Iditarod Fever

I first heard of the Iditarod when I visited Alaska in 1989 on a backpacking trip with the Outdoor Recreation Center I worked at in college. A woman on the trip was so excited after buying a T-shirt from a gift store in Anchorage that said, "Alaska - Where Men are Men and Women win the Iditarod." Of course this had no meaning to me. She patiently explained that Susan Butcher and Libby Riddles were dominating this 1000 mile sled dog race; women could compete and win against men in dogsledding. At the time, I didn't even think this trivia was important let alone something I'd remember years down the road.

But I did. When I moved to Alaska in 1993, it didn't take long for me to hear more about the Iditarod and establish a connection to this yearly mushing race from Wasilla, AK to Nome, AK. It wasn't the women winning part that turned me on, but the awesome wilderness adventure. I admired the gruesome slog mushers endured over mountainous terrain, frozen rivers, and the crazy weather conditions throughout the race. Over the years through articles in the newspaper, I followed the pre-race speculations of journalists and familiarized myself with the mushers, their victories, their defeats, and challenges they faced both during the race and training. With the invention of the Internet, recent updates instead of day old publications became possible and more information about the race became readily available. I devoured it and talked Iditarod to pretty much anyone who seemed slightly interested in this type of conversation.

Maybe it was because I was wrapped up in completing the school yearbook or maybe our early Spring Break interfered with any type of Iditarod lesson plan, but it took a little longer this year for my temperature to rise. The Iditarod mushers were checking into Yetna Station, about 20 miles into the race before I truly felt the heat coming on. Once ignited, it didn't take long for the fever to take hold and hallucinations to begin. Last Friday while driving to the property, I started the age old conversation with Bryant about us owning the perfect piece of property for a sleddogs - Iditarod trail out our backdoor, lots of space for doghouses, water on the property, and now we even have cabin. We could be living the ultimate Alaskan lifestyle.

In my altered state of conciousness, I rambled on for a few minutes. Then, I mentioned that if I started a dog kennel, I would name my first dog two-stroke. I also thought a litter of pups named after snowmachines would be pretty neat, Rev, Renegade, Panther, Jag, Bravo. Bryant reminded me that most dog mushers don't really like snowmachines, otherwise they would buy gas, which is cheaper than dogfood. I decided on a new theme - classic authors, Tolstoy, Sinclair, Steinbeck, and of course a lead dog named London, in honor of Jack London's who authored White Fang and Call of the Wild. Bryant offered the theme of weather and mentioned a pup named cumulus. By this time, I was feeling down giddy and eagerly added cirrus, stratus, blizzard, stormy, tornado, hurricane, and cyclone. Lance Mackey may be the one of the best mushers in Iditarod history but that doesn't matter. His lead dog is Larry and he doesn't have a whole kennel of dogs with the coolest names around like mine would be.

In my delirium and imaginary world of Fantasy Mushing, I envisioned myself mushing my way through the windblown snow of Rainy Pass yelling, "Hike (Get Moving)" or "Gee (Turn Left)" while the Northern Lights danced in the sky. This delusion was getting out of control. This fever was reaching new heights . . . but after 16 years, I have a self-cure. I knew what needed to be done.

"Yeah," I half-heartedly reveal to Bryant, "I really don't even like dogs as much as I like the adventure and I've really learned to like my 8 hours of sleep. And I definitely don't want anything else to feed, water, exercise, or clean-up after." I knew my next piece of self-talk would bring my body temperature back to normal. "Besides," I added, "Who wants to be chained every night to a kennel of dogs?"

I did it! Iditarod Fever - killed again for another year.