CENTRAL -- His main reason for moving to Alaska was "to get the hell out of civilization," but Carl Cochrane is anything but reclusive.

Cochrane's doors have always been open to visitors, and the 76-year-old craftsman is more than happy to tell you about the time he was nearly killed by a bear or his eyewitness account of Pearl Harbor. His patch of land along Birch Creek has been a popular stop on the Yukon Quest trail since the inception of the 1,000-mile sled dog race -- even before his cabin was built.

During the inaugural race in 1984, mushers took shelter in a teepee that was Cochrane's temporary home. His original cabin burned down in 1980, and he completed his current home five years later.

Today, Cochrane hosts Quest racers in his modest cabin, the teepee and a bunkhouse he built for passers-by -- complete with a foam-padded bed, jar of M&M's and a spear.

His property is 25 trail miles from the Circle checkpoint. Cardboard signs on the creek direct mushers his way.

Early Monday afternoon, 19-year-old Peter Fleck followed those signs and arrived for a rest. When Cochrane was that young, he was a corporal in the Marines during the Korean War.

Ken Anderson, the veteran musher from Fox, had been there early Monday morning for a six-hour stop. And late Sunday night, Hugh Neff pulled over for a spell, despite being in a battle for the lead.

"We're good friends, and he just stopped by to say hello," Cochrane said. "I hear this hollering out on the river: 'Hey Cochrane!' So I went outside and I heard him: 'Hey, I'm not going to stop. I've got the lead with Lance Mackey right behind me.' "

But the two struck up a conversation, and Neff turned his team up the ramp from the riverbank.

"He put the booties on his dogs, snacked his dogs, had one cup a coffee -- a quick cup -- and took off like a bat out of hell," Cochrane said.

It was unlikely that Mackey would pull over too.

"When it's cold, then everybody stops, except Lance Mackey," Cochrane said. "Sixty below zero, and he's camping around the bend."

When he arrived in Circle, Neff said, he always tries to spend time at Cochrane's cabin. He recalled an instance when he complimented Cochrane on a picture he saw there.

"It was this picture of a jacket," Neff said. "He walks into the other room, and comes out with the jacket. 'It's yours.' "

Neff wore that jacket throughout his next Quest run.

It's odd for a leader, or anyone in the top 10 for that matter, to take a load off at the cabin, Cochrane said. Usually, mushers farther back are the first to stop.

Cochrane prefers the years when the race starts in Fairbanks -- it begins in Whitehorse during odd-numbered years -- because the field hasn't had time to string out.

"When it comes out of Fairbanks, I've got two days of people stopping over," Cochrane said. "When it comes out of Whitehorse, it's a week and people are still stopping here."

Also, the mushers are less trail-weary than after the 700-plus miles they travel from Whitehorse.

"They're, in a word, hostile," Cochrane said. "With the lack of sleep, they don't know how to act, don't know how to think. There are one or two sane ones, usually."

Cochrane spent much of his youth in San Diego. He showed an aptitude for art when he was 8, and detested city life. He moved around the country, following his father's assignments in the Navy.

One stop was Hawaii, three miles away from Pearl Harbor.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Cochrane was at home when he heard Japanese planes fly overhead and heard the blasts of the attack. His father got a ride from their neighbor to attend to his ship. Cochrane didn't see him until he returned from World War II two years later.

That's when they moved to Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, Fla., and Cochrane discovered a fondness for the outdoors.

"At that time, Florida was a wilderness paradise," he said.

Cochrane moved to Birch Creek "to get the hell out of civilization," he said. After driving to Alaska in 1969, he sold the Chevy pickup that got him here and replaced it with a small dog team.

The dogs -- between four and six of them -- worked so well that Cochrane didn't own a motorized vehicle for 23 years. He bought a snowmachine in 1992.

Upon arriving at Birch Creek, Cochrane was tagged as a cheechako by local residents, but he soon shed that label when he made his own snowshoes and toboggans.

He has made a living from craftwork, trapping and art. Remnants of his work cover nearly every spare inch of his walls.

Popular items include birch-bark baskets and miniature snowshoes for decoration. His most recent creation is a clothes hamper made like a fish trap. There also are drums, moose-horn plates and spears -- plenty of spears.

The weapons came in handy when walking through Florida woods rife with water moccasins and the occasional turtle, Cochrane said. There are several homemade spears in the cabin, another in the bunkhouse and an extremely long one leaning on the porch.

With several guests Monday afternoon, Cochrane flipped through photos, telling stories and cracking jokes.

"I used to be Mr. America, now I'm just roadkill 'possum," he said while pointing to a picture of himself in his 20s.

Then the door opened, and musher Bart de Marie stood in the doorway.