Iditarod Alaska (eBook)

Life of a Long Distance Sled Dog Musher

Burt Bomhoff (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 1. Auflage
414 Seiten
Burt Bomhoff (Verlag)
978-1-63452-889-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Iditarod Alaska chronicles the life of a sled dog musher, and the personalities, adventures, rivalries, dog deal swindles, and skulduggery along the wilderness Iditarod race trail.

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In this behind the scenes, book, Bomhoff describes the mindsets and racing tactics of the long distance mushers, the grandeur of the Alaska wilderness along, sled dogs, and the near-life-threatening encounters, always just around the corner. The reader gets to experience the thrill and heartache of what it is like to live a lifelong dream in the wilderness of the Last Frontier.

Textauszug

Chapter One

Reflections in an Old Log Cabin

I sat in my rocking chair in the quiet of my cabin. It was located at Petersville, which is a tiny gathering of cabins, and a roadhouse in the wilderness foothills south of Mount McKinley in Alaska. I had bought the antique rocker for one dollar when I was ten years old and my dad had restored it for me. So many great memories.Years earlier, I had built this cabin with my former wife out of logs taken from the land nearby. Her CB moniker was Fireweed. Easy to see where the name came from by the splash of purple fireweed blanketing the meadow outside the picture windows.

Memories of so many good times and warm moments swirled about the place, almost as though it was haunted. I noticed the quiet. Gone were the sled dogs that once raised a ruckus in the yard out front. And gone were my buddies, such as Norman Vaughan, and Joe Redington Sr. Joe had talked me into moving to Petersville in 1982 after a second year with no snow at my cabin down on the Kahiltna River. We needed snow to train sled dogs. Without snow, the trails, many of them oil exploration seismic trails, were rugged with frozen humps and ruts churned up by heavy equipment.

My move to the Peters Hills country had been a good move for a couple of reasons, much more snow, and much more company. Down in the Kahiltna River valley, the country was remote back then, not many neighbors—mostly trappers and some seasonal workers—and none who mushed dogs. This meant there was no one to help break trail and no one to help when danger threatened. But, mostly, there was almost no one to stop by for dinner or a cup of tea.

At Petersville there were many friends, including long-time Alaskans. Tough men that could get the job done in the Great Alone. And good women who could face down the challenges of this great land. These weren’t people who could just survive out there, but thrive. There was Joe Sr., who came to Alaska in 1948 to mush dogs. His cabin was a quarter mile up the trail from ours. We traveled many hundreds of miles together both in the hills near our cabins and along the Iditarod Trail at race time. Joe and I often talked dogs, trails, gear, and other things mushing long into the night. Sometimes we would agree to meet twenty or thirty miles out on the trail where we would build a fire and brew some tea while the dogs rested. Traditions from a time long past were always important to me, so these trips were special. I sometimes imagined that the ghosts of pioneers long gone had joined us by our crackling campfire for conversation and a cup of tea. I imagined they liked our company and didn’t want to leave the warm campfire any more than we did. But eventually it would be time to leave and we’d hike up our dogs and head home with the ghosts hot on our heels. Whenever Joe and I trained together, we raced each other like there was some big trophy at stake. So much fun for a couple of guys who never could quite make peace with the loss of a truly basic life that was Alaska a century ago.

Joe Redington Sr. visiting with Burt doing chores during a quiet moment at Skwentna checkpoint on a warm, sunny day during the 1981 Iditarod. The Coleman stove was perched between the sled runners so it wouldn’t melt into the snow while water boiled in the cook pot. The snow was firm so the snowshoes lay by the sled. The dogs were up and alert and enjoying the activity of the checkpoint, a good sign they were well rested and that it’s time to leave again.

We had great neighbors. There were Joe and Vera Duhl, who ran the roadhouse at the Forks. Vera waitressed and cooked while Joe tended bar and cut firewood for the barrel stove. He also kept the old Witte generator going. He’d been a boxer so couldn’t hear well from getting his ears thumped. We’d sit at the bar and yell at each other. He cussed a lot, usually under his breath so Vera couldn’t hear it.

His double-barrel stove was special. The Forks Roadhouse was a big log and frame building that went back to the mid-thirties, built to serve sourdoughs headed for the gold mines along Cache Creek to the north. The weathered building needed lots of heat to keep it warm and cozy. That big double-barrel stove was important. The lower barrel was kept stoked with seasoned birch that burned white-hot. The stovepipe went up to another barrel a foot above it, which served as a heat trap. Both barrels gave off serious heat that left you serene after a chilly sled dog run up in the Peters Hills. The Duhls were in their seventies, authentic Alaskans, and full of beans.

Their son, Eric, and his wife Shannon lived a couple of miles away. Eric had grown up at the road house. Shannon is a talented artist and a competitive musher.

My pals Norman and his wife Carolyn lived in the cabin I’d built next door. It was just across the meadow. Norm had told me if I ever decided to sell it to let him know. I said, “Hell, let’s do it now and I’ll build another one next door.”

I had been privileged to perform their wedding ceremony at the Forks Roadhouse years earlier. What an event that was. Guests, all adventurers, came by dog team, airplane, snowmachine and helicopter. I’d driven my dog team over from the cabin to perform the ceremony. Norm was eighty-two when he married Carolyn and they loved each other until Norm died at the age of 100.

My memories flooded back to a time when we used to visit nearly every day to talk dogs, trail conditions and other important things. Norm would spin yarns all evening while we sat in privileged awe and hung on every word. He had been Admiral Byrd’s chief dog handler on his expedition to the South Pole. He had one adventure after another from then until he was a hundred. He never wanted stuff—he wanted adventure. Several years later, my wife Rhea and I had a small birthday party at our house for Norm with a few of his closest friends. It was just two weeks before his 100th birthday. Riley and Marge came down from Nenana, and Jan Masek came all the way from Panama. Shannon was there with Mike. All were long-standing dog mushing buddies. Norm made his goal of living to a hundred but then died a couple of days later.

Dear friend Joe Redington Sr. was gone, too. I had the sad privilege to serve as pallbearer at the funerals of Joe, his wife Vi, and Norm.

I had visited and mushed with these great old-timers, long and often. They have all passed on and are sorely missed.

I just don’t make it up to Petersville much anymore. It’s too quiet without dogs in the yard and pals to visit and chase down a cold winter trail. It was 1992 when I last ran a serious team of sled dogs in the Iditarod Race. I’ve been working in town since then, two decades later.

As I sat in the quiet cabin, a smile flickered across my face. Those memories were just too good. I enjoyed them. Many of these memories were of a time now gone. A lifestyle now gone. At the same time, I had a feeling somewhat like you get when a dear friend dies.

I realized that I had a choice. I could feel sad that those days were gone, or grateful that I had friends and a life so good that I miss them this much.

In the words of that great philosopher, Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

I felt happy and grateful just to be here again and to have the memories. And they do come flooding back. I look around this cabin where so much of the good life was lived. Not the good that money can buy but the good that comes with friends, family, and doing something that absorbs every particle of my being. It was a life complicated in some ways but basic and simple in ways important. When I awoke each morning, I knew that most likely any problem that arose that day would be solved by nightfall. It might be serious, even life-threatening, but if it weren’t behind me by day’s end, it just wouldn’t matter.

The beauty and stillness of Alaska on a warm sunny day, and a strong dog team to pull your sled.

It wasn’t just the lifestyle. All of this training led to race time, and what an adventure that was. I’d made eight trips down the precipitous Happy Valley steps, eight trips down the dreaded Dalzell Gorge, and seven finishes across the ice pack of Norton Bay, some through blinding blizzards. All of that was different from my years as an engineer in Anchorage. I loved my work but had longed for adventure.

My eyes swept the cabin. The logs reflecting the warmth of a cozy fire caught my attention. Every inch of every seam in those log walls had been caulked by hand. Using a caulking gun, we ran a bead of silicone along the seams and smoothed it with rubber-gloved fingers. Two coats of log oil were rubbed into every square inch of log, inside and out. Hard work had left the logs with the soft luster of velvet. When you’d spent that much effort, something of you would remain there forever.

A group of Norm’s close mushing buddies celebrated his 100th birthday at Burt’s home. Norm was still sharp and fun. The gang traded Norm stories until the wee hours of the morning. Left to right standing were Rhea Bomhoff, Margie Riley, Jan Masek, Carolyn Vaughan, Shannon (Chase Poole) Gribbon. Seated are Burt, Norm, and Gerald Riley.

Mike Gribbon Photo

As my eyes wandered over the walls and out the windows, memories of this other life were everywhere. A hundred dog posts jutted out of the jungle of fireweed outside the window and a huge pile of doghouses, neatly stacked, gave mute testimony to a yard that...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.7.2015
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport
• ISBN-10: 1-63452-889-1 / 1634528891
• ISBN-13: 978-1-63452-889-4 / 9781634528894