On the north side of the Alaska Range, I skidded and bounced down the Dalzell Gorge struggling to keep my expedition-loaded fat-tire bike upright. Mounds of frozen dirt and icy roots flung me sideways and I squeezed both brake levers, trying to stay on two wheels and not wrap myself around a tree. Suddenly the decline steepened, I spotted a glimpse of bare ice ahead, and let off the brakes to avoid skidding out.
Finally the trail leveled out into a meadow blanketed in crusty snow. The frosty branches on the black spruce trees glistened in the morning light. I lowered my bike and yanked out my camera. A dog team was behind me, coming fast, and I wanted a photo. Through the forest above me I could hear the dog driver gently encouraging his team to slow down. “Wooo. Easy....easy. Good girl.” I flipped on my camera and knelt down, finger on the shutter.
After thousands of years of being Alaskans’ most unfailing means of winter transportation, lifeless internal combustion motors have almost entirely replaced dog teams. Sport and competition have become the stopgaps for widespread utility. The Iditarod, Yukon Quest, and many other mid-distance and sprint races throughout the state have helped keep mushing and our lifeline to history alive.
“My sled is trashed,” the Iditarod musher said as he and his 14 dogs blew past me in the meadow. The conditions in the gorge had been ideal on my studded-tire fat-bike, but the frozen dirt, rocks, and patches of off-slope black ice had been hell for the dog driver. Following their progress through my camera’s viewfinder, I could see chunks of UHMW plastic and shattered fiberglass that had rattled loose and broken. Unfazed, the team of stunning husky’s maintained their steady clip down the trail toward Rohn.
A couple hours later, I pedaled into the remote Iditarod checkpoint, which consists of little more than a solitary, well-built log cabin adjacent to a gravel landing strip. Only a few of the Iditarod’s fastest mushers had made it this far, and each of them was ready for a rest. I found Jasper, the race marshal, and asked him if he needed a volunteer. “Absolutely. You can set up your camp on the airstrip. We need folks to lead the teams into the yard, and there are camp chores ‘aplenty.”
Not long after the first Iditarod race to Nome in 1973, Joe Reddington Sr. began encouraging other user groups to utilize the trail, too–including, eventually, winter bicyclists. For decades, a sub-culture of hearty souls traveled from near and far to participate in the Iditabike and later Iditasport–human-powered races on the Iditarod Trail. These events were the catalyst that helped spur innovation that finally led to the modern fat-bike.
My captivation with mushing came at age 5. Seasonally, my family made the drive to Anchorage from our home in the Wrangell Mountains to refill depleted provisions with store-bought goods. On one memorable trip, my father took the family to watch the film Spirit of the Wind about sprint mushing legend, George Attla. A year later, at winter carnival in Tok, I stood star struck in my oversized beaver parka, when my father pointed and said, “That’s the real George Attla.” I had my first hero.
Watching a team of well-trained dogs respond to nuanced and subtle commands of a compassionate and dedicated driver is profoundly emotive. It’s easy as a spectator to get a glimpse of these hard-won animal and human connections at the start or end of a dog-mushing event. Only the most calloused onlooker would not be moved by witnessing the frenzy of pre-race excitement as it becomes channeled in the starting chute. When everything goes right, one can observe the genesis of magnificent unison as a team of 15 become one mind, pursuing one objective.
Nothing, in my experience, however, beats seeing a dog team in the wilds of Alaska–far away from the noise and bustle of the crowd. A fat-bike is the perfect instrument to bring you there.
Over the years, I have gleaned evident lessons from the trail. There are three that rise to the top. As a non-musher, regardless of your discipline or sport, always yield to dog teams. A snowmachiner, skier, or cyclist has a much easier time pulling off to the side, and an easier time getting going again. Always leave a shelter cabin along the trail in as good a condition or even better than when you found it, as these shelters can save lives. The last one is subtle but is perhaps the most important, because if it is observed, everything else will follow. Never shake a fellow trail-users hand with gloves on. Even in minus 30º, it’s imperative to shake hands along the trail with bare skin and honest, human contact. The warmth that this simple and long-standing traditional gesture offers is greater than any momentary discomfort.
I awoke before dawn after the previous long day and even longer night at the checkpoint in Rohn. Noticing that the cabin’s water supply was running low, I grabbed the orange plastic sled with two screw-top five-gallon buckets and drug them a half a mile away to the chopped-open hole in the frozen Kuskokwim River.
Throughout the previous 18-hours, I had helped dozens of mushers lead their teams to their straw beds and had shaken hands and conversed with many giants of this sport. The race marshal and veterinarians never slept, but tired dogs and trail-worn drivers curled into little balls and took their well-earned respite.
All was quiet as I admired my surroundings in the still, crisp air on the north side of the Alaska Range; the faint glow of pre-dawn light silhouetted the proud mountains to the east. In my moment of quiet reflection, a lone husky from the dog yard let loose a stirring howl. Instinct and abandon took hold of me, and I responded in kind.
