KASILOF, Alaska – Dodo Perri, 48, a longtime musher in Italy and veteran of the 2005 Iditarod, died July 14 in a diving accident in the Isle of Ponza harbor in the Tirrenean Sea near Rome. Perri was living on the Isle of Ponza with his girlfriend, Maria Rita Menichelli, who owns a store there. He was a part-time fisherman, and on Friday afternoon, he was busy trying to recover a lure made to look like a colorful metal fish. It’s used for catching cattle fish. He had lost the lure the evening before while returning to dock his boat. While diving to get the lure, he hit his head on a boat propeller, which caused massive head injuries. A boat driver got him out of the water almost immediately and administered first aid, but he was too badly injured to survive.

Perri was a veteran of sled dog sports, having won the Italian Sled Dog Championship and run in eight Alpirods, an international sled dog race that spanned Italian, French and Austrian Alps. And he had fought tooth and nail to raise money to run his first Iditarod. Finishing 52nd, Perri described his rookie Iditarod as “good,” despite wallowing through deep snow, ruts and open water that plagued the race that year. “The whole thing, I like,” he said, describing the run with a mountaineer’s language as “very technical up to Rohn.”

Most of all, Perri said he loved being in the country. “It’s beautiful - Alaska, the parts I didn’t know. I see the most beautiful place when I went through White Mountain. From the top of the hill I can see the ocean and mountains. Wow.”

Perri is survived by two sons, Giacomo, 22, and Davide, 20, and was to be buried July 19, after cremation in the little town of Courmayeur, Italy, in the Alps at the bottom of Mount Blanc, which is where he worked as a sled dog sport instructor and guide for many years. For the those who would like to send a telegram or a note to his girlfriend or sons, the addresses follow.

Girlfriend:
Maria Rita Menichelli
Via Corridoio 8
04027 PONZA (LT), ITALY

Sons:
Giacomo and Davide Perri
Meublè La Grange
Strada la Brenva 1
11013 ENTREVES - Courmayeur (AO), ITALY