In 1974, the second year the 1,049-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was run, Mary Shields became the first woman to finish the race, with the smallest team in the race (only eight dogs) and a part-Labrador lead dog named Cabbage. In her 1984 book, "Sled Dog Trails" (Alaska Northwest Publishing Co.), Mary explained how Cabbage got his name, as she described taking the train from her home beside the tracks to Talkeetna and finding homes for a box of puppies: "Within 24 hours I found homes for five of the pups. I returned home on the next day's northbound, carrying just one fat black pup curled in the expanse of his previously crowded box. I called him Cabbage because he was so round and silly looking. His future owner could give him a reasonable name, but Cabbage would do until that time came."
The black pup accompanied Mary to Mt. McKinley National Park (as it was known then), where she was planning to go backpacking before taking on a summer job. A Park Service ranger asked about the pup, saying they'd been looking for some new blood at the park's kennels. But when Mary returned from her backpacking the ranger returned the little fellow, sadly explaining "...the tourists expect our dogs to look like malemutes."
So little Cabbage stayed with Mary, and she and her team not only ran the Iditarod, but also ran in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race and the Hope Race from Alaska to Siberia. But even more than competition, Mary enjoyed the freedom and pleasure of long trips with her dog team, exploring the wild country and meeting the people who live in the bush communities of Alaska. "Over the winter, the country taught me many lessons. Being by myself, I had time to watch and listen. I heard the singing of my own heart, the joys, the fears, the questions, the unanswerables. A peace filled me and gave me strength I had not known before."
Mary was the keynote speaker at the Willow Dog Mushers Association's 2010 Canine Atheletes Symposium and Mushing History Conference in September, and she shared a panel discussion with legendary Alaskan women mushers Natalie Norris, Kari Skogen and Dee Dee Jonrowe. Mary's tales of traveling through the Alaskan backcountry with her dog team delighted and inspired her listeners, and answering questions after her presentation, she detailed the technical aspects of exploring Alaska by dog team.
In "Sled Dog Trails" Mary opens with a quote from a poem by Robert Service, and she ends her book with another, "...the freshness, the freedom, the farness..." familiar to lovers of the far north. She explains: "'The freedom' was the decision to take my time; to make the day, the seasons, the years full of meaning. Understanding the country from the back of a dog sled gave me a comfortable feeling of being at home in the wilderness."
Mary has written five books, and she was the subject of a PBS feature video, "Season of the Sled Dog," which shares Mary's Alaskan lifestyle, celebrating the huskies in their everyday life, on the long race, and on a spring trip. Besides "Sled Dog Trails," Mary's books include "Small Wonders: Year-Round Alaska," which is Mary's journal sharing nature's cycles and the quiet life in a cabin in the Alaskan woods (featured on Will Curtis' "The Nature of Things" on NPR), and her books for younger readers include "What's a Shrew to You?," a rhyming picture book illustrated by Jon Van Zyle, and the international award winner, "The Alaskan Happy Dog Trilogy."
All of Mary Shields' books, and her video, can be ordered directly from her at Pyrola Publishing.
Helen Hegener is an author and a documentary filmmaker specializing in long distance sled dog races and the men, women and dogs who run them. Learn more at Northern Light Media.