Not since the great Roxy Wright of Fairbanks won the last of her three titles 17 years ago has an Alaskan who is a U.S. citizen seized the mantle of world champion sprint musher.
Blayne Streeper of Fort Nelson, British Columbia, the defending champion, has won four Rondy races.
Ross Saunderson, of Fort St. John, British Columbia, grabbed three. Alex Gasser of Austria took one.
Egil Ellis, who lives in Willow, is a four-time champion. But the Swedish immigrant is not yet a U.S. citizen, something he expects to happen this summer.
Who would have guessed 16 years ago that British Columbia racers would outrun racers born in Alaska 8-0 over the next decade-and-a-half at Rondy?
After all, the world championship had long been a race owned by Alaskans like George Attla of Huslia, a 10-time champion and the winningest dog driver in Rondy history; Wright, the only woman to ever win; and her father Gareth, a three-time winner.
Predictably, perhaps, without a winner to cheer, some Alaskans stayed home.
Could this year be different?
Maybe. Sort of.
Bill Kornmuller of Willow nearly took last year's race before Blayne Streeper stormed from behind on the final day. Kornmuller moved here from New York in 1993.
Arleigh Reynolds of Salcha has delivered some impressive early-season performances. He too moved here from New York more than a decade ago.
And Ellis is hearing more cheers from Alaskans. "The first four years of racing in Alaska, we traveled back and forth between Sweden and Alaska, and then I was known as the Swede. As soon as we moved here permanently, I think we are considered more and more as Alaskans, on loan from Sweden maybe."
Is it important?
"Just having an Alaskan win it right now would really help interest in the race," said Roxy Wright. "There's a lot of Alaskan pride."
Kornmuller hopes to benefit from some of that.
"I'd love to win the race," said Kornmuller, who plans to start behind 18 dogs. "But I'm willing to pick up the pieces and see what happens. There's not one team that's a 100 percent favorite, and I think that will make for a much better race."
Rondy began in 1946, and its roots are in a much different time when Anchorage was a much different place. Before Iditarod. Before Iron Dog. Before the Tour of Anchorage ski race. Before multiplexes, malls and hundreds of other entertainment and recreation options.
"The Alaska people, the Alaska Native people would come into town from the villages and they'd schedule it around Rendezvous because the dog race was a very important part of it," said Wright, whose father is part Athabascan and mother is part Eskimo. "For them, it was like the Super Bowl. It was a part of our culture, our lifestyle. Their people were the heroes of that race."
There was no greater hero than Attla, who waged a decades-long battle with Dr. Roland Lombard of Wayland, Mass., and claimed championships from 1958 to 1982.
"We have only so much money to support so many things, and it's divided now," Wright said. "When my dad, George Attla and I were racing -- and I was at the tail end of that -- we'd have races nearly every single weekend. You'd go up to the villages -- to Noorvik, to Allakaket, to Huslia -- to race, and it helped because there were enough to support the sport. Sprint racing has lost that."
Money is a big part of the reason, and even though this year's Rondy boasts a big field of racers chasing a record $80,000 purse, it may not be enough to entice rural mushers to start a sprint-dog kennel.
"Not that many village teams will be able to compete," Wright said. "It takes too much money to keep a dog team these days, particularly in the Bush. If you have to fly in dog food because there's not enough salmon, it's really tough."
In October, at a Fairbanks conference on economic development in the Bush, Attla delivered a proposal that the 13 Native regional corporations create a new race in rural Alaska with $150,000 purse, open only to corporation shareholders in order to bolster Native kennels.
"In the past, the Native mushers competed for the prize money and for the pride it brought to his or her home village and surrounding villages," Attla said at the time. "Prize money allowed mushers to build their kennels and race to win. But today, there are no village teams able to compete for the No. 1 position in sprint sled dog racing."
Few of the 30 mushers who have signed up to race this year are from off the road system.
"That's a hard thing to understand," Attla said by phone on Tuesday. "I don't get that. It's like we forgot how to run dogs.
"It's going to take the effort of a whole village to really send a competitive team in from some of the outlying areas. When I was racing, it was the pride of a village. The whole community backed you up."
Attla sees two encouraging signs -- growing support of sprint mushing in Anchorage and a cluster of mushers in the Fort Yukon area, including Josh Cadzow, rookie of the year in this year's Yukon Quest.
And if encouragement doesn't work, how about a threat?
"I'm thinking about making a comeback," said Attla with a laugh, not bothering to mention he's 77 and recovering from hip replacement surgery.
Reach reporter Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.
Fur Rendezvous World
Championship Sled Dog Race
• When: Noon Friday, Saturday and Sunday
• Purse: $80,000 with $9,800 going to the champion — plus the prospect of earning day money
• Where: Race starts and finishes at Fourth Avenue and D Street. Racers follow Fourth Avenue to Cordova Street. At the bottom of Cordova Hill, the trail moves to the bike/ski trails along Anchorage’s greenbelt. Teams negotiate culverts beneath the Seward Highway and Lake Otis. The trail has two large overpass bridges over Northern Lights Boulevard and Tudor Road separated by a trail through the dog park. Six miles into the trail, the teams hit the designated sled dog trails in Far North Bicentennial Park before returning to downtown.
• Admission: Free
• Pets: Organizers ask fans to keep pets home.
• Volunteers: Those interested meet 7 p.m. Thursday at Alaska Sled Dog Racing Association clubhouse on Tudor Road.
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