Big Lake musher Jake Berkowitz had his best Iditarod finish this year, an eighth place bounce-back for the musher, who in 2012 was disqualified after badly cutting his hand not far from Unalakleet.
Berkowitz might have done even better last year had he finished. He'd shown up sixth at the Bering Sea checkpoint of Unalakleet with a strong team of 14 dogs. They were head turners then. And they were head turners again this year, so much so that Berkowitz received the race's top price for dog care Sunday night.
He even had a team leader that beefed up while on its 1,000-mile run across Alaska, adding more than 2 pounds. That's stunning since most dogs -- in fact most animals -- lose weight during such ultra-marathon efforts.
Berkowitz rolled into Nome in the wee hours of Wednesday morning with 15 springy, barking dogs, and at Sunday night's celebratory banquet he received the Alaska Airlines Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award, one of the most coveted among mushers.
"It was truly amazing what his team did, and how it looked coming into Nome," said Stu Nelson, the race's chief veterinarian.
Nelson added that the award is always competitive, and many mushers are deserving. Still, something about Berkowitz's care on the trail and the way his team looked made the 26-year-old stand out.
Receiving the same award in 2011 moved Two Rivers musher Aliy Zirkle to tears. "There's nothing I want more than that," said Zirkle of the Seppala award. "There's nothing. These dogs are so special to all of us."
'Magical dog team'
Not only was Berkowitz the only top-10 musher to finish with a team of at least 15 dogs this year, no other musher in the top 40 did, either. In fact, rookie Luan Ramos Marques of Brazil, who came in 49th, was the only other finisher to bring 15 animals across the line with him. Iditarod regulations say mushers need only six of the 16 dogs they begin the race with to qualify for an official finish. Dogs get dropped en route for any number of reasons -- fatigue, injury, unwillingness to run, and sometimes, for no reason other than it makes sense for a musher to drive a smaller team on the final stretches.
Mushers win the humanitarian award with a composite score derived from a vote by trail veterinarians, as well as how their dogs are ranked at the finish. Once in Nome, teams are scored on four factors: body weight, attitude, gait and hydration.
"It was just one of those magical dog teams," Berkowitz said from his home in Big Lake, where on Monday he was already out tending to dogs, less than five hours after getting home.
Berkowitz said he was lucky to have avoided some of the problems that plagued other mushers' teams this year -- including shoulder and wrist injuries, rampant diarrhea, and split paws. He attributes his fortune to his nutrition plan, which includes Red Paw food and a new supplement he's trying.
His philosophy on the trail: "Rest is the best medicine."
"I'm not going to sit there and poke and prod the dog the entire four-hour break. I want them to sleep," he said.
Avoiding pokes and prods means avoiding problems before the checkpoints. He said he spends his entire year monitoring the dogs so that when Iditarod comes around, his team needs as little intervention as possible.
Lead dog Mullet put on weight
He's also convinced running his team in the Yukon Quest, another 1,000-mile dog sled race, in the weeks before the Iditarod, helped his dogs establish a race metabolism early on. They all had good appetites from the beginning.
One need look no further than his lead dog Mullet, a 4-year-old who, remarkably, gained weight, rather than lost it, on the trail, for proof the tactic worked, he said. In January, Mullet weighed 54 pounds. On Monday, four days after completing the Iditarod and less than a month after finishing the 1,000-mile Quest, he weighed in at 56.6 pounds.
Most Iditarod dogs lose weight during the the race, and veterinarians closely monitor the teams to make sure they aren't getting too thin. If they get too lean -- so thin they can't maintain energy or keep themselves warm amid the bone-chilling winds that notoriously whip along the coast, vets can sideline a dog -- or an entire team.
Ironically, Berkowitz said, the only negative comment in the log that vets keep on mushers throughout the race warned that he "might want to back off feeding a couple of the dogs." With this year's unusually warm weather, the dogs weren't burning the calories they would if temperatures were cooler.
Berkowitz said it was an honor to hear his name called out Sunday night as the recipient of the humanitarian award.
"We get our joy and pride from the dog care," he said.
Other award winners announced at the banquet are:
• Pen Air Spirit of Alaska Award -- Aaron Burmeister
• GCI Dorothy Page Halfway Award -- Lance Mackey
• Millennium Alaskan Hotel First Musher to the Yukon Award -- Martin Buser
• Wells Fargo Bank Alaska Gold Coast Award -- Mitch Seavey
• Anchorage Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Winner's Truck Award -- Mitch Seavey
• Wells Fargo Bank Winner's Purse -- Mitch Seavey
• ExxonMobil Mushers Choice Award - Mike Williams, Sr.
• Alaska Airlines Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award -- Jake Berkowitz
• Horizon Lines Most Improved Musher Award -- Nicolas Petit
• Northern Air Cargo Herbie Nayokpuk Memorial Award -- Mikhail Telpin
• Sportsmanship Award -- Cim Smyth
• City of Nome Lolly Medley Golden Harness Award Winner -- Tanner, Mitch Seavey's lead dog
• Nome Kennel Club Fastest Time from Safety to Nome Award - Ramey Smyth, 2 hours 19 minutes
• Jerry Austin Rookie of the Year -- Joar Leifseth Ulsom
• Northern Air Cargo Four Wheeler Drawing Winner -- Anna Berington
• Golden Clipboard Award -- Ophir
• Golden Stethoscope Award -- Sterling Thomas and Dirsko VonPfeil
Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com