Alaska News

Ice jam plowed with village teamwork sets the stage for Kusko 300

BETHEL – Village-based crews used a bulldozer and a repurposed 5,000-pound steel plate to clear a road through a huge ice jumble as communities up and down the Kuskokwim River prepare for the region's prime winter event: the Kuskokwim 300.

The sled dog race, with its biggest field in 20 years, begins Friday evening and caps a string of Kusko 300 events that includes two other sled dog races, fireworks, a concert and a fiddle dance.

Organizers are trying to make the Kusko 300 the country's richest mid-distance sled dog race and one of the top races in the world, a draw for a region that sees little tourism -- especially in winter.

Zach Fansler, in his fourth year as race manager, said the eventual goal is to create a "destination weekend." A range of activities kicked off Tuesday evening with the start of an adult league basketball tournament.

But first, organizers had to make sure they had a safe trail for the main event.

Big trail job

In recent days, village crews plowed through massive chunks of river ice that rumbled into formation during warm spells late last year. That allows the course to follow the frozen river all the way "from Bethel to Aniak and back," according to the race slogan.

The jam stretched for 4 river miles, starting below Lower Kalskag at Coffee's Bend, a U-turn in the Kuskokwim.

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Warm spells in November and again in late December helped by melting some of the ice boulders and filling gaps with rain.

The Kuskokwim 300 Race Committee donated $2,700 to establish a route. A reconnaissance crew went out around Christmas to chop through the ice, test its thickness with augurs and evaluate whether it could support heavy equipment, said Mark Leary, director of development and operations for the Native Village of Napaimute.

They traveled the rough-and-tumble jam by four-wheeler.

"They told me 'it looks like it's doable,'" said Leary, who worked with crews from multiple villages.

Never before had river communities joined together to clear a jam, he said. Organizations usually are protective of their own resources. But this barrier was so massive it left villages isolated.

"We've been watching this jam from the very beginning and planning how we are going to get through it," Leary said. "No one entity could do it on their own."

By the first of the year, temperatures dropped below freezing and the recent melt began to freeze again. Leary hauled his snowmachine by truck to the Bethel end of the jam, then snowmachined across the jagged ice to further assess it. It wasn't thick enough for Napaimute's large bulldozer, he decided.

Last week, Oscar Samuelson drove a smaller bulldozer provided by the city of Upper Kalskag to break trail through the Coffee's jam.

The tribe for Napaimute pitched in with labor, reconnaissance missions by truck and snowmachine, plus heavy equipment from its timber operations -- a big-wheeled log skidder pulling a heavy steel flat originally used to move barge cargo, Leary said. That heavy plate crushed ice chunks to smooth the trail.

The crushed-ice section may end up being one of the best parts of a race route with little snow, Fansler said.

"We've never had a group plow forward and make a path in such a manner before," he said.

Things never before seen

Crews were going to try to stack two plates, for a combined weight of 5 tons, to crush more ice and straighten out the curved route through the ice boulder field.

"It's still kind of bumpy all the way to Kalskag," Leary said Monday. The 10 miles from the start of the jam to that village took him an hour by truck.

Crews had to avoid some smooth sections that were deceptively treacherous, indicating spots where the river ice had melted away and refroze.

"We're just dealing with things we haven't seen before. We're going through a jam of broken-up ice all glued together," Leary said. "We're kind of worried some places may not be glued together too good."

Tribes for Aniak and Upper Kalskag sent crews to set trail markers between the villages. To check thickness and drill holes for stakes?, Aniak's crew used a special drill with an auger -- something that Bethel Search and Rescue may want to invest in, Leary said.

The Lower Kalskag tribe provided funding to mark the ice road and Tuluksak Search and Rescue marked dangerous spots of open water between Tuluksak and Kalskag. The Hound House restaurant in Aniak donated food. Crews on Tuesday marked a trail to Tuluksak, Leary said.

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"I'm hearing some good reports from our mushers who were out there," Fansler said.

There are some stretches with snow, heavy frost and crushed ice along the route. Usually the route veers from the river to Whitefish Lake near Aniak, but a lack of snow on the tundra eliminated that loop this year, he said.

The exact distance of this year's Kusko 300 hasn't been determined. Usually it's about 290 miles. With the whole race on the river this year, it may be about 275, he said.

Bethel festivities

This year's field of 31 mushers includes Iditarod four-time champions -- Martin Buser, Lance Mackey and Jeff King -- fan favorite DeeDee Jonrowe, who began her career in Bethel, plus a number of other Iditarod finishers. A half-dozen area mushers signed up: Bethel's Pete Kaiser; Richie Diehl of Aniak, the turnaround point; father-son pairs Mike Williams Sr. and Jr. from Akiak, and Nathan and Isaac Underwood of Aniak.

The record purse tops $123,000 with $25,000 going to the winner. That prize money approaches and could pass the overall payout for the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, Fansler said.

Meanwhile in Bethel, organizers are planning a host of activities for visitors from Kuskokwim villages and beyond.

A couple of hundred cars park on the frozen river for the race start when the weather's good, said Jeff Haglund, a manager for Swanson's stores in Bethel.

With this year's big field of mushers, "I'm thinking it's going to be the best in years in terms of people being down there on the river, because it's not going to be 40 below," he said.

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Stores, restaurants and lodgings in Bethel see a slight uptick in business, but support the race as Bethel's big winter event.

"It definitely puts Bethel on the map," says Walter Pickett, vice president of operations for Alaska Commercial Co., which donates space in its main store for the Kusko 300's pull-tab gaming operation and logo-item sales. Its store in Aniak sees an even bigger boost, with race followers stopping in for snacks and grab-and-go food.

Race headquarters is at the Long House, Bethel's biggest hotel. It donates a conference room and two rooms for the race as "a giveback to the community," said Logan Rammell, the Long House general manager.

Some volunteers come from afar for an exotic working vacation, like a mini-version of the Iditarod.

"I would do it again in a heartbeat," said Grant Keener, a friend of Fansler's who lives in Pennsylvania and came for the 2014 Kusko. He helped with the race raffle. Another friend and his son came too. They snowmachined onto the river, ate at restaurants in town, checked out Saturday Market for souvenirs. But to make it a true tourist destination, there probably need to be more activities in Bethel, volunteers said.

That's what organizers are trying to do, Fansler told the Bethel Chamber of Commerce last week.

The benefit concert Wednesday evening at the Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center will feature "Sleetmute Sweetheart" Emma Hill, a folk musician, and author Don Rearden, who wrote the novel "Raven's Gift" and plans a reading -- perhaps of new work -- at the concert. The basketball tournament continues all week.

Mushing starts Friday evening. The Bogus Creek 150 is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. and the Kusko 300 at 6:30 p.m. When the mushers are far enough upriver, the fireworks start and, after that, a fiddle dance at the old armory gym. On Saturday at 2 p.m., the Akiak Dash, with an entertaining mass start, begins on the frozen river. There's a second fiddle dance Saturday night.

Then Sunday, the Kusko 300 racers come in.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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