9 March 2007 - Fourth day of Iditarod in McGrath

Today we waited for the last of the mushers to arrive. Heather Siirtola and Ellen Halverson arrived about the same time since they had been traveling together. Then there was only one team to come in. We waited and waited and then got a phone call from here in town. "I have a dog team in my front yard without a musher." The snowmobiles went out again and found Eric Rogers about 2 miles up the river. When they brought Eric in, they said the dogs were standing in the man's drive way in perfect formation.

Since I am going out of town for more than a week, this and the final Iditarod report will have to remain until I return.

8 March 2007 - Thursday - Third Day of Iditarod in McGrath

The highlight of Thursday was meeting Gary Paulsen. The upper elementary teacher at McGrath School had connected with a teacher in Minnesota and they had their classes exchange power point presentations. The teacher from Minnesota was coming with Paulsen to the Iditarod and he agreed to speak to the children who came back to school during their vacation time.

Before most people arrived, I told Gary that I had to tell him about my literary disaster because it involved him. "What," he said, "Were we once married"? I told him how when my daughters were in junior high, I had substituted a lot for the school librarian so she invited me to come hear an author. I asked her who it was and when she said Gary Paulsen, I said, "Na, Never heard of him". Within the year I had read at least eight of his books and was using his books in tutoring.


This picture proves I finally met Gary Paulsen.









Only four children came but the room was full of adults - teachers, public broadcast interviewer, and others. He was very interesting and said that most of his books are based on his own experiences. He referred to himself as extinct because publishers don't always want to publish what he wants to write. One person asked him what one should do to become a published writer and Gary said the only way is to sell your soul. He said that everything else in your life has to be abandoned and even that isn't really enough.

Gary believes that dogs are smarter than people. He related that during the first Iditarod he ran, he had stopped and just sat on a pile of snow and told himself that he couldn't go on, that he just couldn't do it. Finally he realize that he had to go on or freeze so he had a talk with his lead dog to the affect that he would take care of her, feed her, tend to her needs, if she would get him out of here. He then gave her her head and she did just that, while he just rode along with her. He said that dogs instinctively understand calculus and human feelings better than humans do.

I asked about his bad heart and that I had heard he couldn't ever run the Iditarod again. He said that when he was told that, he sold his dogs and bought a boat on which he lived for about three years. But, a friend who has a business giving dogsled rides, offered him a ride in his sled. After first saying no he got in. Within the first half of the lap he had decided to sell the boat and get dogs again.

The teacher from Minnesot shared a couple of her power point presenations and we saw the three producted in McGrath. The children were amazed to hear about a school that has four 4th grade classrooms when there are only three 4th graders in McGrath





I took off the second half of the day and returned to the checkpoint. It was a day when a lot of mushers stopped in McGrath and I was able to talk to many of them.

Teams arrived in McGrath on the Kuskokwim River and about a mile west of town came up onto River Road, then prodeeded into town. When they left, they went back down to the river right by the city building. Here's what it looked like when they left. This, by the way, was Tommy Lesatz leaving McGrath.

7 March 2007 - Wednesday - Day 2 of Iditarod in McGrath

Walked to the checkpoint right after work.

We begin to really hear the horror stories coming from the mushers who stayed in McGrath. When I asked the musher from Argentina, Hernana Maquiera, how the race had been up to now, he told me that the last 20 miles had been fun; up until then he had never been so scared in his life. Rainy Pass was steep and icy. He said the team was going far faster than he felt comfortable, but there was no way to slow them under those conditions.

Most told about the blizzard in Rainy Pass. One guy tried to go through but before he reached the summit, he couldn’t see his lead dog and when he checked on them, he found most of the dogs' eyes were frozen shut, so he went back. One told how he had been blown off the trail and had to ice hook his dogs and go looking for the trail. About a mile away he finally found about 1 inch of the five foot pole sticking above the snow, so he went back and got his team and proceeded. By that day, 14 teams had scratched at or before Rainy Pass. When Dave Tresino came in, his eyes where so badly swollen shut and his dogs were sick. He stayed in McGrath longer than his 24 hours hoping for an improved condition in his dogs but had to drop 6 or 7 dogs because of the illness. He would return about 5 hours after he left McGrath the next day and scratch. He said that when they started the incline, he discovered that only 7 of his 9 dogs were pulling. With 9 pullers, he would have gone on.

That evening, one of the mushers, Linwood Fiedler, gave me a great big hug of appreciation for all the kitchen staff. He said the food and hospitality were wonderful in McGrath. I would see him again on Friday when they brought most of the scratched racers to McGrath to be flown out. That visit he wasn't as friendly; he had such a badly frostbitten ear that he will probably lose it. He told that he got hot as he untangled dogs so he took his hat off and his ear was frozen solid when he got back to his hat.

That night Gerald Sousa's sled came in with a passenger. Matt Rossi had lost his team. He said that after such a grueling course, he was relaxing coming into McGrath. When the sled hit a bump, he fell off and the dogs kept going. Snow mobiles took him out to find his dogs about 8 miles from McGrath. They were right where he expected them to be. But, he had done the right thing. The mushers have every kind of survival gear, but without the sled, they have nothing. So he decided to stay on the trail and was soon picked up.

Others that came in and stayed a while were Rich Swenson, who wasn't as macho as I had expected. He looked more like a libarian. He told the head of McGrath food and hospitality that the veterans love to stop in McGrath and are not telling the young fellows about it because they don't want it to get too popular. Let the rookies go on to Takotna and the steak dinner.

Tommy Lesatz who had the biggest smile and hearts throbbing in young and old females, and Andy Angstman, whose parents were here from Bethel to spend time with him; his sister was here from college in Minnesota.

I told Tim Osmar that in his rookie year, my daughters were attending Tustemena Elementary when he visited his old school. He barely made the age limit that year. He now has four children and one of them is about the age my daughters were back his first year.


The pictures show how the dogs are bedded down around the check point and also extra sleds sent ahead for the mushers.

Some of the more competitive racers will change sleds because of different conditions. Others just send ahead in case their sled breaks. The first night, Mackey came in with a broken runner. Matt Rossi took parts off the sled stored here and repaired the sled he had been using

A worry that night was that one of the rookie women mushers was lost. When she was finally found and gotten to Rohn, she and her team had been out in the blizzard for over 36 hours. She and J.G. Jones, both took Ptarmigan Pass north instead of Rainy Pass west to get to Rohn. They both came through McGrath on Friday when they were transporting mushers out of the bush. She may have wanted to continue, but the vets wouldn't let her take the dogs out so soon and that put her too far behind to be competitive.

J.G was disqualified because he lost a dog. He told me that instead of going in a pretty line of dogs, they went through the pass in a big bunch. When he untangled them he discovered the missing dog. He was very hopeful of the dog being found and said that she was the one dog who sleeps with him. One of the officials felt that the chances of finding the dog were very slim, what with hunger and wolves. J.G.'s feet were so badly frostbitten that after his shower, he asked for plastic bags to put over his feet to go out to the garage which was serving as the dorm because he couldn't get his boots back on.

Lots of wonderfully interesting men and women involved with the Iditarod.

March 6, 2007

Tuesday evening, the 6th, I went over to the City Building which was the Iditarod Race Check point and helped prepare dinner. I had asked for a ride to the check point, but then someone in the library asked for help with the computer. I was helping that person when I got the urgent signal that we had to go. I grabbed my purse and left, forgetting my beaver hat and snow pants. All I had for my head was a pretty neck scarf that I had received for Christmas and it was 20 below and with a rare wind off the river. There was a lot of waiting for teams to come in. they would estimate time of arrival from the time the teams left Nikolai, but that meant some waits were over 30 minutes. I snapped a lot of pictures in the dark and hoped that the flash would pick somthing up.

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I nearly froze waiting for teams to come in, especially because McGrath had an unusual wind to add to the chill factor. When I finally went home about 2:00AM I had to take a shower to get the chill out of my legs and the next morning my thighs itched like crazy until I rubbed them with lotion and then they burned.






Before any teams arrived in McGrath we were already getting reports about the horrible conditions in Rainy Pass. Doug Swingley had to scratch from the race after being thrown from his sled and breaking several ribs. We also hear that Deedee Janrowe had scratched but I didn't know until later in the week that her sled had careened almost the same place as Swingley and she also had broken ribs.

Martin Buser was the first musher into McGrath and chose to stop for a dinner and a rest. His face was badly wind and cold burned. I got to serve him and he was a really nice person, but I was a little afraid to talk to the mushers that first night. I have heard many stories since then about what a wonderful man he is. Most of the other leading teams went through McGrath and went to Takotna to have steak dinner. When Martin's team arrived, I started to cry because his team was so absolutely beautiful. I saw a lot, a really lot, of dogs during the week, but none as beautiful as his.

Later in the evening while I worked in the kitchen area, a man staggered up to me and asked where he could wash his hands. I pointed out the two restrooms at the top of about five steps and watched as he went in the women's room. I thought, "What is that drunk doing here." To my personal embarassment, it turned out to be a very tired John Baker. He was the only other musher that stopped on that first night.

I didn't get a picture of Martin Buser's team arriving, I was a little late getting outside after going inside to try to thaw out. As he was getting ready to leave, I asked if I could take his picture, and I got a few shots as he worked for an hour changing sleds. He was about the only musher who stopped for several hours that evening. I really wanted to get Martin's team as they left, but my camera froze up, actually froze from the cold, which it did several times during the eveing.



(upper left - Martin Buser having supper)
(upper right - Martin poses for me)
(right - Martin Buser changing sleds,
which took about an hour)


I want to write each day's experience in a separate blog, but since I have to go out of town on Tuesday for a week, I may not get it all reported in a timely manner.

6 March 2007

I got such positive responses to my last blog report that I am tempted to write another one just to show you some more of my pictures.

These are picture of the village of Holy Cross.



(above left - teacher's house and apartments)
(above right - town of Holy Cross)
(right - Holy Cross Catholic Church)

We printed more telephone books today. It is one of the ways Laural makes money for the library. But, she says that this year, the selling price has not covered the printing costs. But they are in demand and especially with all the strangers coming in for the Iditarod. So she prints more and I collate them.

The library was the busiest today that it has been since I came here. We have distributed posters all over town telling of the location of the library. The museum has an Iditarod exhibit including former mushers of McGrath , for example the third place trophy won by my landlords brother , Ernie, in 1982. McGrath doesn't have any active mushers anymore. Tomorrow morning, personnel of 4 television stations are arriving and will be staying in the school. Tomorrow evening or night they expect the leading mushers to arrive. If I have transportation, I will work in the kitchen and dining room at the city building, which is the checkpoint in McGrath. I'm told that at this point the racers generally follow the river, which is hard to believe after seeing the serpentine river from the air.

McGrath, itself is situated in a horseshoe bend of the river, so the Kuskokwim is north, west and south of town. I can see the advantage of following the river this year because the snow has evaporated down to the dirt of the road in many places. The temperature stays at about 30 below and very unusual for McGrath, the wind picked up yesterday creating a chill factor. This morning's weather report just said we're having a neat wave of 0 to 5 below. But, the wind is expected to continue.



Above, I live in the house in the bottom, center closest to the river. you can see it more easily in the picture to the right. The B&B is on the first road (on left), the last house on the left of the road, closest to the river, where you see the trail leading down to the river. Town and the airport are off the pictures to the left, in the bend of the river. Because of the broken foot, I haven't followed the trail to the river yet, nor even realized how close the river was.

March 3, 2007

I've been very busy since I last wrote in my blog. I spent 7 days in Holy Cross, one of our school district villages on the Yukon River. I expecting to get to 3 villages but one of them was getting a new principal teacher and I was advised to wait until she settled in. When I got to Holy Cross, I discovered that it would take the full week to really get things done.

Holy Cross is a beautiful, clean school (painted a bright green on the outside)


The interior is bright and lively (as you can see in the picture of the commons room) and the staff is wonderful. I stayed in one of the teacher apartments which are attached to the house where the principal lives.

I worked about 10 hours a day for all 7 days, but the principal had me to her house for dinner every night. I managed to sort the fiction from the non-fiction and pull out Alaska and Indian books. Then I alphabetized all the fiction: adult, juvenile, and Alaskan. Non-fiction will sort more easily if and when they get the online catalog system working. What amazed and delighted me was how excited the students were about getting their library sorted so that they could find a book. On Thursday the middle- school class came to the library and went through the alphabetic stacks I had at the time. Friday their teacher came to the library, very excited, to say that it was the very first time everyone in her class was reading something they were enjoying during Silent Sustained Reading. I also give classes on how to use the library and how to authenticate web sites.

I returned Sunday night about 9:30 with the students coming to McGrath for Technical/Vocational week. I was scheduled to teach cake decorating that week, but the decorating kits didn't arrive until the week after. But, I kept busy until I flew out early Thursday morning to Anchorage and then to Juneau.

I attended the Alaska Library Association Conference in Juneau and learned so much that my head is still crammed with the new information. What a gorgeous town Juneau is.


The town is only a couple blocks deep and then is mountain almost straight up. I roomed with the librarian from the Nome School District. While there, I ran into an old friend from the Kenai Peninsula who works at the Anchorage Municipal Library. She was so surprised to see me because she didn't know I was a librarian. The people I met from all over Alaska were so very wonderful and welcoming. Interestingly enough, the keynote speaker at the Author's Luncheon was from North Carolina.

Today was the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Dogsled Race. They will be arriving in McGrath about the middle of the week. There's a problem this year because there isn't much snow. Even the ceremonial start was shorter than usual. A couple weeks ago, my landlords had a dinner party and one couple who had lived in McGrath many year, spent a lot of time talking about back when the mushers stayed at people houses. They personally know most of the longtime racers including my doctor from Soldotna. I volunteered for the week, but haven't heard from the coordinator yet. Thursday morning, the upper-elementary teacher has arranged for Gary Paulsen to come to her class with, I think, the Teacher on the Trail. About the year I moved to North Carolina, the Iditarod Committee chose the first Teacher on the Trail. Each year, they sponsor a teacher from somewhere in the lower 48 to come to Alaska and assist with the race, with the proviso that the teacher write a web page for children all over the country.

In my next entry, I'll tell you my first hand experiences.

Oh, my best friend from Portland has gotten a position in McGrath. She will be coming the second week of April to do alcohol counseling in several of the neighboring villages. I hope I can secure a house for us to share.