1998 Iditarod Stories

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2 more dogs die, Iditarod reports

Two dogs that became ill during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and were dropped from a rested, back-of-the-pack team at Ruby on March 14 died several days later in Anchorage while under private veterinary care.

A third dog dropped at the same time with the same symptoms has since recovered, said the musher, Jim Lanier of Chugiak.

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Seventeen years ago, Iditarod musher Larry "Cowboy" Smith stood under the burled arch on Front Street in Nome and said, roughly, "You give me good trail and cold weather and I'll get to Nome in 10 days."

Smith's words prompted people to shake their heads. A 10-day race? Even some top-flight mushers of the day thought 11 days was about the limit, and even that unlikely unless conditions were ideal.

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The slowest musher in this year's Iditarod crossed the finish line Sunday afternoon, winning the red lantern but thinking first about a shower and some shut-eye.

Brad Pozarnsky of Bottineau, N.D., crossed the finish line at 4:42 p.m., turning in the fastest last-place time in the race's 26-year history. His time of 14 days, 5 hours and 42 minutes would have won nine of the races.

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Race veterinarians do dogs proud After the death of her dog Trim, Linda Joy of Willow probably summarized the reality of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race as well as anyone. "The Iditarod has a life of its own," she said, "and unless you're really involved in it, you don't realize. There's life here on the Iditarod; we have breedings, and there's death also." [More] | [Top]

Iditarod veterinarian Sharon Kaiser perpares to take a blood sample from a dog after the finish in Nome. Mushers praised this year's group of veterinarians.

Top rookie nabs 20th NOME - A chilly rain deepened the predawn dark as North Pole veterinarian Mark May followed his 10-dog team under the burled arch here early Thursday to seize the last paying position in the 26th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Still, the musher was happy. Over the last 20 miles in from Safety, he'd been one of the fastest racers, making the run in under three hours. [More] | [Top]

Healy musher David Sawatzky is reflected in a rain puddle as he runs down Front Street in Nome to finish the race in 15th place. Mushers had to contend with naked tundra and boulder fields on the trail from Safety.

ELIM - Trim was the sled dog that always jumped up and down in excitement. He was always lunging forward, overcome with the passion to pull. He kept his tugline taut and loved the adventure of mushing the Iditarod Trail.

"This dog always wanted to see what was around the corner," said Willow musher Linda Joy, "and what was over the next hill. He had all the spirit that a sled dog should have."

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Love blooms under burled arch Marriage, proposal mark '98 finish line Two couples put the mush in mushing at the Iditarod finish line Thursday. The terminus of the Anchorage-to-Nome sled dog race witnessed a wedding and a marriage proposal in quick order. Neither pair, it turned out, had an inkling of what the other was up to beneath the famed burled arch on Front Street. [More] | [Top]

Iditarod musher Zach Steer proposes to Anjanette Knapp after finishing the race Thursday afternoon in Nome. After pulling under the burled arch, Steer removed the ring from a package duct-taped to the collar of his lead dog, Henry, and then dropped to his knees to offer it to his shocked girlfriend.

Baker wakes up in time to be 5th NOME - Out on the pre-dawn flats some 20 miles from the finish line in Nome, Kotzebue musher John Baker - driving for a fifth-place finish in the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race - found his throbbing right ankle difficult to bear. He'd left White Mountain about nine hours earlier - with nearly a four-hour lead on seven top mushers, including defending champion Martin Buser, top contender Linwood Fiedler and a hungry 23-year-old competitor from Big Lake named Ramey Smyth. [More] | [Top]

Charlie Boulding takes third in the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and poses with one of his dogs after passing under the burled arch in Nome Tuesday night. Boulding finished in 9 days, 11 hours and 41 minutes and won $38,896.

King makes it three Pounded by fierce coastal winds, Jeff King of Denali Park saw his chances for a record Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race blow away on Tuesday, but his team persevered to claim a third victory. Only miles from the Nome finish line, King and his dogs were caught in a ground blizzard that cut visibility to almost nothing. He later said the weather was the worst he'd witnessed in six Iditarod races. [More] | [Top]

Jeff King poses with lead dogs Jenna, left, and Red after arriving in Nome from Anchorage.

GALENA - With the lights of Galena glittering on the far bank of the Yukon River, Fairbanks musher Ramy Brooks was minutes away from arriving in 10th place Friday night during the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when a dog suddenly collapsed in its traces.

Brooks rushed forward. Down was Bird, a 2-year-old reddish husky with blue eyes and floppy ears, a veteran of the Yukon Quest and descendant of the family's breeding line.

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Canine lust hampers trip to Nome OPHIR - She wore a glossy black coat with a cunning white mark down the middle of her nose. Her slender front legs were dressed in leggings of white fur. A white belly. And sleepy, dog-yard eyes. Luxuriating on her straw bed in the sunshine outside the log cabin at Ophir - 677 miles from Nome - the husky named Wesley wiggled on her back and stretched open her legs, oblivious to the lust she had inspired in the nine males of her 14-dog team. [More] | [Top]

Dave's Lindquist's dog Wesley has caused just a little bit of, uh, trouble on the Iditarod Trail.

Thought is a heavy burden to carry.

Few people understand this better than a handful of mushers vying to win this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

They know about the heft of thought because their success depends on the ability of a couple key dogs to carry the burden.

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Joe Garnie is the past come back to life, a figure from Iditarod history trying to recapture the glory of a decade ago using dog-raising methods that date back a century.

Dogs run in Garnie's family. His father mushed dogs, his grandfather mushed dogs. In Teller, on the Bering Sea Coast, Garnie mushes on, the dogs his partners in daily life. They help with the hunting. They haul fuel. They work.

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WILLOW - The restart of the 26th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race here Sunday morning featured 63 mushers, more than 1,000 dogs and a range of emotions - including, for the first time in 26 Iditarods, a touch of sibling rivalry.

Matt and Maria Hayashida are the first brother-sister duo to race in the same Iditarod. While there's not exactly a family feud under way, there won't be many Hallmark moments on the trail, either.

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The man whose spic-and-span dog truck has the words "Dream a Dream Dog Farm" written on the back seemed as calm as still waters before what may be the grandest adventure of his life.

You couldn't walk five feet down Fourth Avenue Saturday morning without someone telling you how great Vern Halter's 1998 Iditarod team is, how he's the man to watch. The buzz spread faster than flu germs. Nothing like being an overnight sensation after 20 years of hard labor.

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With an angel on her shoulder and another in her sled, five-time Iditarod veteran Lynda Plettner was back on the trail to Nome on Saturday after a three-year absence.

Thousands of fans lined Fourth Avenue to cheer on the 63 mushers and their 756 dogs for the ceremonial start of the 26th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. The number of dogs will grow by about 250 today when drivers increase their team sizes for the 11 a.m. restart in Willow.

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Like other mushers training for the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Chugiak musher James Lanier put his team of young, white huskies through all kinds of tests.

They raced the Tustumena 200 and other shorter races. They spent long cold nights in the Susitna Valley forests. Over more than 1,000 miles, Lanier says, they proved themselves exceptionally calm and steady - a pleasure to drive.

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Most in the crowd will be cheering for the favorites as the field of 63 mushers takes off from Fourth Avenue this morning. But favorites aside, thousands of eyes will be watching a rookie named Sam Maxwell. He's the most well-known Iditarod "unknown" in town. Maxwell, 40, is one of four Anchorage mushers running in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Born and raised here, he seems to be everyone's acquaintance or friend-of-a-friend.

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In the plush hallway of a Spenard hotel, 63 dog drivers hefted dainty crystal full of sparkling cider and champagne. They shook hands with fans, grinned and chattered as they lined up Thursday for the official group photograph of the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to Nome.

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Joe Redington sipped a can of Ensure through a straw and rocked gently in a chair at his Knik home. He wore gray winter overalls and light gray lobben boots. The 81-year-old musher, who's known wind chills of more than 100 degrees below zero, should have been too warm, but he wasn't.

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It's one of Alaska's great debates: Which 1,000-mile sled dog race is tougher -- the Yukon Quest or the Iditarod?

A serious answer isn't simple, according to Nenana musher Rick Mackey, one of the most experienced dog drivers in the world and one of only three people to win both races (the Quest in 1997, the Iditarod in 1983).

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Resurgence of native mushers The 26th Iditarod continues a renaissance of competitive mushing among people with Alaska Native heritage. Returning for his 14th race after five-year absence is Joe Garnie, one of the top dog drivers in the history of the sport. Along with Libby Riddles, who was then his partner, Garnie fielded a team that took third, first and second in consecutive races in the mid-1980s. His second-place finish behind Susan Butcher in 1986 would have won every previous race. [More] | [Top]

"Why bother running a team of huskies when you can fire up a snow machine?"

That may be one of the most fundamental questions for the sport of dog mushing. But when Kotzebue musher John Baker put it to about 40 fifth-graders in Cindy Perry's class at Sand Lake Elementary, he got a pragmatic, Alaska-style answer.

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