On the stage at Herbie Nayokpuk's memorial service Wednesday sat a dog sled. A very famous dog sled. It was the wooden racing sled Nayokpuk drove down Pennsylvania Avenue at Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1981.
For years the sled hung in a barn in Eagle River. Many had forgotten its whereabouts, if not its significance.
It resurfaced this week as plans were made for Nayokpuk's service and the sled's current owner, former Iditarod director Raine Hall, reminded everyone that the sled was nearby and available.
That's the thing about Alaska history. Many of the people and things who shaped the state's post-statehood identity are still around, even if they disappear from our radar at times. Like that sled.
Unlike the sled, Nayokpuk, who died Saturday at age 77, never faded from our consciousness. How could he, with that megawatt smile, that Hallmark-card family and those majestic dogs -- all of which you'd be crazy not to envy?
He was an Alaska icon, an Iditarod hero, an Eskimo dog musher who for years was the face of the Last Great Race. Plus, he owned the best nickname ever, the Shishmaref Cannonball, a nod to his Bering Strait village and his explosive dog teams.
Statistics don't exist for this kind of thing, but Alaska must lead the nation when it comes to living legends. The state is young enough that some of its first leaders and explorers are still around. Its vastness and mystique act like a magnet for the kind of people who become legends. Its remoteness and hostile climate inspire the resourcefulness and resiliency that produce legends.
We walk with giants because they walk with us. Nayokpuk was a regular guy living a life filled with regular things like gathering berries, singing songs and catching fish, a life devoted to his God and to his multigenerational, multiracial family.
But the giants have been leaving at an accelerated pace lately. Last year we said goodbye to Jay Hammond, 83, the bush-rat pilot who became governor, and Norman Vaughan, 100, the adventurer who never got too old to dare to dream. This year we lost Nayokpuk and, perhaps most unfairly of all, Susan Butcher, the four-time Iditarod champ who was only 51 when leukemia took her.
"We lost a lot of our legends this year," perennial Iditarod favorite DeeDee Jonrowe said at Wednesday's memorial.
"Not a good year at all," Iditarod race director Joanne Potts said.
Tears that had barely dried from Butcher's memorial in Fairbanks less than four months ago flowed anew at Nayokpuk's.
About 300 people, dressed in kuspuks, Carhartt and even the occasional suit, gathered at Anchorage Baptist Temple to honor Nayokpuk. Robin Kiyutelluk, his 14-year-old grandniece, brought tears to grizzled old mushers and strapping young ones when she sang "Wind Beneath My Wings." Her voice trembled and almost halted on the final chorus, which could have been written for Nayokpuk by his legion of fans: "Did you ever know that you're my hero, and everything I would like to be?"
"The first time I saw Herbert he was singing," Hall told the crowd, recalling her first visit to Shishmaref, where deserted roads made her think she was in a ghost town until she heard the Nayokpuk clan singing at church, their voices filling the emptiness.
"And the last time I saw Herbert he was singing at Susan's memorial."
Dave Monson, Butcher's husband, shared video of Nayokpuk and his family singing a farewell prayer at his wife's memorial. It was the Shishmaref Cannonball's final public appearance.
Monson told the crowd he imagines a heaven where Butcher, Nayokpuk and Joe Redington Sr., the father of the Iditarod who died in 1999 at age 82, are reunited.
"I think there's pretty good company up there," he said.
And there's a little less down here.
"We will not see the likes of them again," Hall said. "They defined what it means to be an Alaskan. They took a slice of our history, our youth and our hearts with them."
Beth Bragg's opinion column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.
