It's 8 p.m. Wednesday, and she's just starting her 12-hour shift. She knows the mushers well, and it's the first time since last year's Iditarod she has seen Aaron Burmeister of Nome. He arrived about an hour ago and is here to eat his complimentary steak dinner.

"Hey, Aaron, how you doing?" Sayer says.

"Good, Frankie. How are you?" Burmeister replies.

Sayer lives in Homer but mines north of here during the summer with her husband, Paul. They've been volunteer checkers for the past 25 years. Along with many others, they've helped build this 75-person village into a spot known for giving mushers fabulous meals and good hospitality.

Before Sayer is a table full of desserts. Mushers occasionally grab a slice of pie or cake as they come and go.

The evening has been quiet. Sayer's husband is playing cribbage with a group of older men. They're telling jokes, debating stocks and bonds and teasing a Norwegian for her lack of cribbage skills.

Across the room, some mushers eat their steak and wolf down French fries. Sayer adjusts her glasses and looks out the window. A glow comes through the pane, but she can't tell if it's a reflection or the beam of a musher's headlamp.

"Team on the trail!" yells Tabatha Meglitsch, a school girl beside Sayer, who grabs her coat and heads outside.

The team belongs to Colorado musher Lachlan Clarke, who is racing in the 1,100-mile Iditarod for the fourth time. This year, however, he is taking his 24-hour mandatory rest here for the first time because he wants to experience Takotna.

He walks into the room wearing bulky arctic boots, forgetting to turn off his headlamp.

"Can I get a snack?" he asks Sayer.

"What would you like? A steak? Hamburger?"

Clarke ponders the question. A granola bar is all he needs, but meat does sound good. He walks toward the kitchen and finds a cold piece of cheese pizza on a plate. Within seconds he devours the slice.

He needs something to wash it down, so he stares into a stack of warm soda cans taller than him. He discovers a refrigerator next to the soda, pulls out a cold Mountain Dew and chugs.

Three minutes later he goes for a 7-Up. Before long he's eating French fries, hamburgers and chocolate chip cookies.

So much for a snack.

BEN AND JERRY'S

Crazy as it sounds, Sigrid Ekran packed a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in her Nikolai drop bags. The 28-year-old Norwegian craves Chocolate Fudge Brownie after traveling hundreds of miles on a dog sled.

This year she packed Cherry Garcia. But with temperatures reaching the high 30s, it turned to soup. She hoped the store in Nikolai might have a replacement to satisfy her craving.

"Do they have Ben and Jerry's here?" she asked a checker. "Mine melted."

No luck there. So miles down the trail, she settled for Takotna's juicy steak, pepperoni pizza and buttered pancakes.

Ekran got the ice cream idea from Fairbanks musher Brent Sass, who put Ben and Jerry's in his Yukon Quest dog drops.

"You burn a lot of calories (racing), and ice cream is full of them," he said. "We eat ice cream all the time, so why not eat it on the trail?"

In Takotna, Ekran put her ice cream habit on hold, settling for a salad.

"You know Sigrid, lettuce has no calories," four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King advised.

"Yeah, but I was just craving salad," she said.

Before Ekran ran her first Iditarod last year, she followed the trail twice to update the Web site of Team Norway, a collection of Norwegian mushers headed by two-time champion Robert Sorlie and one of this year's top contenders, Kjetil Backen.

Takotna quickly became her favorite place.

Ekran took her 24-hour layover here as a rookie, but this year's schedule, like that of Backen, was to 24 in Cripple. Warm weather changed her plan, so she hunkered down along the Takotna River.

"It wasn't a hard choice," she said. "You have hot water, all kinds of food and pie. Yeah, it's just heaven being in Takotna."

COLD TURKEY

All 65-year-old Louis Nelson wanted was a smoke. His McGrath to Takotna run was one of the toughest he's ever experienced -- and not because of the moguls.

"I was dying for a cigarette," Nelson said. "I was thinking, 'Buy a pack here.' Then I thought, 'Oh no. I promised myself I would do the Iditarod without a cigarette.' "

Nelson smoked for 10 years until a month ago when he gave up his addiction for his wife, Lulu. Though a pack lasted Nelson three days, the smoke was too much for her.

The time needed to train an Iditarod-caliber dog team has begun to wear on Nelson too, who's considering retiring from the race. This is his fourth Iditarod, and he rarely spends quality time with Lulu. Iditarod training always comes first.

"I'd be gone since daylight, have lunch, get back after dark," Nelson said. "Chop wood until 9-10 p.m., then the old lady would just sit at home and knit while she waited for me. She made a lot of socks."

Lulu made about 15 pairs for relatives as Christmas presents. She knits day in and day out.

"She's bored," Nelson said. "Well, maybe (this Iditarod) is enough for me."

Nelson sits in the Takotna checkpoint, taking his 24-hour layover, which he's done here all four races. He's always passed on the steak dinner, but this year is different. It might be the last time he stops in Takotna.

"Wonderful people run this place," Nelson said. "They would rather not see me go."

"You can't blow by," Sayer told him. "Have a cookie or steak."

"Give it to someone else," Nelson said.

"No, you should have that steak," Sayer insisted.

Nelson caved in. After all, who knows if he'll be back.

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Find Daily News sports reporter Kevin Klott at adn.com/sports/kklott or 257-4335.