As the latest Iditarod gets underway, my wife Chris and I and our Greenland Husky Avu will be trying to keep up on the race from a distance. And it brings back memories of a 100-day, 2,500-mile dogsled trip to Barrow in 1992 by two Greenland mushers -- over land and over sea. As I remember, they did it for the adventure and to visit other Native communities in the Arctic Circle.
Forty-three-year-old Jens Jørgen Ono Fleischer, and 33-year-old Jens Danielsen arrived in Barrow around mid-May of 1992 and talked about traveling across northern Canada and Alaska with a total of 27 Greenland Huskies. They said each sled carried 1,000 pounds of food, dog food, fuel and other supplies.
Chris made a nice dessert and we took it and some souvenir items over to a house in Browerville where they were staying. I remember them staking out some dogs across from Arctic Pizza and maybe also along the road from Barrow to the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory.
When asked if they ever lost their way on the long trip, Ono said definitely not. "We never heard of the Eskimos getting lost in the Arctic area." He said they navigated by watching snowdrifts, the same way the Native peoples had done for thousands of years in the Arctic.
It was a tough trip for sure, but Ono said only four of the original dogs were lost. One fell to a polar bear, two others got an infection after they had a fight, and one was inadvertently left behind when the teams sped up to chase a caribou.
In an interview through an interpreter, Danielsen said, "We were raised up since we were children with the dogs and we know how to treat the dogs. We know how to feed them, especially on this trip." He also gave a lot of credit to the dogs for the success of the mission. "We have been able to show that dog teams are the ultimate for traveling in the Far North," he said.
They said they had to try and sell the dogs in Barrow, as it was too expensive to ship them back to Greenland. One was given to the City of Barrow as a gift to the community. As I remember, they were able to find homes for the dogs before they left to visit the Inuit in Siberia (by plane). Some were sent out to dog mushers in other Alaskan communities.
When we moved to Medford, Wisc., in July 2008, we were very happy to have two descendants of those Greenland Huskies -- Nuna and Avu. We flew them to Fairbanks, and then the four of us took a long and slow road trip to Wisconsin. The dogs were like a little part of Barrow coming south with us.
Nuna enjoyed rolling in the big piles of tree leaves in the Fall of 2008 and 2009. She and Avu had never seen a tree when we left Barrow. Sadly, we had to have her put down in December 2009 at age 16. We miss her a lot, but are glad to still have Avu, who recently turned nine years old. People come up to us on the street and ask about her origins, and comment on what a gentle, loving dog she is. We love Greenland Huskies!
Earl Finkler Earl Finkler is a former resident of Barrow and host of the Morning Show on KBRW Barrow -- serving the North Slope. He now lives in Medford, Wisconsin with his wife Chris and former Barrow Husky "Avu."
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