Reflections

In 1994 I read Gary Paulsen’s Winterdance and hence have been consumed with the notion of a running a team of Samoyeds in Iditarod. Completely addicted, I devoured every book I could find about running “The Race”. While on training runs I would try to imagine the distances, the challenges, the cold, but it was so foreign to my mushing experiences I could never grasp the magnitude. “The Race”, it became a part of my being, my daily thinking, and at night, my dreams. Unfortunately, every dreamer has their nemesis, and mine was the stopwatch. In the late 1990’s, 9 day record breaking finishes evolved Iditarod into a long distance, check point to check point sprint race. In 2002 Martin Buser crushed the 9 day barrier and drove his team onto Front Street in an unprecedented 8 days, 22 hours and 44 minutes. With such swift finishes, Iditarod rule 36, titled competitiveness became the bane of slower, hardier dog teams. In these days it would be nearly impossible for a team of Samoyeds to leave the starting chute and achieve finisher status. Vague in its definition, Rule 36 was designed to provide officials a means to withdraw teams not proceeding along the trial in a timely fashion. 2009 has seen a rewrite of rule 36 with more precise language and defined measurable time increments for enforcement. Set for implementation in 2010 the outcome on the back of the packers remains to be seen. Ironically the individual to whom Rule 36 was originally targeted, longed for a return to his early days when Iditarod was a camping trip across Alaska. In 1997 he envisioned a commemoration to a far distant time when twenty mushers and their heroic dog teams relayed diphtheria antitoxin to quarantined Nome, a frozen outpost in the far reaches of Alaska. This vision became The Norman Vaughan Serum Run 25’ and would offer non-competitive mushers and their teams the ability to follow the original serum trail and fulfill a dream of running to Nome.

If Nome were the Moon than the 2007 Serum Run was my Apollo 11 rocket trip. A dogsled served as the landing module, and the mighty Saturn V rocket engine propelling it to it’s destination, a team of 12 gallant Samoyeds. The journey was steeped in apprehension, euphoria, spectacular scenery and a humbling awe towards the dog’s ability and willingness to proceed through some of the most extreme weather descending upon Alaska in decades. After arriving and leaving paw prints amid the streets of Nome, my thoughts did turn to Neil Armstrong and his Apollo 11 voyage. For months and with a sense of melancholy I pondered “What did he do when he got home, what did he dream about”? How could any future life’s experience equal his “one small step”? With the completion of the Serum Run, my dream of running dogs to Nome was simultaneously realized and subsequently stolen. In the aftermath and throughout the 2007/2008 mushing season I felt a great sense of loss, the soul and passion were absent and running dogs was just an exercise in going through the motions..

But alas, although slight, the Moon exerts a gravitational force. Upon all who have journeyed to Nome by dog team it draws. I felt the force in the fall of 2007, and it grew stronger and eventually irresistible. The Serum Run was canceled in 2008, which was a reprieve. It would have been torturous to be sitting at home knowing teams were lining up at the Nenana Railroad Depot awaiting the arrival of ceremonial serum and the start of their trip to Nome. A quick trip to watch friends start the 2008 Iditarod was all it took to overcome the last bit of resistance. We would revisit the Moon in 2009.
Comparing the 2007 and 2009 Serum Runs would be comparable to doing the same with Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 even down to Astronaut James Lovell’s famous line “Houston we’ve got a problem”.

To be continued….