My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [35]
Dozens of resting dogs dotted the snow fronting Yentna Station’s big log cabin. The skies were sunny, and the temperature was pushing the 40s. And there was John Suter slipping coats on the dogs responsible for his notoriety as the one and only Poodle Man. Most Iditarod veterans were embarrassed by the presence of Suter and his poodles, whose fur was so ill suited to Arctic conditions that they stuck to the ice when they slept.
As a rookie, Suter had stunned Mowry and five other Iditarod mushers when he passed them in a storm on the final day of the race. The team’s complement of Alaska huskies made that possible, but those dogs got little credit in the publicity surrounding the three poodles who had gone the distance, or the four who made it a year later. Poodles were Suter’s ticket to network TV appearances and the pages of Sports Illustrated. As John Suter liked to brag: “There’s five billion people on the planet, and only one of them mushes poodles.”
Mowry dedicated his second Iditarod to beating the Poodle Man, which he did. I wasn’t as competitive as the Coach, but I didn’t intend to lose to Suter.
Ken Chase saw me throwing my dogs chunks of whitefish. He asked if I had any to spare. The Athabaskan from Anvik was one of the mushers who had defined Iditarod in the early days. He was renowned for racing with a light sled, trusting good dogs and a lifetime of experience to overcome any lack of supplies.
Mushing toward Unalakleet several years before, rookie Mark Merrill had been flagged down by a trapper traveling by snowmachine. “Man, you’re crazy,” the fellow said. “A bad storm’s coming this way.”
Merrill, a proud woodsman from Willow, spent several hours building himself a survival shelter.
“What are you doing?” Chase asked, mushing up from behind. He was amazed that someone would stop with a storm moving in.
Merrill told him about the snowmachiner’s warning.
“Trappers! They aren’t dog mushers,” the Indian snapped. “What do they know!” He advised the rookie to quit wasting time and get moving to Nome.
Merrill hadn’t ever heard of Ken Chase, and he wasn’t impressed by the stranger’s ragged outfit. He stayed put in his nifty shelter. Within 48 hours, Chase was mushing into Nome, beating Babe Anderson, an old rival from McGrath, by 10 minutes. The failure to heed the old veteran’s advice caused Merrill to spend 2 days pinned down on Topkok Hill, battered by wind so fierce it blew his dogs backward.
“I didn’t know who Ken Chase was,” Merrill sheepishly told me. But Merrill had come from behind to preserve his honor by beating the damn Poodle Man.
Chase’s eleventh Iditarod wasn’t going well. His dogs were bummed after cutting their feet on the icy trail out of Knik. A few whitefish might perk them up, he said. Unfortunately, I was only carrying snacks. By the time Chase asked, my one small bag of whitefish was gone.
The roadhouse radio was crackling with discussions about Carpenter, the screaming idiot “in trouble” down on the river. The musher’s wife and handler were desperate for information. Apparently this was Joe’s second flameout. Five years earlier, Carpenter had scratched in Skwentna. He had better dogs this time, “a great team,” his handler said. What was going wrong? The musher’s friends had access to a plane. They wanted to fly out and DO SOMETHING. The handler asked Dan Grabryszak to pass a message to Carpenter that there would be a meal waiting for the dogs in Skwentna.
Dan assured the callers that Carpenter was in no immediate danger. He also gently reminded them that Iditarod has rules limiting outside assistance.
Barry Lee sacked out in the frozen marsh. Back on the trail by 5:30 A.M., he quickly caught and passed Gary Moore. Two hours later, Lee camped a second time near the Yentna, building a fire and serving the dogs a hot meal. It was part of Barry’s schedule for working his dogs into shape.
He was napping on the sled when Moore found him.
“Everything all right, Barry?”
Lee smiled and waved Moore by, appreciative of his concern.