Saturday, March 7, 1998
Copyright 1998 Anchorage Daily News
Savvy veteran with a dream
Chugiak musher wants to build a dog team of all white huskies
By DOUG O'HARRA Daily News reporter
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.
"When I hook them up ... they don't go crazy, shrieking and yelling," he said later. "They have this lower burn, which is good for a distance race. ... They're really bonded to me."
But, as Lanier discovered on a visit to the Riversong Lodge on the Yentna River last year, even the best trained huskies are just dogs at heart.
After a cup of coffee with the caretaker, Lanier began to pull his leaders around on a narrow path to return to the river and the 50-mile trip home.
The caretaker told him he could reach the trail by heading inland through the lodge compground, following a snow machine path.
Why not?
On Lanier's command, the dogs trotted forward, then moved briskly around the corner of the first building.
"Right before me, to my horror, I saw a couple of barnyard geese," Lanier said. As the geese frantically flapped out of the way, the team jolted into attack speed.
Lanier shouted for the leaders to go on by. Eventually, superior training and temperament prevailed; the dogs resumed their steady-as-you-go trot.
"Then came the next corner," Lanier said. "Chickens." As the birds squawked and exploded into the coop, the team dogs went berserk, scrambling and lunging and wailing. For a moment, Lanier thought his leaders might pull the team back into formation.
Not a chance.
"The leaders went with them," he said. "And the whole bunch went into the chicken coop."
Lanier grabbed on to the gang line - like you might retrieve an anchor from the sea - and began hauling it backward.
"I extracted the dogs one at a time," he said. "Each dog had a bloody, battered chicken in his mouth."
Lanier apologized profusely and offered to pay for the birds. But the caretaker, convulsed with laughter, refused any money.
"He said that was the most fun he'd had all winter," Lanier said.
Lanier, the senior pathologist at Providence Hospital, may be one of the most experienced and least known back-of-the-pack mushers on the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. His mushing background extends to the Iditarod's pioneer era. He made his first run to Nome in 1979, taking 43rd after spending 24 days on the trail.
In the mid-1980s, Lanier completed the All-Alaska Sweepstakes, the 1984 Iditarod and a brutally cold Brooks Range race, the Coldfoot Classic. He lost the tips of two fingers to frostbite in that one.
Those early teams were largely built with leased or borrowed dogs. About four years ago, Lanier and Anna Bondarenko - a Russian- born folk singer and teacher - began raising their own huskies, inspired by a litter of white pups. After a dog from DeeDee Jonrowe's kennel produced 10 white offspring, Bondarenko named them all after characters from "Snow White and Seven Dwarfs." A plan to create an all-white Iditarod team began to take shape.
"To have a whole team of white dogs would really be special," Lanier said. "I mean, I'm not going to win the Iditarod. But I needed something to distinguish my team."
Meanwhile, Lanier began moving back into dog mushing with a vengeance. He ran the Hope-to-Anadyr race along Russia's Bering Sea Coast in 1995. He and Bondarenko together drove companion teams on a reverse Iditarod - going from Nome to Anchorage - in 1996.
On that trip, Bondarenko crashed a sled between Shaktoolik and Unalakleet, forcing them to double up both teams into a 20-dog caravan.
As they moved toward the village, they kept seeing a pair of widely spaced eyes gleaming off in the darkness. The dogs then spooked - acting startled - and sped up.
"After it was over, we heard that two polar bears had been seen in that stretch," Lanier said.
With the help of handler Michael Power, Lanier and Bondarenko put together a team last fall that includes 10 white huskies - most between 11/2 and 21/2 years old. Eventually the team will be all white.
Many mushers don't like white dogs, thinking them inferior to dogs with darker coats. But Lanier says his white huskies have turned out to be reliable and easy to drive - as long as they don't come face to face with fresh poultry.
"This is a foundation for next year, and the year after that," Lanier said. "I'm eager to see what we can do out there."