It’s called "The Last Great Race on Earth" and on the first Saturday of March, extreme sports fans from around the world descend on Anchorage, Alaska, for the Iditarod.
"We’re just here to get enlightened," said Marie and Scott Kovacevich of Duvall.
Making their Iditarod debut, the couple flew in from Seattle with their niece Jackie Breeze, who was making her fifth appearance at the annual sled dog race.
The Alaska Airlines employee, who is allergic to dogs, has helped sponsor a musher and has flown to Nome for the finish of the race.
"I’m hooked and come up every year," Breeze said.
The Iditarod Trail was originally a mail and supply route from the coastal towns of Seward and Knik to the interior mining camps.
In 1925, diphtheria threatened the residents of Nome. Dog teams in relays carried life-saving serum along part of the route, from Nenana to Nome.
The race, a commemoration of the serum run, got its start in 1973, when 22 mushers and their dogs traversed the treacherous terrain from Anchorage in south central Alaska to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast.
The 1,049-mile route along the Iditarod Trail crosses two mountain ranges and runs along the Yukon River and over the frozen Norton Sound.
Today, the winter race is an international event. At this year’s Iditarod, a record-breaking 87 mushers signed up, with competitors from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy and Norway.
The youngest musher is Ellie Claus of Chitina, Alaska, who turned 18 just 12 days before the race. The oldest is 62-year-old Jim Lanier of Chugiak, Alaska.
But I was focused on rookie Mark Moderow, an attorney from Anchorage. Moderow was soon to be "my musher."
As one of 87 "Idita-riders," I would be traveling in Moderow’s sled during the first 12 miles of the ceremonial start from downtown Anchorage. (The actual race starts a day later in Wasilla, 40 miles north of Anchorage.) To land one of these coveted sled spots, an online auction begins in November on the Iditarod Committee’s Web site, www.iditarod.com.
This year’s auction netted $138,659. All proceeds go toward the racers’ purse. This year’s first-place prize is $70,000 and a new Dodge truck.
I first met Moderow at the Idita-rider lunch two days before the race. The ruggedly handsome North Dakota native, who moved to Alaska in 1974 to climb mountains and work as a guide at Mount McKinley, celebrated his 53rd birthday last summer by signing up to run the 2004 Iditarod.
It’s no surprise that he’s doing the Iditarod. His wife, Debbie, started the 2003 Iditarod but scratched 950 miles into the race. Son Andy, 21, and daughter Hannah, 19, both completed four Junior Iditarods, and Andy finished 17th in the 2001 Iditarod.
Then there are the 24 dogs at the Moderow home, all vying to be part of their master’s 16-dog team.
Because he’s a rookie musher, Moderow had to qualify for the 2004 Iditarod, competing in both the 2002 Denali 300 and this year’s Cooper Basin 300. For the past eight months, the avid outdoorsman had been working with a personal trainer, getting in top physical shape. He also put his race strategy into place.
Although he said he wasn’t nervous yet about the looming physical and mental challenge, Moderow would be carrying a good luck charm with him, a fan letter that a young student from Ohio wrote to him as part of a school project.
"I’m taking it all the way to Nome and I’ll reply from there," Moderow said.
And like many of the racers, he has a good supply of musher cards, with his photo on the front and bio on the back.
On the morning of the ceremonial start, I headed out from the warmth of the Hilton Anchorage, just blocks from the start at Fourth and D streets.
Bundled up guests were milling around in the lobby, waiting to go out into the subfreezing blue-sky day. The downtown streets were crammed with trucks, yelping dogs, anxious mushers, officials and volunteers.
A fence separated the spectators from the participants, but with my official Idita-rider pass, I was free to roam.
Sheri Crews, a fellow Idita-rider, was standing next to her musher Bob Bundtzen’s truck. The retired schoolteacher from Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., first ventured to Alaska on her 25th anniversary in 1979, and this is her fifth year as an Idita-rider.
"I love the excitement," said Crews, decked out in a bright blue hooded coat and stylish black hat. "As we go under the start banner I look up and think, ‘I may not be a musher, but I’m a part of this!’ "
My musher was on the other side of the street, passing out musher cards and signing ski parkas and even blue jeans. Soon I was wrapped in a mummy bag with built-in arms and legs and tucked into the sled. Moderow took his spot at the back of the sled while his wife, Debbie, handled the second sled behind him.
I laughed when I recalled what we were told the day before at the Idita-Rider meeting: "Get in, sit down, hold on and enjoy the show!"
And what a show it was, people waving and screaming at us as we sailed by.
"Good luck, Mark!" screamed young and old.
"You sure know a lot of people, Mark!" I said to my musher.
Then it dawned on me: They all had programs, and instantly knew that No. 31 was Mark Moderow.
Along the 12 miles to Campbell Air Strip, people cheered and handed over bags of homemade cookies.
"There will be a muffin lady ahead," Moderow said. "She’s been passing out muffins for years."
Within minutes a couple of lemon poppy seed muffins were given to me; I smiled in thanks.
Spectators were enjoying picnics, sitting in lawn chairs, and huddled up around bonfires and barbecues.
Small kids yelled out "Bootie! Bootie!" hoping to catch one of the used booties that dogs wear them to protect their paws from blisters.
Nearly an hour later, we arrived at our destination. My ride was over, but not my musher’s.
March 7 was the official start of the Iditarod at Wasilla.
Shuttle buses took people to the start line and hundreds lined the trail. Fashion statements were in full force — fur hats fashioned from animals were popular — and the mini-doughnut stand was doing a brisk business. I waited on the sidelines for my musher to pass by, chatting with two women from Seattle who had flown up for the start and finish of the race. Finally No. 31 was announced, and Moderow whizzed by.
"Hey Mark!" I screamed. "Good luck!"
He waved back and soon he was gone.
The next day I took an Alaska Air Taxi ski plane from Anchorage to Finger Lake, one of 26 checkpoints on the Iditarod trail.
The 55-minute flight in the five-passenger De Havilland Beaver took us into the heart of the Alaska Range. Along the way we saw three sets of dog sledders along the Iditarod Trail, looking like moving streams of ants on the white carpet below.
As we hiked on the frozen lake to Winterlake Lodge, a year-round resort accessible only by float or ski plane, a sea of dogs and mushers were spread out in the snow before us. They were lined up in dozens of rows, and just as I was wondering about my musher, there was Moderow, and he was doing fine.
He’d arrived at 9:40 a.m. and although suffering from a lack of sleep, he was philosophical about how he was doing.
"It’s just a dog race," Moderow said.
The rookie musher was hoping to make it to the finish line in 14 days, arriving under the arch in Nome sometime today. Mitch Seavey of Seward, Alaska, crossed the line Tuesday night to win the race on his 11th attempt.)
I gave my musher a big hug and wished him well as he drove off into the late afternoon sun, surrounded by the majestic mountains. Moderow was back on the Iditarod Trail. I’d be rooting for him all the way home.
Sue Frause is a Whidbey Island freelance writer and photographer. You can send e-mail to her at skfrause@whidbey.com.
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