Iditarod

Duck farts and flamingos: Welcome to the Iditarod tailgate party

DESHKA LANDING -- Ask any musher preparing to head down the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race trail, and they'll tell you the 1,000-mile race is the Super Bowl of dog mushing.

And with this Super Bowl comes a tailgate party that stretches for miles.

"There are lots of shenanigans going on," said Willow resident Ed McCain as he settled in to a beach chair next to a section of trail beside Deshka Landing. "You can pick any kind of party you want."

It's a party that can come in many forms from the Willow Lake start well past the second checkpoint of Skwentna, 72 miles away. Expect everything from "K9 Fairies" dressed in glittery lace tutus to "Club Flamingo," a group that lines a section of trail with hundreds of pink flamingos. There are partygoers drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and others imbibing handmade wine from Northern California. Some eat bonfire-grilled hot dogs while others warm up gourmet venison and elk chili.

Partygoers get to their spots many ways -- by snowmachine, fat bike, airplane, helicopter, skis and dirt bikes.

Or maybe a reclining sofa mounted on a pair of snowboards attached to a child-size four-wheeler.

"It's 'redneck sledding,'" Crystal Lake partygoer Andy Lindahl said, moments after pulling a group of people around the lake in figure eights.

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Lindahl and the sliding sofa have been a presence on the lake for years. He said the current reclining sofa isn't even the first. A love seat he had for years "disintegrated" last year while "three huge guys" were being pulled around.

375 flamingos

And even if mushers have their game faces on, fans opted for party hats, with an estimated 15,000 enjoying sunny skies in spectator-friendly temperatures hovering in the mid-30s.

Or maybe, if they're part of "Club Flamingo," they're wearing flamingo-printed boxer shorts or pink spandex body suits.

Jim Klauder, owner of the flamingo boxer shorts, and his family have lined a stretch of trail north of Vera Lake with hundreds of flamingos for more than 20 years.

His brother, Dan Klauder, noted that the flamingo collection, which now numbers close to 375 birds, started with only two.

"But, you know, nature took its course," he said.

Dan Klauder said the number of participants, like the number of birds, grew each year. On Sunday, visitors from as far away as the United Kingdom joined the party. A quarter mile down the trail tourists from Argentina cheered mushers along.

The flamingos haven't missed a year. Last year, Dan Klauder even took half the flock to the Fairbanks restart.

"Why not?" he said when asked why he brought the birds north in 2015. "What's more fun than a flamingo? Every year the (veteran mushers) are like, 'You're back!' And the rookies are like, 'I've been waiting to see you!'"

Some mushers appear slightly star-struck by the birds. Klauder said one year five-time champion Rick Swenson nabbed a flamingo for himself. Veteran musher Jessie Royer, the second musher to hit the trail Sunday, took photographs as she passed through the flamingo-lined trail.

Duck farts and 'real' Alaska

Early Sunday afternoon Kevin Hite was getting ready for more than 250 people to make their way to his property across from Willow Swamp, a patch of trail close to where mushers descend onto the area's river system.

Hite, who also owns the nearby EagleQuest Lodge, said when he moved in six years ago neighbors tentatively approached him about the longstanding Iditarod party tradition in his yard. Was it going to go away, they asked?

He didn't see why it had to. So he set up a barbecue and went from there.

"It's just gotten bigger and bigger," he said as he got back on his snowmachine to tow a modified horse sleigh back to the lodge to pick up partygoers.

As Hite left, people showed up to the party dragging coolers. Some brought moose brats and smoked salmon spread. Some sat down on folding camp chairs, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in hand. Nan Mosher noted that later in the evening "duck fart" shots — a layered shot of Crown Royal whiskey, Baileys Irish Cream and Kahlua — would begin making the rounds.

"It's a lot of fun," Mosher said. "Just drinking beer, eating food and duck farts."

Farther down the trail, Lee Bricker of Reading, Pennsylvania, joined in on the festivities with his son, Andrew, near Vera Lake. As he sat grilling a hotdog on a small fire near the trail, Bricker said he knows a thing or two about tailgating. He and his son both attended Penn State, famous for its football tailgate parties. But he admitted Sunday that the Alaska way was a very different experience.

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"We've tailgated before," Bricker said. "But we've never drug out stuff out on a snowmachine."

Nearby, Neil Fox of Palmer said he's been coming out for the Iditarod restart for the last 10 years. He helps organize a group of snowmachiners that park near an intersection of trail. By Sunday afternoon about 30 snowmachines were lined up in neat rows, their drivers dispersed through different sections of trail.

He said every year he looks forward to the annual spring party and with it a chance to get outdoors to spend time with friends.

But it's also a chance to celebrate what he thinks is the real start of the Last Great Race.

"For us, this is real, that's all ceremonial," he said. "This is the real Alaska, that's just Anchorage."

Suzanna Caldwell

Suzanna Caldwell is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in 2017.

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