Date: March 18, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Cabelas Outfitter Award:
Bruce Milne/Bryan Mills
Penn Air Spirit Of Alaska Award:
Martin Buser
GCI Dorothy Page Halfway Award:
Lance Mackey
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Date: March 18, 2007 at 3:59 pm
NOME, Alaska — If Bryan Mills were a lead dog, he might be related to Lance Mackey’s go-to guy, Larry. Mills has what mushers call a “tough head,” the ability to keep his attitude and drive on, no matter what. The proof: He ran 75 percent of the Iditarod with a broken leg.
He described the jarring, teeth-clattering rides through snowless tundra as extremely painful on the stress-fractured fibula, which is the smaller of the two bones below the knee. But frankly, he added, there were so many other pain issues that it all just became a dull roar of sensory information. Frosty-cold ears and exposed facial skin took all his concentration as he drove up the windy Yukon River.
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Date: March 17, 2007 at 5:06 pm
The Following is a letter of thanks from Iditarod XXXV Musher Karen Ramstead;
Just a short note to let you all know that the team and I accompanied Snickers body back to Anchorage on Monday evening. She was in a lovely little casket that Skip in Grayling made for her. It was lined with straw and handlettered on the top was her name, with a heart above the ‘i’. I was deeply moved by the thoughtfulness.
I have actually been very moved by the huge outpouring of sympathy that Mark and I have received through phone calls and emails. Although the burden of this loss is great, it is helped when you know you do not carry it alone.
The loss of Snickers was unexpected and shocking. My heart aches so deeply that I’m still not prepared to sit down and put the story on ‘paper’. I do wish however, for everyone to know that it seems Snickers died from a bleeding ulcer. A team of 4 incredible vets (Dr. Justine Lee, Dr. Turner Lewis, and the Dr. Mikes) worked for hours on her. The lengths they went to in the middle of the wilds of Alaska were simply amazing and included a dog to dog blood transfusion off of her brother, Crunchie (who was so cooperative and calm it was spooky).
I know that everything possible was done to try and save our little lead dog - and we will forever be grateful for that.
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Date: March 17, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Daughter of Iditarod legend completes journey of discovery
NOME, Alaska — As the late afternoon sun blazed in the wide-open sky above frozen, jumbled sea ice, an oddly familiar figure in a red snow suit and tan mukluks rode the runners behind a team of eight trotting huskies. It wasn’t “Susan” – couldn’t be – but it was 100 percent Butcher.
Butcher’s daughter, Tekla, completed a personal journey of discovery via dog sled with her father, David Monson, this evening.
They’d set out from Manley Hot Springs near Fairbanks about 10 days and 700 miles earlier, following the Yukon River to Kaltag and the Iditarod Trail to Nome. The 11-year-old musher, daughter of one of the Iditarod’s pioneers and four-time champion, pulled up under the burled arch that serves as the race’s finish line, capping a trip that gave the budding human a powerful glimpse not only of what her mother saw, felt and experienced on the trail, but an unexpected window into who she was as well.
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Date: March 17, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Teams jockey, pass each other right up to the burled arch
NOME, Alaska — Clint Warnke and Scott Smith had a few tough breaks along the Iditarod trail this year, but their teams were coming together and the pair noticed their run times were as good, if not better, than some of the teams about five hours ahead of them. So they busted a move.
Don’t ever think dog mushers aren’t racing just because they finish 35th or 45th. There are races within the race, goals being set, and the teams up ahead are always in the cross-hairs of the folks an hour or two behind. That’s the main reason for several last-minute passes between White Mountain and Safety, or right down here on the sea ice outside Nome.
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Date: March 16, 2007 at 8:59 am
IDITAROD XXXV MUSHER Bruce Milne, (Bib #70) made the decision to scratch at 1:20 pm, (March 16, 2007) In Kaltag, Alaska. Race officials say the rookie musher from Two Rivers Alaska made the decision to scratch based on the welfare of his team. Kaltag Alaska is located 351 miles south east of Nome.
For more information please contact Chas St.George, Director of Public Relations, Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race at cstgeorge@iditarod.com.
Date: March 16, 2007 at 8:57 am
Like stampeding buffaloes, mushers of the Iditarod pack continue to file into Nome despite winds, cold temperatures, bare trails, and glare ice. Understanding the behavior pattern of the incoming musher has become one of those counterintuitive condundrums. They sleep an hour, or not at all, after arriving and gather their fans for an appearance at a Nome restaurant.
This afternoon I was sitting down to fresh salad, looking out the large plate windows of Fat Freddies, the habitué of mushers, directly out over the white of the Berring Sea Ice and the Nome Golf Course, a three hole assemblage of green carpet, a few plastic palm trees, and green pins. Rick Casillo, who finished at noon, sits at the next table with his entourage of supporters, and orders, like a man who has pondered a decision for a very long time, a steak and potatoe. Noticing that he looks recovered I ask him why he looks unblemished and discover he was careful to wind protection on his face. No, he reports, he tried to be as careful as possible, but then shows me where he was frost bit on his eyelids and bridge of his nose, the one area he had to leave uncovered to see.
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Date: March 15, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Rookies learn patience of distance mushing on Iditarod trail
NOME, Alaska — Matt Anderson’s father, Doug, had his son’s number one rookie lesson figured out long before the team hit Front Street.
Anderson, 26, was a big time wrestler for the University of Iowa. He ate, breathed and spat wrestling. He thinks like a wrestler, his father said. So I’m told, that frame of mind is “all about me.” What is it going to take for “me” to win? Distance dog mushing takes just as much focus, but that attention has to paid not to “me,” but to the dogs.
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Date: March 15, 2007 at 9:00 pm
2007 champ meets with his father, talks about dogs
NOME, Alaska, 9:00 p.m., March 15, 2007 — The Iditarod always ushers its winner into Nome’s mini convention center for a Q&A with the public right when he steps off the sled, and the first words out of Lance Mackey that evening were, “I am buying a sit-down sled, no doubt about it. No doubt about it.”
He was wiped out physically but not mentally. He was his usual talkative self and spent the next hour fielding questions, seated and eating at a table where someone delivered a steak dinner.
But before he’d talked more than a minute or two, a familiar white-haired man strode up to the stage - Dick Mackey, Lance’s father and his inspiration not just to race but also to have the will to win. The two met in a wordless hug.
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Date: March 15, 2007 at 12:00 pm
NOME, Alaska — It didn’t matter that Robert Sørlie was the 12th musher under the burled arch this year, the children of Nome still flocked around him begging for autographs.
The two-time champion, face flocked with dead tissue from frostbite after 10 days of the toughest racing he has ever done, gently signed sheets of paper and shirts.
“It’s good to be in Nome,” was one of the first things he said.
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