The Last Great Race, I promise

I want you all to know I missed a very important call from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney while I was out doing research for this post.  Mitt (I can call you Mitt, can’t I?) lamented, via answering machine, that he had missed speaking to me in person but---and that’s when I hit the delete button.  Hopefully he wasn’t calling to dump one of Anne’s Cadillacs on me and I missed out.  Ah, the presidential election season heats up in Alaska.  Or at least heats up as much as it can in our weather, which isn’t much.  I look forward to messages from Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Barack Obama.  There is a certain satisfaction to be found in hitting the erase/hang up button on a robocall.



The Last Great Race (on Earth, just to be clear) is called the Iditarod.  Perhaps you’ve heard of it from those PETA folks.  If not, I can share a few facts I learned at the elementary school assembly on Friday, where second graders, dressed as patriotic sled dogs in red, white, and blue complete with dog ears and dog snoots schooled this life-long Alaskan in Iditarod facts.  (If the realization that 90% of my Iditarod facts originate from 7 and 8 year olds disturbs you, you must be a new reader. Welcome.)

  

Did you know that the dog mushers in the race can’t have cell phones?  I think a collective gasp went up from the parent audience at the assembly.  (A few dazed 13 year old girls had to be carried out on stretchers.)  “But how…?”  “What if…?”  Now you realize just how serious this race is: corporate sponsorships, news teams from around the globe, a substantial $500,000 prize pot, welcoming villagers on snowmachines, and volunteers at every checkpoint.  And no cell phones.



Way back when, in 1925, before robocalls, before even my grandpa was born (and he’s as old as dirt) there was an outbreak of diphtheria in a village in northwestern Alaska called Nome.  Children were dying.  [Nome is in the Bush.  I believe Australia has a Bush with a capital ‘B’ as well, but fill me in if you all have heard of any other countries/states with a Bush, Texas excluded.  I know of several Bushes there, some ex-presidents.  Bush Alaska is off the road system.  No shopping at Costo for you!  Isolated, “make do or do without” country.]  Since the village was not accessible by open pit planes or cars or trains or UPS, or even presidential hopefuls, a series of dog teams were assembled to get serum to Nome.



Don’t worry!  They made it and the children were saved.  I shouldn’t have kept you all in suspense like that.  (I don’t want you to go through your supply of Paxil which you will need when I post about ice fishing.)  The ceremonial start of the race is in Anchorage (the biggest village checkpoint between Willow and Nome is Unalakleet with a whopping 747 people, so to appease the sponsors/drum up new sponsors they pretend start in Alaska’s biggest village, home to about 300,000 people/40% of Alaska’s population) but the actual start is now in Willow, a quaint village about 70 miles away from Anchorage.  So the race is shorter that it used to be though not many people would call a race of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in winter short.


*above: volunteers ready to hand off hotdogs/water to mushers

The racers must start the Iditarod with no less than 12 and no more than 16 dogs, so said the ersatz dogs in second grade.  Unwell dogs can be “dropped” at any of the 21 checkpoints between start and finish, but once dropped cannot be added back to the team later.  Veterinarians are at the check points to see that the dogs are in good health.  The Iditarod Trail Committee has a United States Tax Code’s worth of rules and regulations about treatment of the dogs and most years pass without legions of dog deaths, maimings, or the canine version of the Sharks versus the Jets you’ll be relieved to know.



It takes two years of planning and practice to participate in the Last Great Race.  I’m not sure about the requirements for the Next To Last Good Race or the Slightly Below Average Race.  After checking out the paperwork online, I’ve determined filling out all the forms must take the mushers 1.5 years with 6 months left for training.  Slightly less involved than applying for a top university in a country where you are neither a citizen nor speak the language.  And don’t even think about starting the race without a letter from a vet and a reference from another Iditarod musher.

Every musher needs duct tape.  I did not make this up.  Legions of men across the state (nay, country) are turning to wives/mothers/sisters/any tolerant woman doubter and saying “See?! Duct tape can save your life!”  I was dismayed to note that the children never said, ”Every musher needs a blue tarp.”  This must be an oversight or poor research practices on the part of the singing and dancing child/dogs.  For shame!
 


I perused an informative insert in the Anchorage Daily News, (pages B-6 and 7 for Saturday, March 3rd since I can’t find it online and don’t want to be accused more than twice in a week of improperly crediting sources) and discovered that the mushers are mostly from Alaska (52 out of 67) this year, but there was one brave soul from New Zealand, a few Canucks, several other assorted Americans, and a couple of Norwegians.  Seventeen women started.  I checked and double checked the pictures and stats to be sure.  Grooming standards in Alaska being what they are, it was difficult to determine: long hair with beard or long hair without beard became my guide. 

Also, twenty eight ball caps and one bandana rounded out the photos.  Maybe they should have a little comb available during official race photo day, as is commonly done at elementary school photo day.  Just a thought. (I’m secretly rooting for the two men that wore a suit coat and tie and the two women that appear to have combed their hair.  You see what high standards I have.) 

My rookie pick: a 23 year old from Fort Yukon that has been training his dogs for more than five years. A quote in the Anchorage Daily News from the young lad, “I entered the Iditarod to race my team to Nome, to finish and have healthy dogs and also to support my Native background for mushing.”  Good luck Josh Cadzow!  You’re already off to a good start with an official photo where your hair appears combed.



I expect you’ve learned something from the children today.  I know I have.  Hopefully, some of it is factual.  Oops, please excuse me a moment, the phone is ringing and I might have to hang up on the president.



Any races where you live? Could you survive with duct tape and no cell phone?

You might be an Alaskan if…

I’ve been thinking about doing this post for a while now.  You’d think that would lead to better picture quality, but as regular readers know, you’d be wrong. (Anyway, it’s winter, what else do I have to do?)  Let’s see if I am able to properly channel comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck” shtick.  I’m not sure if this list is silly or just true.

You might be an Alaskan if:

you have at least four fleece coats. The one without dog hair or engine oil is your dress coat.

a moose ate your Halloween pumpkin.

a roll of duct tape and a blue tarp can save your life. At least you tell yourself this as your wife is hollering at you for buying another blue tarp and half dozen rolls of duct tape.

“there goes a man in uniform” translates into a guy wearing carhartts, bunny boots, and a fleece jacket. Gun optional.

you can ski to your mailbox. 

filling the freezer with meat means an annual rifle-laden pilgrimage to the hinterlands, significant financial outlay, and eating out of a can for four days.  Then hauling largish animal bits 20 miles across the tundra to your vehicle.  Grocery store?  What grocery store?

a heat wave in December means 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 degrees C).  “Honey, where’d I put my sandals?”

snowmachines are how you get from point A to point B.  If you call them “snowmobiles” instead of snowmachines, you are not from Alaska.  A true aficionado even refers to them affectionately as “sleds.”

the gladdest sight in winter is the snow plow coming down the road. Get out of the way, fool!  And don’t even think about leaving your car parked along the street if it has just snowed.  I once witnessed a plow driver lean on his horn (who knew those big things had a horn?) until a man ran out of his home and moved the car to the driveway.  Yes, I laughed.  The man ran very fast.  I don’t often witness a full sprint outside of track and field meets and TV cop shows.

you own a gun. Three is better.  Six, you’ve got your own little armory and probably make your own bullets, too. (I received *my first gun as a “welcome to the family” gift from my future Alaskan in-laws.  The look on my family’s faces was absolutely priceless as I unwrapped it, too.  Hee hee.)

you don’t try to pet the moose/bears. Not even the ones in the zoo. Tourists do try this on occasion.  I wouldn’t try to pet the mountain lions, jaguars, big spiders, anything with horns or antlers, wolves, hippos, etc. from the world’s respective countries.  Why people try to pet wildlife is beyond me.

the state pays you a big fat check every October. (A bribe to keep us here over the winter.)

a bald eagle ate your dog.

winter sports are not optional.

for those in more rural areas (anywhere in Alaska outside of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau), when it’s time to go to town, you saddle up your moose.  This is what you tell people from out of state, anyway.

when the freezer (and the extra freezer in the garage) gets full, you just put the cream puffs from Costco on the back deck. Voila, mother nature’s freezer.

you have snow tires.  If you have to ask what these are, you are not from Alaska.

you think faux fur is a faux pas.

*I included an actual picture of my first gun being wielded by a relative in a family winter Olympics of sorts.  I told you we got bored in winter….

 

What makes your home country/state’s population unique?

Slightly more advanced than making ice cubes

So what do we northern idiots do when the mercury plunges so low that even jaded, long-time Alaskans say,”that can’t be right”?  Why we find something to do outside, of course!  Never mind that hypothermia, frostbite, and windburn are at the back of everyone’s mind.  Out we go! 

The children resembled sausages in pink, Gore-Tex casings after I was finished bundling them up for our windy, downtown outing a couple of weeks ago.  My look was more “purple marshmallow woman meets Davy Crockett”, but so be it, I was warm.  The husband claimed some mechanical items in the garage needed his urgent attention and so was off the hook (and out of the cold).

Besides Fur Rendezvous and Running of the Reindeer, there isn’t much going on outdoors in winter that gets me to drive downtown when it’s below zero.  This year was an exception.  Having heard vague whisperings of “ice sculptures” and “Town Square,” I figured we were due for a quick trip to view “The Crystal Gallery of Ice,” sculpted by a handful of gentleman whose names I can’t pronounce (and only assume are from a similarly chilly part of eastern Asia where they groom tots from a young age to whittle on ice cubes, then ice bricks, followed by ice blocks.  Following graduation, an arctic expedition to share their scholarship in that Land of Nearly Perpetual Frozen Water: Alaska.  OK, that’s all nonsense, but I kind of enjoyed my short lived ice carving fantasy). 

Fortunately, no melting had occurred (that was a joke, it was literally, to quote Dr. Evil “frickin’ freezing, Mr. Bigglesworth”) and only a dusting of snow slightly obscured the icy figures.  I’m just sorry you won’t be able to experience the heady mixture of numbness in the extremities, wind-stung face, and dash of chattering teeth as you view this post from your heated room.  Stick your head in the freezer for a few minutes for empathy, if you like.

 

I was pleasantly surprised at the skill on display.  I was less pleasantly surprised at how cold it was, plus wind.  I have no number to scare you with, only this: my fingers became so numb after a few photos that I (born here) was literally compelled to exit Town Square post-haste and enter the nearby shopping mall where I became just slightly less distracted than a texting teen driving in traffic and bought things I thought I needed, but on second thought, yes, I still needed.  After which I had a hot pretzel and ersatz melted cheese (to fully thaw the fingers, you understand), and then went back outside for a few more pictures at the behest of my by now overheating children.  (You try trudging around a shopping mall in a snowsuit, grumped a wee one.)

The picture above is probably about as close as this beast from the Galapagos (no doubt someone will let me know if I’m wrong here) will ever get to the frozen north I call home.  But I suppose this whole ice carving idea is also a lesson in making lemonade from lemons.  If you can’t beat the cold temperatures, make an ice sculpture.  Or move to Arizona and tend cacti.  The smart Alaskans do.

Three cheers for folks who carve ice!

 

Making lemonade from lemons?