Hi Boys and Girls,

Well the final preparations are being made for the Last Great Race.  Have you ever wondered how mushers carry enough supplies to last them over a thousand miles?

The simple answer is they can’t.  So what can they do to make sure that there is enough food and supplies for both the dogs and the musher to reach Nome?  They prepare drop bags to be flown to the checkpoints.

The ITC supplies mushers with drop bags to pack up and take to the Airland Transport in Anchorage to be weighed, sorted by checkpoint and then flown to the checkpoint.  Each drop bag must have the mushers name and destination clearly written on it.  Food and supplies are sent to all checkpoints except Yetna and Finger Lake.  Sending food or gear to Safety is optional.  The food drop takes place about 2-3 weeks prior to the start of the race.

So…. What’s in the drop bags?  Dog food, human food, dog supplies such as extra booties are packed in the bags.  All mandatory food must be shipped through the drop bags.  All perishable food (food that could rot or go bad) must be prefrozen. The bags cannot weigh more than 60 pounds each.  Mushers can also send extra sleds and equipment to checkpoints of their choosing.  This extra equipment may include extra dog dishes, buckets, runners for the sled, etc. This extra equipment must go with the sled and not with the food drops.

Now you may be asking how a musher knows what, how much, and where to send various supplies.  All mushers make a race plan.  Before they start the race, they know where they want to take breaks, do their 24 hour rest, and about when they will get to those places. A Musher will look at the plan and decide where would be good places for extra food, a sled, supplies etc.  Once the race starts, the mushers may have to change their plan for various reasons.  When they do that, they may also have to rethink where to pick up their supplies and may have to carry those supplies with them.

Not all supplies are used.  There is always extra. Extra dog food that is left behind may be used at the discretion of the officials.  No food, dog or human, is shipped back in the return bags.  Sleds, return bags, gear etc. may be picked up at ITC headquarters after the race has finished.

Remember a race plan is part of achieving a goal that the mushers have set for themselves.  This is one part of the plan to achieve that goal.

Only a week left before race time.  Hope you’ve picked your musher and are ready to set out on a great adventure.

Happy trails,

Gypsy

When the lead dog’s nose crosses under the burled arch, the team has finished Iditarod.  A Checker steps forward to make sure the musher has all the mandatory equipment in the sled bag.  If so, the musher signs in and the race is history.  Next, the dogs go down to the dog lot for a meal, a massage and relaxation.  The dogs don’t stay long in Nome, they are soon booked on a flight to home in rows 1-10 on Alaska Airlines.  Even though the dogs head home, the mushers stay for the Finisher’s Banquet which is 14 days after the start of the race.  This banquet is different than the one before the race.  Mushers are very focused and careful not to reveal anything about their race strategy at the Anchorage banquet.  The Nome banquet is very cheerful and friendly – the champion as well as every finisher is honored and numerous awards are announced.  The food is great – shrimp, prime rib, halibut and a whole sled full of fresh fruit.

Nome is a very active place in March.  The largest basketball tournament in the world (Lonnie O’Connor Iditarod Basketball Classic) is played in Nome at the same time Iditarod is finishing.  A golf tournament, The Bering Sea Ice Golf Classic, is played out on the frozen Bering Sea.  The 3 Dog – 3 Mile Sled Dog race is a citizen’s race sponsored by the Nome Kennel Club.  There is a reindeer potluck and a pancake breakfast put on by the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.  At the Bureau of Land Management, there are movies playing about the history and geography of Alaska.  There is also an art fair where many Inupiaq Eskimos display and sell their carvings, painting, sewing and other hand crafted pieces of art.  So much to do and so little time.

Although Inupiaq Eskimos hunted in the area, there wasn’t an Eskimo settlement at Nome before the gold rush of the early 1900’s.  Three lucky Swedes discovered gold at Anvil Creek.  Word spread and soon Nome had a population of 10,000 with thousands more arriving by steamship from Seattle and San Francisco.  Some estimate that during the gold rush 20,000 people lived in Nome where a tent city spread for 30 miles along the coast.  Today Nome has a population of 3,500 with little more than half being of Inupiaq Eskimo heritage.  Nome and Iditarod, bring to memory the 1925 Serum Run or “Great Race of Mercy” where the lifesaving serum was delivered to Nome.

Many cities in Alaska were named after explorers, politicians or heros.  This wasn’t the case for Nome – Nome got its name by MISTAKE.  There was an unnamed cape on the map a British Naval officer was using for a voyage up the Bering Strait.  The officer wrote “? Name” on the map next to the point of land in question.  Later a map maker or cartographer was looking at the notes made by the navigational officer and misread the officer’s note as C. Nome and wrote Cape Nome on his map.  Nome was most likely named for that mistakenly named nearby cape.  Another theory is that the name came from Nome, Norway by means of the “Three Lucky Swedes” who were first to discover gold in the area.  Check this out at www.wikipedia.org or at www.nomealaska.org.

The Eskimos that live on the Bering Coast are of two language groups – the Yupik live to the south of Unalakleet and the Inupiaq life to the north of Unalakleet.  Their way of life is ruled by available resources.  For example, Yupik and Inupiaq Eskimos living by the sea hunt seals and will wear seal skin hats, boots and mittens but Athabascan Indians living in the interior wouldn’t have items made from seal skin because they have no access to seals.  The Yupik and Inupiaq made weapons of bone, ivory and driftwood that were handsomely decorated.  They believed that animals would only want to be killed if the weapon was beautiful.  Whale hunting was and still is an Inupiaq Eskimo specialty.

In case you’re wondering about daylight and darkness in Nome, here are a few facts I found at www.nomealaska.org.  The longest day of the year is June 21st with 21 hours and 39 minutes of sunlight.  The sun rises at 3:19 am and sets at 12:48 am.  Technically, the sun DOES set but because it’s so close to the horizon, it’s daylight for 24 hours a day from mid-April to mid-August. The shortest day of the year is December 21st with 3 hours and 54 minutes of sunlight.  The sun rises at 12:03 pm and sets at 3:57 pm.  From this time, daylight increases 6 minutes a day until the summer solstice.  On March 15th as the mushers come into Nome, the average temperature is 11 degrees and there’ll be 11 hours and 41 minutes of sunlight.

Well, there you have it – some information about the Eskimo culture, history, climate and Iditarod events in Nome.  This wraps up the Virtual Trail Journey with Handler riding her bike 1061 miles on the rural roads of Wisconsin.  We loved to hear her stories about the checkpoints and see the pictures.  It made us feel like we’d been on the trail.  I hope you’ve learned things about the villages and the people living along the Iditarod Trail.  I’ll have more stories to share during the race so stay tuned and remember – in everything do your best everyday and always have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

John Norris, Chief Iditarod pilot had to fly from Nome out to Safety to deliver some drop dog papers.  There was room in the Cessna 180 for Handler to go along.   While they were at the checkpoint, Ramey Smith came through and dropped a dog by the name of Happy.  That left Ramey with 5 dogs, the minimum necessary to finish the race.  We loaded Happy into the Cessna where he immediately curled up on the engine cover and went to sleep.  From Safety, John and Handler headed back toward White Mountain looking for a herd of Musk Ox.  They saw the herd as well as several red fox running along the trail.  After sighting the Musk Ox, they circled out over the Bering Sea looking for seals.  They saw several soaking up sun on the sea ice.  As soon as the Cessna flew low for a better look, the seals dove through their holes back into the sea.  Those seals are slippery critters!  Flying back to Nome, they saw a large herd of Reindeer.  They also flew over some abandoned locomotives and a gold dredge which remain from the 1898 gold strike.  What a great day around Safety!

From White Mountain, it’s only 77 miles to Nome BUT if the wind blows or a storm hits, the 77 miles can be the most dangerous of the whole Iditarod Trail.  The highest ridge between White Mountain and Safety is Topkok at 500 feet above sea-level.  The trip to the summit is wide open to the wind and look out for ground blizzards.  I had to ask what a ground blizzard was and this is what I learned.  In a regular blizzard, there is precipitation that is being blown about.  In a ground blizzard, there isn’t any precipitation falling instead, the wind is blowing snow and ice crystals that are already on the ground.  This area is also known for its wind tunnels called “blow holes.”  In Trail Notes, Don Bowers warns that mushers and dogs can be in the midst of hurricane force winds with blowing snow and suddenly enter into a calm area.  Winds can go from calm to hurricane force within an hour or quit just as quickly.  Don’s best advice is to follow the markers if the visibility is bad.  Dogs will tend to turn away from the wind which means they’ll be running out over the beach onto the sea ice.  DON”T cross the driftwood line on the beach as open water lies not far off shore.  BE CAREFUL when visibility is bad.  It’s not a bad idea to make the run in daylight or hole up in either the Nome Kennel Club’s cabin or Tommy Johnson’s cabin.

With the burled arch in Nome only 22 miles away, most mushers don’t stop long in Safety.  But if they go inside for a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, to wait out a storm or to use the facilities, they’ll find the walls covered with dollar bills – there must be a thousand of them.  It seems that long ago a tradition was established.  When visiting the Safety Roadhouse at any time of the year, sign a dollar bill then staple or tape it to the wall.  Before leaving Safety, the checker hands the musher his or her bib to wear when crossing the finish line.

There you have it – some good advice from trail expert Don Bowers for the trail between White Mountain and Safety along with stories about Handler’s experiences at Safety.  A couple of hours after leaving Safety, mushers will be running down Front Street in Nome to cross under the burled arch.  Stay tuned as Handler tells us about Nome.  Remember, in everything do you best every day and have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

Looking at the map we have in the kennel, I expected that handler would be telling us about what goes on in the checkpoint of Golovin – but Golovin isn’t a checkpoint!  Golovin (GULL-uh-vin) was a checkpoint at one time but because the distance between Elim and White Mountain is only 46 miles, the trail committee decided it wasn’t necessary to have a three checkpoints such a short distance apart.  I was curious about the village along the trail that isn’t a checkpoint so I asked Handler a few question.  She said that Inupiaq Eskimos live in the village.  In the early 1800’s Russian Navy Vice-Admiral Vasily Golovnin explored the bay and lagoon that now hold his name.  Did you notice the difference in spelling?  The bay and lagoon are spelled exactly like the explorer’s name but the village uses the spelling “Golovin”.  If you’re interested, you can learn more about Golovin in Wikipedia.  Today there are 140 people who live there. Forty-nine are students who attend Martin L. Olson School for grades K-12.

When Jeff and the little dog left Elim, they headed along the shore to a spot called Walla Walla.  Here the trail crosses a peninsula and climbs over the Kwiktalik Mountains.  The highest point that the mushers reach as 1,000 feet above sea level at LIttle McKinley  Trail expert, Don Bowers, says this is the toughest climb on the last half of the trail.  With Elim in the sled, Jeff ran up one side and down the other side of the mountains to Golovnin Bay.  Today, as Golovin is no longer a race checkpoint, the trail runs by the village then follows the snowmachine route across Golovnin Lagoon and up the Fish river to White Mountain.  More than likely, it was at Golovin that Jeff tried to contact the pup’s family to ask about adoption.

White Mountain is the only village on the Seward Peninsula that is located inland from the Bering Sea.  Two Hundred and three people live in the Inupiag Eskimo village.  The culture has been influenced by neighboring Yupik Eskimos as well as the Klondike Gold Rush.  Present day White Mountain began as a fish camp named Nutchirviq which means “mountain look-up point.”  During the gold rush of 1900, a warehouse for mining supplies was the first non-Native built structure.  After that an orphanage that later became a school was built followed by the Covenant Church.  The post office opened in 1932.  The current grade school meets in the oldest operating school building in Alaska.  Fire destroyed the high school building in early 2006.  A new school was built on the southern edge of town for the White Mountain Wolves.  Forty-nine students go to school in White Mountain.

Some folks in White Mountain hold jobs with the school, native store, post office, city and airlines.  Some folks work seasonally in construction and firefighting.  There is one reindeer farm and some residents hold commercial fishing permits.  Ivory and bone carvings; knitting, crocheting and skin sewing also bring income to a few homes.  Depending on subsistence hunting and fishing, many people spend their whole summer at fish camp to harvest salmon and other fish.  Beluga whale, seal, moose, reindeer, caribou and brown bear are commonly eaten along with berries, greens and home grown vegetables.  About half of the homes in White Mountain are on water and sewer.  The other half have water but use honey buckets and outdoor toilets.

There are no roads to White Mountain so travel and deliveries are by boat and plane.  Locals travel by snowmachine or ATV depending on the season.  Average summer temperatures fall between 43 and 80 degrees.  Winter temperatures range from 7 below to 15 above. White Mountain receives about 15 inches of precipitation with about 5 feet of snow.  If you lived at White Mountain you could expect rain or snow 120 days of the year and sun on 150 days.

When mushers reach White Mountain, they are required to take an 8 hour rest before they make the final push to Nome, 77 miles away.  The checkpoint building is up the hill beyond the Native Store.  Teams park on the shore of the river.  School kids come down to collect autographs and talk to the mushers.  Villagers come down to the river to talk with their friends and enjoy what’s going on.  Everyone enjoys the view of nearby mountain for which the village is named.

Well there you have it – a summary of Don Bower’s trail description and compiled information about Golovin and White Mountain from Wikipedia, each village’s home page and Alaska’s Online Community Data Base.  About now the mushers are both excited to be so close to Nome and yet sad that their personal Iditarod Journey is nearly finished.  Stay tuned as Handler tells us about Topkok and Safety.  Remember, in everything do your best every day and alway have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

There is a community water and sewer system in Elim.  Most homes have indoor plumbing and the convenience of washers, dryers and hot water heaters.  The Eskimo people of Elim live off the land.  They depend on fishing, crabbing, whaling and hunting seals, caribou, moose, reindeer and small game.  They also plant gardens and harvest wild greens, salmon berries, blueberries, blackberries and cranberries.  The folks who have cash jobs work at the school, the store, local offices or with the airlines.

Before taking the name of Elim, the Eskimo village was called Nuviakchak (Nu-ve-AK-chak).  These folks had a very well developed culture and were well adapted to the cool/cold climate and otherwise harsh environment.  Around 1900,  herders from Norway were brought to western Alaska to show the natives how to raise reindeer to create an additional source of food and materials for clothing.  Because of this project a very large population of reindeer existed in the area.  In 1911, the area became a federal reindeer reserve of 298,000 acres.  The first school to exist in Elim was built in 1914 by Rev. L.E. Ost.  He founded a Covenant mission and school that became know as the Elim Mission Roadhouse.  Today there are about 90 students who attend Elim’s Aniguiin K-12 school  where 10 teachers are employed.

If you lived in Elim you’d enjoy about 150 days of sunshine each year along with 120 days of precipitation.  Annual precipitation is around 19 inches which includes 80 inches of snow.    The average July high is 61 degrees and the average January low is minus 5 degrees.  Summers are cool and moist while the winters are cold and dry.

The trail from Koyuk to Elim follows the main snowmachine trail.  The trail switches between the ice of Norton Bay and Seward Penninsula land for the 48 mile run.  a few miles short of Elim, mushers will pass by a settlement of old cabins.  This is old Elim and now serves as a fishing camp.  Some thirty years ago, Elim was rebuilt on higher ground.  Mushers will also pass an abandoned airport.  Between 1940 and 1970, this was a refueling stop for Nome plane traffic.  Upon reaching the checkpoint located in the Elim fire station, mushers will see a familiar face.  Jasper Bond has moved from Rohn checkpoint to Elim.

Well there you have it – a summary of Don Bower’s Trail Notes for the run between Koyuk and Elim along with some information from Wikipedia and Sperlings Best Places about the village of Elim.  Thanks to my friend Robert Bundtzen for sharing some of his pictures from Iditarod 2007.  Next Handler is going to tell us about White Mountain and a fun story about something that happened to Jeff King a few years back as he left Elim.  Stay tuned and remember in everything do your best every day and always have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

Koyuk a village of 310 is located at the mouth of the Koyuk River on Norton Bay.  Most of the people living in the village are Inupiaq Eskimos.  They depend on fish, reindeer, seal, beluga whale and moose for meat.  Some people have part-time jobs to supplement their subsistance lifestyle.  Some hold commercial fishing licenses and fish herring.  Some folks work at reindeer herding.  A new water and sewer system has been completed for the west half of Koyuk but the east side piping is still under construction. People and supplies travel to and from Koyuk by air or sea.  LIke most other bush villages, local transportation is by snowmachine and 4-wheeler.  The average summer temperature falls between 46 and 62 degrees.  In winter the average temperature falls between eight below and eight above.  The lowest temperature every recorded in Koyuk was 49 degrees below zero.  The highest recorded temperature was 87.  Nineteen inches of annual precipitation includes forty inches of snow.

Early residents in the area were nomadic and moved about to gather and harvest food.  Around 1900, the actual village of Koyuk began to take shape.  Dime Landing, Haycock and Norton Bay Station were nearby boom towns that supplied area miners.  Both gold and coal were mined up river from Koyuk.  The first school was established in 1915 by a church mission .  In 1928 the government built a new school.  Today the K-12 Koyuk-Malemute School has 124 students.  When asked what they like to do, most students will tell you they like to hunt, fish and play basketball.  Volleyball, skiing and Native Youth Olympics also rank among the top favorite activities for high school kids.

The Iditarod checkpoint is in the community center.  School lets out for a few days while the race is passing through.  Many of the children work at the checkpoint and are very proud of the Koyuk Iditarod Volunteer buttons they earn.

Well, there you have it – a little trail description and some basics about the village of Koyuk and the folks who live there.  Thanks to Sonny Chambers, a long time volunteer at Koyuk for sharing his pictures.  There was so much to share about Koyuk, I decided to divide this story into two parts.  I hope you take time to read about the great mushing history that has taken place on the Norton Bay section of the Iditarod Trail.  Next Handler is going to tell us about Elim.  Stay tuned for that story and remember, in everything do your best every day and always have a plan.  If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.

Born to Run,
Sanka W. Dog

 

In the 1890’s there was a famine in the region.  It was thought that reindeer could provide a new source of food and clothing.  The government hired herders from Norway and brought them along with animal to Unalakleet and Shaktoolik to teach the Inupiaq Eskimos how to raise, tame, corral, lasso and drive reindeer.  The Norwegians even taught the Eskimos how to make cheese using reindeer milk and make clothing from reindeer skins.  Twenty years later, five hundred thousand reindeer grazed in western Alaska.  A reindeer transportation system was developed.  Reindeer were used to deliver mail and haul freight for the military and equipment for the gold miners.  Domestic herds used mostly for food exist even today.  Handler learned about the Reindeer Project at a Sami Exhibit in the museum at McGrath, Alaska.

From Wikipedia, I found out that residents of Shaktoolik live a subsistence life style.  They depend on fish, crab, moose, beluga whale, caribou, reindeer, seal, rabbit, geese, cranes ducks, ptarmigan, berries greens and roots for their primary food sources.  There are some part time jobs in commercial fishing, education, construction and reindeer herding.  The village has a piped water and sewer system that serves two-thirds of the homes.  People and cargo arrive in the village either by air or water transportation.  The Alex Sookiayak Memorial Airstrip is nearly two miles from the center of the village.  Daily flights arrive from Nome.  Pam’s Taxi service provides a shuttle between the village and the airstrip.  Local travel is by 4-wheeler, motorbike, snowmachine and boat.  Fifty students attend classes at the K-12 Shaktoolik School.  If asked what they like to do for fun, kids will say they love outdoor activities, hunting and fishing and they enjoy having big bonfires with their friends.

Iditarod teams follow the main snowmachine trail from UNK to Shak.  From sea level at UNK, the trail rises 1,000 feet to its highest point in the Blueberry Hills.  The teams will travel through woods, open areas, sloughs and dunes; over exposed ridge tops and along the barren coastline.  Don Bowers tells the mushers in his trail notes to be ready for the Shaktoolik winds.  He says if the wind is blowing from the north it can reach hurricane force.  That combined with below zero temperatures can drive the windchill to the bottom of the charts.

The weather of Shaktoolik is influenced by its location on the Bering Sea, especially during May through October when the sound is ice free.  Average summer temperatures range form 47 to 62 degrees.  Average winter temperatures range between 4 below to 11 above.  The coldest temperature ever recorded in Shaktoolik was 50 degrees BELOW zero.  The warmest temperature was 87 degrees.  Precipitation averages around 14 inches each with 43 inches of snow.

From Shaktoolik, the residents can keep and eye on Besboro Island.  Looking at a map, Besboro is the only island in Norton Sound.  It seems to be a magical landform.  Height, width, color, size and shape change minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day.  One of the explanations for these continuous changes is that cold air is trapped near the ice by warm air aloft.  The light’s rays are bent as they pass between the two layers of air and a mirage occurs.  Tired mushers don’t believe their eyes as Besboro rises, falls and shimmers while they run to the village of Shaktoolik.  If you’d like to do more research on mirages, try this website – http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/supmrge.htm.

Well, there you have it – a snapshot of life in Shaktoolik, a peek at the magic Island of Besboro and a few words of warning about the trail.  Thanks to my friend, Diane Johnson, 2000 Teacher on the Trail and Iditarod Education Director for sharing her pictures of Besboro.  From Shaktoolik, the mushers run across Norton Bay to Koyuk, the northern most Iditarod checkpoint.  Stay tuned for that story and remember in everything do your best every day and always have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

Once past the Old Woman Cabin, at night mushers may be able to see the Unalakleet airport beacon flashing green then white.  This is a good sign as it means it’s not snowing on the rest of the trail to UNK.  It’s interesting that early airmail pilots used to fly in all kinds of weather using beacons like this to find their way.  The closer a team gets to UNK, the more likely they will encounter blowing and drifting snow.  Don warns the mushers to be very careful and navigate from marker to marker to avoid losing the trail as DeeDee Jonrowe did in 2006.  She was a few minutes behind leaders, Jeff King and Doug Swingly coming over the portage and heading to UNK.  Just a few miles out of UNK, she left the trail and lost three hours getting back on track and finally into UNK.

Unalakleet, pop. 750, is at the mouth of the Unalakleet River where it empties into the Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea.  I learned from Wikipedia that the sound was explored by Captain James Cook in 1778.  He named the inlet after Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the British House of Commons.  Unalakleet is an Inupiag word that means where the south wind blows, the southern most point or the southern side – it depends on the resource.  In 2006 Handler experienced sustained winds of 40 miles an hour gusting to 60.  When the wind is blowing that hard, it’s nearly impossible to stand upright and walk.  The people of UNK are accustomed to winds, although not usually that strong,  and live with them on a daily basis.

The community of Unalakleet lies between the homelands of two Eskimo cultural groups.  The Inupaig live to the north and the Yupik live to the south.  With its trees, tundra and hills, Unalakleet is a very beautiful place.  It’s on the Bering Sea next to the large clean Unalakleet River.  Being known for its fishing and scenery, tourists often visit Unalakleet.

Unalakleet has many jobs in fishing, air cargo, education, construction and government.  Even with a healthy cash economy, the people fish many species of salmon, hunt seal, caribou, moose and bear and pick berries as a part of their traditional subsistence lifestyle.  Winters around UNK are cold and dry.   Most of the houses in UNK are connected to the water and sewer system.  Electricity is provided by the Unalakleet Valley Electric Cooperative.  The airport is served by daily flights from both Anchorage and Nome. There are three stores , a gas station, a bed & breakfast and one restaurant in the community.  The recently built Annikan Clinic is an important regional health facility.  To get around, locals mainly use snowmachines and 4 wheelers although there are a few pick-ups and suv’s.  If you order a pizza from the restaurant, it’ll be delivered by 4-wheeler.

Average winter temperatures range between minus 4 degrees and eleven degrees above zero.  Average summer temperatures range between 47 and 62 degrees.  Extremes have been measured down to minus 50 degrees and up to 87 degrees.  Average precipitation for UNK is 14 inches with 41 of that being snow.

Back in 1887, the Swedish Covenant Church opened up a mission in UNK which provided schooling.  In 1954, the Evangelical Covenant Church opened a boarding school.  That school was open to students from all around western Alaska where schools didn’t exist.  The boarding school operated for 30 years then closed when schools were built in most villages around the area.  Today, the UNK school system, is attended by nearly 200 students.  The mascot for the Frank A. Dengan Senior High School is the Wolfpack.  Having won 6 state basketball championships, the people of UNK are very serious fans and players.  During the race, technology and media students broadcast Iditarod news, happenings, interviews and other informational programs.  The first musher to reach Unalakleet receives $2,500 in gold nuggets from Wells Fargo.  The broadcasters are there to cover the story.  The checkpoint is in the newly remodeled community building.  The volunteers, vets and pilots stay in the old boarding school.  The local church always sponsors a pie social when the race comes through town.  There are so many varieties of pies, it’s tough to choose.  Handler decided on Spicy Raisin Pecan – it was drop dead DELICIOUS!

Well there you have it – history and information about the Unalakleet to Kaltag Portage Trail and a glimps of life in UNK.   Besides Wikipedia, Handler and I used www.unalakleet.org as one of our resources.  That site even had information on how global warming is affecting UNK.  Next we’ll hear about Shaktoolik.  Stay tuned and in everything do your best every day and have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

If you happen to have a map of the Iditarod Trail handy, check this out.  In Trail Notes, Don Bowers, Jr. says that the original Iditarod Trail never ran on the Yukon River except to cross at Kaltag.  The original mail and gold rush supply trail went directly from Iditarod to Kaltag across the marshy Innoko River Valley.  I asked Handler why Iditarod teams don’t follow the same trail today.  It’s because the ITC wants the trail to be at least 1,000 miles long.  The direct route between Iditarod and Kaltag would fall far short of that distance.  The area along the direct route is also extremely desolate so it’s nice for the racers to travel the northern or southern route that passes through populated villages.

Kaltag is an Athabascan village that sits on an old portage trail that went west from the Yukon through the mountains to Unalakleet (YOU-na-la-kleet).  Sadly, disease and death have played a great role in Kaltag’s history.  Originally, Kaltag was an area used as a cemetery for surrounding villages.  Athabascans had spring, summer fall and winter hunting and fishing camps in the area and moved according to where the game or their food source was.  Then in 1839 a small pox epidemic killed many of the natives and traders in the area.  In 1880 a trading post opened and then a few years later gold was discovered.  But then in 1900, a measles epidemic and food shortage wiped out nearly one-third of the area’s population.  It was then that the survivors from 3 nearby seasonal villages decided to move together and form a new village.  Kaltag was named for a Yukon Indian, Kaltaga.  Between 1919 and 1940, the Galena lead mines were prosperous.  Kaltag, 100 miles down river, grew as a transportation hub.  Over time as the mighty Yukon flooded and changed its course, land eroded and the old cemetery slid into the river in 1937.

Today the population of Kaltag is 207.  Forty-five students attend school in grades Pre-kindergarten thru 12.  Subsistence is an important part of the economy.  Folks hunt and fish for salmon, whitefish, waterfowl, moose and bear and pick berries from the abundant area crops.  Some people in the village have cash jobs with the school, tribe and local government.  Others work as fire fighters or in the commercial fishing industry.    Most of the village houses have both running water and sewer.  There are no roads connecting Kaltag to other villages but people travel locally by ATV, snowmachine or boat.  Kaltag has year-round air service and barges deliver heavy cargo three times a year.  Temperature extremes in Kaltag have been recorded from 55 degrees below zero up to 90 degrees.  Otherwise, highs in July will be in the 70’s and lows for January will range from 10 degrees to below zero.  Annual precipitation is 16 inches with just over 6 feet of snow.  The river is open from mid-May to mid-October.

Besides being the meeting point of the northern and southern Iditarod routes and serving as a checkpoint every year, Kaltag is known for its Stick Dance Festival.  Every two years, this week long festival of potlatches is organized by relatives of people who have recently passed away.  Handler and I went to Wikipedia and found that a Potlatch is a gathering with feasting, speeches, music, singing, acting, dancing, gifting and spiritual ceremonies. Sounds like quite a celebration!  Visitors from many neighboring villages come as the living express their appreciation to those who helped in their time of mourning.

Once there was a dog named Yukon who was described as a forlorn looking mutt.  Skagway Bill was his master.  Bill and Yukon landed in Skagway late in the fall of 1897 eager to find gold in the Yukon River basin.  To get to the gold, prospectors had to follow White Pass up through the Coastal Mountains.  In the winter of 1897, deep snow made the White Pass Trail hard to follow.  One day Skagway Bill and a few other men set out to mark the trail with tall flags.  Yukon remained in the village waiting for his master to return.  A huge blizzard blew over White Pass.  After 3 days and nights of intense snow and howling winds, the blizzard ended but Skagway Bill and the other trail markers did not return.  With Yukon in the lead, a search party set out to find the snow bound men.  Just a few miles from the summit, Yukon stopped dead in his tracks. With his nose pointing into the air and ears standing straight up, he sniffed the air and listened.  Then he let out a strange whine and began digging furiously.  The rest of the search party joined his efforts with shovels.  The rescuers dug and yelled for the buried men.  After a while they heard a faint response from deep in the snow.  Finally, they found all the missing men who had been buried for three days under five feet of snow.  Yukon was thrilled to see his master.  When everybody returned safely to Skagway, Yukon was welcomed as the hero of the rescue effort.  I read this story in a book called Gold Rush Dogs by Murphy and Haigh.  It’s one of my favorite books because of the great pictures.

Well, there you have it – Kaltag then and now, the Stick Dance Festival, and a story about a hero dog named Yukon.  Now we’re virtually headed to Unalakleet on the Bering Sea.  Stay tuned and remember – in everything do your best every day and have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka

 

Mushers say that being on this section of trail is like falling off the edge of the earth.  If you wanted total peace and quiet this would be the place to go provided you could hold up against the wind and severely cold temperatures.   Don reports one musher saying, “It’s like you’ve gone to the edge of the planet, fallen off and discovered that the Place Down Below really has frozen over.”  To add to the loneliness, the wolf packs howl all night to welcome and bid farewell to their domestic cousins.

Ralph Conaster is the only person living at Eagle Island.  The checkpoint used to be in his spacious cabin until it burned down a few years ago.  Ralph went back to living in his tiny old cabin which is not large enough for Iditarod to use as a checkpoint.  With no community buildings, Eagle Island is a tent checkpoint that’s located near Iditarod veteran, Ken Chase’s, summer fishing cabin.  The checkpoint is set up in a Quonset shaped tent called a Dodge Lodge.  It’s heated and has straw on the floor for sleepy mushers and volunteers to nap on.  The humans at Eagle Island checkpoint get the chance to experience the insulating or “R” value of straw.  We dogs know all about that!  Finger Lake and Cripple are two of the other “tent cities” that spring up on the Iditarod Trail as checkpoints.

Being that I’m a lead dog, Don mentioned a few things in his notes that really caught my attention.  Because there is little shelter between Grayling and Eagle Island, mushers need to have coats for their dogs, especially the lead dogs.  We leaders will experience the full force of the wind while breaking it for the swing, team and wheel dogs behind us.  He also warns about drifted sections of the trail, rough or snow-free ice and the possibility of overflow.  It’s best to stay right on the trail as the tricky Yukon can have sections of open water and thin ice.  It’s a good thing Iditarod has Trail Breakers to scout and set the trail for the teams!

With all this talk about the Yukon River, I did some research between runs with my team to learn a few things about the great river.  As it turns out, Yukonna in Athabascan means “great river” as does the Gwich’in word Yukunah.  Yupik Eskimos called it Kwiguk, meaning large stream.  A little more than half of the river flows through the U.S. while the other half is in Canada.  The head waters of the Yukon are in northern British Columbia.  It flows in a westerly arc across the Yukon Territory and then into the state of Alaska where it empties into Norton Sound of the Bering Sea.  The river is 2,300 miles long and is the fifth largest river in North America.  It’s longer than the Colorado, Columbia or the Rio Grande rivers.  During the last Ice Age, 10,000 years age, the Yukon River Valley was ice free.

Just like for Iditarod, the river has served as a transportation route throughout history.  For nomadic hunters from Asia, it was the gateway to the rest of North America.  The Eskimos and the Athabascans used it as a trade route.  In the mid 1800’s, Russian-American and Hudson’s Bay fur traders extended their Voyageur routes into the Interior by canoe and keelboat on the Yukon.  In the late 1890’s the gold rush saw grand sternwheelers like the Sarah, the Suzie and the Hannah navigating the river.  The huge powerful boats carried stampeders and supplies to the boom towns.  By the 1930’s, after the completion of the Alaska Railroad and the arrival of cargo aircraft, most sternwheelers were retired.  Smaller boats, barges and snowmachines remain plentiful today.

For the most part, the river is a slow-moving braided stream that is shallow except during spring runoff.  While narrow in some spots, it is a mile wide in other places.  For three months out of the year, the river can be navigated from is mouth all the way to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.  The Yukon Territory took its name from the mighty Yukon River.  Surprisingly, there are only four vehicle bridges across the entire length of the river along with a couple of pedestrian only bridges.  In some places, car ferries operate during seasons of open water but in winter, cars cross on the frozen ice.

Well, there you have it, a cold forlorn description of Eagle Island and some facts about the mighty Yukon.  You can find out more about the river by checking the internet sites I used – Wikipedia and the Canadian Encyclopedia.  There’s another good resource by Harry Ritter called Alaska’s History.  Handler refers to that little book frequently.  In seventy long miles, teams will reach Kaltag and leave the Yukon behind.  Next Handler will tell us about Kaltag and a famous dog named Yukon.  Stay tuned and remember in everything do your best every day and have a plan.

Born to Run,
Sanka