Iditarod mushers bask in village hospitality
TAKOTNA, Alaska (AP) – The dog teams leading the Iditarod spent just a few minutes at this hillside village on Wednesday, but many mushers stayed to recuperate at one of the sled dog race’s most hospitable checkpoints. “My house isn’t this good,” said Aliy Zirkle, of Two Rivers, between bites of a made-to-order burger in the community center.
Until Takotna, she had been third behind Doug Swingley, a four-time Iditarod champ, who led the field of 79 teams on Wednesday.
Zirkle, who finished 11th last year, said she’s sticking to her own schedule during the more than 1,100-mile journey from Anchorage to Nome.
“My plan was to stay here for 24,” said Zirkle, 36, a former biologist with an Ivy League degree. “I’d love to stay with them and beat them, ultimately, but we’re not very far into it, really.”
The rules of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race require mushers to take at least one 24-hour rest period and two eight-hour breaks. Mushers also rest their dogs for several hours each day, either on the trail or at a checkpoint, and halt them on the trail every few hours to toss them snacks of meat and fat.
Residents in the 50-person village greeted arriving mushers and shoveled dog waste and straw as teams came and went in near zero-degree temperatures.
“It’s our checkpoint and it’s grown and grown,” said organizer Jan Newton, who’s lived in Takotna for 27 years. “We just try to make everybody feel at home.”
Several mushers napped between pews in a log chapel or in a darkened library, as their dogs lay curled in straw nests on the gently sloped hill. Others chatted and downed free pie and burgers in the community center, with its walls covered with posters and photos from Iditarods past.
“It’s by far the most hospitable up to here for sure,” said a bleary-eyed John Baker, 45, as he sipped a cup of free coffee. The Kotzebue musher arrived sixth in Nome last year and has finished in the top 10 seven times.
Mushers here have completed almost 400 miles of the world’s longest sled dog race, which includes 24 checkpoints in villages and wilderness cabins across Alaska.
Dog teams run along the frozen Kuskokwim and Takotna rivers and through the hills of Porcupine Ridge to reach Takotna, 260 miles northwest of Anchorage, from the ninth checkpoint of McGrath.
“A beautiful run this morning I had,” Baker said of the 23-mile leg to Takotna.
Out on the trail Wednesday, Swingley of Lincoln, Mont., was setting this year’s pace.
For arriving first in McGrath, Swingley won an Alaska Native spirit mask and a $500 credit from PenAir, an in-state airline. He stopped briefly in Takotna before a 38-mile run to the abandoned gold mining town of Ophir.
At 11:01 a.m., he was the first musher to leave Ophir for the tent checkpoint of Cripple on the Innoko River. Swingley was followed about six hours later by DeeDee Jonrowe, 51, of Willow, and Cim Smyth, 29, of Big Lake.
The mandatory rest stops and strategic breaks mushers take along the trail make it difficult to pinpoint a winner this early in the race. Dog teams rise and fall in the standings, sometimes dramatically, as teams surge ahead and then stop to nap and snack.
Top finishers will likely arrive early next week in the old gold mining town of Nome. The fastest time was set in 2002 by four-time winner Martin Buser of Big Lake, who pulled into Nome in eight days, 22 hours and 46 minutes.