My
first time driving a dog sled team and I’m on the tail of
Iditarod
Hall-of-Famer Jerry Austin. We edge
our sleds onto the ice of St. Michael’s Bay of the Norton
Sound on the Bering Sea for a 3.5 mile dash to the opposite
shore. Jerry’s team breaks through a hidden spot of sea overflow.
The dogs are nearly swimming. Jerry’s up to his knees in slush.
The dogs
come out of the water and, without shaking themselves, trot
across the ice. No big deal. Just another day in the Alaskan
Arctic.
We’re on a private mini-Iditarod--let’s call it the Austintrot--a
six-day, 100-mile dog sled adventure. Behind me comes Kathy,
an attorney, with her 7-year-old son, Chris. Then Chuck, a
horticulturist at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens: Paul, a financial
analysis, and Tim, a business consultant. We clear the ice
and crest a short, steep hill, running behind the sleds to
help our dogs.
Our trail is an old pre-Russian trading route on the treeless
coastal plain once used by local Eskimos and the Athapaskan
Indians. The rolling tundra is crusty and fast. Speed is a
problem. The dogs are eager and amazingly strong. A moment
of inattention and I could fall off the sled. A cardinal dog-sledding
rule: If you fall off the sled, never let go. The dogs won’t
stop running. If you lose the sled, you can have a long and--depending
on the weather--grueling walk to shelter. I don’t allow myself
to imagine being dragged behind the tipped sled, face plowing
a furrow through the snow.
The dogs take a sharp
right-hand turn.
The sled continues straight
and I see the
whites of the eyes of Fear.
I stomp on the metal brake bar, digging the two metal projections
deep into the snow. The sled slows and I lean it around the
curve. My lead dogs, Mac and Trixie, look back at me over
their shoulders. What’s the matter, scaredy cat? says their
look.
It’s a balmy day by Arctic standards--sunny and clear. The
survival gear Jerry provides--insulated boots, insulated bid
overalls, insulated parka with a fur-trimmed hood, huge insulated
mittens--seem an excess, but in three days I’ll be thankful
for every last ounce of it.
But on this bright day I’m the poet and the poem. That’s how
I experience riding on the back of the dog sled. My mind trills
out pretty images of the light, the silence, the sparse elegance
of this nature. I move effortlessly, with fluid grace, a lilting
rhythm in the poem that surrounds me. I ride the verbs and
adjectives of the trail with growing confidence that I can
understand the language, spoken and unspoken in prayer and
in smile, that the dogs and the land hum to each other.
Our first overnight camp is Klikitarik, site of ancient death
and nervous memories.
We skirt a small lagoon and pull into camp, two all-weather,
heated Quonset tents, one for eating and one for sleeping.
The camp is in the middle of a former reindeer corral that
could hold 2,000 animals. The perimeter posts can still be
seen. A 100 years ago, a village stood on the end of the point,
a quarter mile away, that juts into the Bering Sea.
“Up there,” Jerry points to the hill behind our camp, “an
Athapaskan Indian is buried under a cairn. In that lagoon
we passed, the local Eskimos put dead beluga whales to freeze.
Then they’d chop them up and take the meat and blubber back
to their villages down the coast. The Indians in the interior
would raid the whale cache. The Eskimos got tired to it and
shot one as a warning. This was about eighty years ago. To
this day my father-in-law, an Yupik Eskimo from this coast,
doesn’t like to be in Indian territory after dark. The older
generation still has memories of violence between the Eskimos
and the Indians.”
In the morning we harness the eager, yapping, leaping dogs
for the 25-mile run to Jerry’s cabin on the Golsovia River.
“Be sure to stand on your brake when we start,” Jerry advises.
The dogs are charging in their harnasses. If they go out too
fast they might strain a shoulder muscle. The jolt of a fast
start can knock the musher off the sled, too. (The word “musher”
comes from the French “marche,” meaning march or get going.)
Two iron snow hooks, one on each side of the sled, hold me
in place. When Jerry gives the signal, I jerk the hooks out
of the snow and stand on the brake with both feet. The dogs
still drag the sled forward at a smart clip.
After a six-mile run up the long, gentle incline of the Toik
Hills, we pause for a rest. Within minutes the dogs yelp to
get back to the fun. We’re not couch biscuits, they howl.
Let’s go. Let’s go. We want to run.
The frozen sea arcs to our left.
The Unalakeet Mountains and then
the Coastal Mountains lie ahead,
chunky white-gold jewelry
jagged against the sky
Herds of caribou and musk ox are often found on the slopes
of the mountains. And bears. This is serious black bear and
grizzly country. Jerry carries a small arsenal with him, just
in case. The last time he ran the Iditarod, in 1996, he had
a polar bear scare.
“I was running at night when two polar bears appeared alongside
the trail. One was about 15 feet away and coming at me. I
pulled out my Smith and Weston .44 magnum and held it on the
bear as I steered the sled with one hand. We got past the
bear but I’ve never been so scared in my life. And I’ve killed
87 grizzlies as a bear guide. Once, a bear surprised me from
behind and I had my rifle barrel right in its mouth before
I got the shot
off. That was a bloody mess.”
In the final miles to the Golsovia River Lodge, the land is
striated with red-black willow runs, favorite hiding and denning
coverage for bears. The only wildlife we see are ptarmigans.
A two-day rest at Golsovia
for hiking and snowmobiling
on land and on sea.
The dogs are bored.
I take a long walk inland along the Golsovia River. To my
back is the frozen jumble of the Bering Sea, stretching 300
miles to Russia. Before me lies a 180-degree-arc of low, snow-covered
mountains. The whole scene appears empty and barren, but I
know that is false. The Arctic ecosystems are as complex as
the Amazon jungle systems--only with fewer moving parts. This
economy gives a elegance, a clean line, as if seeing the sleek
hip of Sweet Mama Nature rather than the wild hair on her
head. There is a simplicity of honesty here. Nothing is fou-fou
or fake. The place doesn’t try to impress with add-on value
or extra color or a grandiose brag. It states itself in a
simple declarative sentence: I support you. If the observer
adds exclamation points, well, that’s the scales dropping
from their eyes.
The barometer drops during these two rest days, a harbinger
of a storm gathering out of sight. On the morning of our return
trip, the weather comes out of hiding--blustery, cold, snowy.
I’m thankful for the Arctic survival clothing. The temperature
hovers near zero and there is a ten-degree wind chill. The
dogs love it. This is perfect running weather for them.
The weather continues to deteriorate during the last two days
on the trail. This is real Arctic dog sledding, I tell myself,
thinking myself brave. Complete white-out condition by the
time we hit the ice of St. Michael’s Bay for the final 3.5
miles. There is no horizon, no spatial references. Up could
be down. The dog teams are black dots connected by a thick
white fog. The dogs are a straight, taunt line stretching
in front of me through the
blowing snow, a compass arrow on true north--which is where
the small village of St. Michael lies. Eventually I see vague,
boxy shapes ahead, then the shore line.
I jam my fist into the air as a victory salute to the three
people standing on the shore to welcome us back to St. Michael.
“Well done, dogs,” I call out. They glance over their shoulders.
No big deal. Just another day in the Alaskan Arctic.
