoint, set up camp, have more time for interviews and writing, and hopefully get more rest. The crew on snowmachines could have more time to stop at those many special places you encounter along the Iditarod Trail, and get better images. Also, the snowmobilers could arrive at a checkpoint with a camp set up, and a meal made for them. Theoretically they should get more rest also.

This year our dream has come true! We have enlisted a seasoned, expert Alaskan bush pilot, Paul Claus to fly us along the trail. He is piloting his beautiful Turbo Otter, which has a 4000 lb capacity. Daniel Vetsch is on the trail with the sno-go Tyrell drove last year. We have leased my snowmobile to Jeff Morris, who is Daniel’s trail partner. Jeff’s brother, Daniel, is flying with us.

My special friend, Jeanne MacPherson, from Helena, MT, is an integral part of our adventure. She has quickly mastered the art of setting up camp with our Arctic Oven tent, made here in Alaska just for this kind of use. And she’s keeping us all well nourished by preparing our gourmet meals, previously cooked and sealed in plastic by Jim’s brother, Brian, and Brian’s girlfriend, Desiree Nemmers.

Yesterday we had a glorious flight from Tanana to Ruby. We flew high to get a perspective on the awe inspiring Alaskan landscape. We flew low to get close-up views of the teams on the trail. For the last few miles into Ruby, we were “right on the deck”, taking advantage of the smooth, crisp arctic air on our sunny, windless day. I could look out my window and barely see above the bank of the Yukon River. And I could look down on the snow-covered river and see our shadow just a few feet below. Totally amazing.

Tonight we’re spending our second night in Ruby, and we’re planning to move on to Eagle Island checkpoint tomorrow.

As I sign off this evening, I want to thank the family of Roger and Rhonda McCarty, who have opened their home to me to finish up my writing and photo editing, and also are letting me use their computer to email my material to our Anchorage staff for web page updating. Roger Jr. is my personal chauffeur, using his mother’s snowmobile. Roger’s two grandfathers, Billy McCarty and Edgar Nollner, both were mushers in the 1925 Serum Run, which saved the lives of the children of Nome. What a special honor it is to meet these fine people. And what a special treat it is to be in a place like Ruby, so beautiful and so much a part of Alaskan history.