NOME -- The air was different when the planes started landing on river ice. The sun was higher and brighter. Television crews and Pat O'Brien walked through our little town, signing things like my aunt's gas tank on her three-wheeler. My friends and I would spend our spring break days playing outside in anticipation of the first musher to arrive, laughing like the sweet punks we were at the Outsider's ugly, fake fur hats.
We'd listen and smile at the rich-looking tourists with funny accents, wearing odd and probably-not-even-warm boots. We'd wear our parkis and sometimes photographers would stop us and we'd smile big, hear the click and hope it happened again. We'd hear people complain about the smell of snowmachine exhaust and then drive by, just to annoy them. It was good, plain fun.
Every year I begged my mom to house a musher and got the searing response, "No way! We are NOT going to house a stinky, dirty musher." So I'd head to the checkpoint to get a glimpse of the people doing something that seemed pretty radical, even to a 10-year-old.
I'd listen to Susan Butcher talk to folks inside, too shy to say hi, much less ask her anything. I'd catch a glimpse of Joe Runyan. I would look for Lavon Barve, only because his name was romantic and sounded magical. I'd listen for mushers talk about their trip and wait for morsels of answers to my endless questions of wonder.
My mind would later awaken at night and I'd try to feel the cold. I pictured the darkness. I imagined encountering moose or wolves or even running through a flock of ptarmigan. I wondered what I'd hallucinate if I were on the runners and hadn't slept. Looking back, I realize what these teams traveled through was legendary and sparked a sense of mystery that leads a girl from a checkpoint town to dream bigger, think outside convention and face difficulty with toughness.
My dad used to snowmachine upriver to go ice fishing every second weekend in March when the teams traveled through our valley. He'd come home and say things like, "Martin passed by when I was up there. He waved and was holding a red sail … to make it easier. I've never seen that." He'd mention the mushers who didn't wave and laugh. "Nice day up there."
And then one year, I got bit.
"Stand by him and I'll take your picture," Auntie Luci said. My cousin Gussie balked and didn't want to. My tiny, smiley auntie prodded some more.
"He might win the Iditarod, Gussie." Gussie shook her head no, didn't do it and walked away, either too cool or too shy. She's always been the cool one.
I looked at the musher and wondered if this guy in front of us would really be the first to Nome and earn the distinction of Iditarod champion. I suddenly really wanted this man to win and to this day, I wish the dorky teenager watching had said, "I will! I'll stand by him! Take my picture with him, Auntie Luci."
A few days later the Swiss man crossed the finish line, won $51,600, a new truck and the first of four victories. And boy, did people have a hard time figuring that one out. In my hometown at mile 754, I heard the remarks about his dogs.
"They're so skinny."
"They're too tiny."
"There's no way he's going to win with those dogs."
"They're too scrawny. Not tough enough."
Witnessing Martin Buser silence the critics sparked a deeper curiosity in the race I was always fascinated with. Somehow, I was proud of those dogs that seemed too small and the Swiss who seemed too much of an Outsider. He won that year, again in '94, '97 and '02 and today, most of the sled dogs on the trail resemble the team that was called too wimpy to even finish.
What happens on the trail often surprises the most intent observers. New moves that work or strategies that fail miserably made me fall in love with a race filled with unique characters. What happened in 1992 keeps me glued to the race tracker, the stories that are filed, the photos uploaded and the voices of those in this crazy race.
In the past five years I've traveled home to join the crowd of people who greet the first musher to Unalakleet. Even at 4 in the morning, a crowd is always there to cheer, get a good look at the competitors and view what they can of the great race called Iditarod. I'd stay for a few days, head to the checkpoint like I did when I was 10 years old and feel the air, listen for accents and interesting stories, and laugh at funny hats.
And finally during one of those trips, more than 20 years later on a sunny, freakishly calm, beautiful day in Unalakleet, I sat outside with a smiley, relaxed Buser on a bed of straw and we visited and I asked him all the questions I wanted. Someone took a photo.
And to this day I'm caught up in the stories and want to understand the hearts of the people who spend a salary to train and travel that trail. I want to understand the hearts of the people who lift the snow hook in 30-below temperatures at 4 the morning with rough trail miles in front of them when the still trees, frozen breath and crunchy footsteps urge the body to find warmth and lie down. What is in the hearts of the people who break their ankles, mangle their knees, peel frost-bitten skin off their fingers and finish, return home and train for a year to do it all over again?
So in the last five years while covering the race, my favorite flight was between Kaltag and The Center of My Universe and my pilot knew it. I'd begin looking for my dad fishing on the Unalakleet River once we passed my mom's cabin. We'd fly over Unalakleet, land outside my dad's house and enjoy hot caribou soup and fresh bread. We'd travel to the checkpoint and greet the first musher to arrive, surrounded by those I love in a place sacred for instilling magic and wonder in the girl too shy to get a photo with an eventual champion. There remains a mystery to this race and a wonder that keeps me yearning for the morsels of answered questions.
Laureli Ivanoff lives in Nome where she's raising her two children, Joe and Sidney. They eat a lot of fish and are very proud of their yorkipoo named Pushkin.