On odd-numbered years such as this one, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race follows its southern route through ghost towns like Ophir and Iditarod, piercing hundreds of miles of forbidding and frigid wilderness.
That long and lonely trek ends when mushers reach the Yukon River, and the first to do so traditionally hears one of the sweetest sounds of the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail short of a cheering crowd on Front Street.
In the 37-year history of the race, only 18 people have heard it -- the bells in the Episcopal Christ Church welcoming the first musher to Anvik.
"I grew up watching the Iditarod on ABC's 'Wide World of Sports,' " Willow musher Linwood Fiedler said. "They always showed them coming into Anvik and ringing the bell. I fantasized about that happening to me someday. But you never think it will.''
Occasionally, though, dreams come true. For Fiedler, it happened in 2001.
That's when at sunset on a chilly Thursday in March, a "tired and rummy" Fiedler heard Anvik's church bells as he rolled into town. Never before had a musher traveled this far, about 620 miles from the start line, before taking the mandatory 24-hour rest.
Fiedler would go on to complete the best of his 14 Iditarods, finishing second to Montanan Doug Swingley. Next month, the 55-year-old will return to the Iditarod, hoping for his first finish since 2003, when he was sixth.
But eight years ago, Fiedler's glory came in Anvik, not Nome.
He spent a whole day there, gobbling down the big dinner that goes to the first musher to reach the Yukon and talking to village children.
"The kids all met him," said Anvik mayor Robert Walker. "He went to the school and talked to them. He was a good role model."
Fiedler earned $3,500 as the first musher to the Yukon that year and donated $2,000 of it to four Yukon checkpoints -- $500 per checkpoint -- so the villages could buy schoolbooks.
"That was really nice," said Stephanie Burgoon, a teacher in Anvik at the time. "We really need it.''
Fiedler's Anvik welcome party lasted until 1:15 a.m. that year, when the weary musher finally went to bed.
"In all the years that the Iditarod has come through Anvik, that was the most fun," said Julie Walker, the mayor's wife.
Fiedler couldn't disagree.
"It was a wonderful achievement, that whole race, really," he said. "Everything went pretty darn right; I couldn't do anything wrong with that team.
"I've only had one or two of those rides."
Perhaps Fiedler's magical 2001 Iditarod proves the maxim that good things happen to good people, because the dogsled glacier tour operator is clearly one of those.
When Fiedler has been in position to lend a helping hand, that's exactly what he's done.
• In early 2006, Big Lake musher Lynda Plettner fell ill at the Skwentna Roadhouse during the Knik 200 sled dog race, suffering excruciating pain. Fiedler rubbed Plettner's back to offer relief until she was flown by LifeGuard air ambulance to Providence Alaska Medical Center to treat what turned out to be an intestine problem. While Plettner recovered, Fielder cared for more than a dozen of Plettner's dogs. And after Plettner left the hospital, Fielder lent her his $10,000 Arctic Cat snowmachine to help with training. She raced the Iditarod that March, the last of her dozen Iditarods.
• Late one evening during his first Iditarod in 1989, Fiedler and other racers found North Pole musher Mike Madden lying on the ground, delirious. "We all put our sleeping bags together and made a big, huge bag for him," Fiedler said. Some in the group stayed with Madden while Fiedler and Jerry Austin rode on to Iditarod to summon a helicopter. Madden was suffering from salmonella poisoning.
• The Iditarod's sportsmanship award went to Fiedler in 1989 for helping Madden; he earned humanitarian award a year later.
"I see him on the trail nearly every day," said Willow's DeeDee Jonrowe, who lives nearby. "He's a wonderful neighbor, a top quality person."
Plettner calls her brush with death three years ago "a bonding moment with Fiedler.
"Of all the people at Skwentna while I was dying, the one who was really concerned about my well being was Linwood," she said.
Other than family, Fiedler was the only person to visit her in the hospital. "He didn't call and say 'How the heck are you girl?' she said. "He showed up."
And Fiedler may be the exception to maxim that nice guys finish last. In his 14 Iditarod finishes, Fiedler has never been out of the top 26. Four times he has been among the top 10.
"There certainly have been highs and lows," he said. "It can humble you."
Despite not having put in as many training miles as he'd like, Fiedler is looking forward to the trail to Nome.
"I'd like to get another run or two," he said of the Iditarod. "I've been out of the loop a while, and I just love the sport so much -- love being out there with the dogs.
"As expensive as it is, I guess it's the equivalent cost of psychotherapy."
At 55, he's made some accommodations to age. He's had two surgeries on a balky left ankle, injured years ago in a car accident.
"That's definitely an issue," he said.
He rides what he called "one of those old-man sleds with a seat in the back" and on some days feels his age.
"I get tired more quickly," he said. "I have to play a smarter game now."
But the quiet joy of driving a team of dogs across Alaska has returned.
"The break away has done me good," he said. "The romance of it was wearing off, and it was becoming more of a job. Some of the fun was gone.
"I'm glad it's back."
Reporter Mike Campbell can be reached at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.
By MIKE CAMPBELL
mcampbell@adn.com