TAKOTNA -- Vegetarian Ed Stielstra buys beef in bulk.
The Michigan musher's kennel of roughly 150 dogs have to eat, after all. But Stielstra -- a former foundry worker who once opposed mushing as cruel to dogs -- swore off meat in the 1980s.
Except in the Iditarod checkpoint of Takotna.
When a chef in the wood-paneled kitchen asked the musher what he wanted for lunch, Stielstra paused only a moment before ordering a cheeseburger. No onions and a quarter-pound patty from Mr. Prime Beef in Anchorage.
"Last time I ate meat was two years ago here," Stielstra said, his burger vanishing.
Life's rules are different on the Iditarod trail. Defending champion Lance Mackey said this month that the race is an escape from everyday bothers -- bills, squabbles, phone calls.
For many mid-pack mushers like Stielstra, whose best finish in five Iditarods is 29th, the race is both professional duty and 12-day getaway.
Stielstra, 39, runs a business with his wife selling sled dog tours. He is not racing to beat Buser or Mackey.
"This is my journey across Alaska with no cell phone," he said.
Growing up in the harbor-town of Ludington, Mich., Stielstra headed to Michigan State University planning to become a veterinarian. (He likes animals. Thus: Vegetarian.)
Stielstra switched to a pre-med track but passed on medical school. By then, he said, he'd discovered mushing.
Before learning about the sport, Stielstra opposed sled dog racing, he said. "I believed the propaganda."
Now he travels to schools, teaching kids about the Iditarod and holds an annual Midwest sled dog symposium. Mushing is the perfect life for a dog, he said: Eat a lot, sleep a lot, run a lot.
"If I do ever have a dog die in harness during Iditarod training or whatever, it'll be the last time I ever run dogs any distance," he said, stopping in the snow as he burned the last few hours of a mandatory, day-long break. "That will ruin it for me."
Stielstra walked two of his huskies a few yards from the team. If he's feeling cooped up and needs to walk, he figures they do too, he said.
The males are distracted by a female in heat named Ayn, as in Ayn Rand.
The dog was born in a truck about three years ago on a drive from Alaska to Michigan, Stielstra said. She's part of his "freedom fighters" litter.
Stielstra, whose favorite book is Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," said Ayn represents "freedom of self." Her brothers are Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.
Other Stielstra litters are less literary. He plans to place a 1-year-old named Swanny in lead later in the race. She's named for National Football League Hall of Fame wide receiver Lynn Swann -- one of the kennel's 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers litter, along with dogs named Terry Bradshaw and Franco Harris.
For now, Stielstra's life revolves around the kennel. And despite winning just $7,500 for his combined finishes -- which barely dents the $30,000 it costs to compete each year -- the Iditarod helps Stielstra make a living.
He and his wife, Tasha, run Nature's Kennel Sled Dog Racing Adventures in McMillan, Mich. They sell half-hour sled dog tours for $75 each to clients at ski resorts.
"We use the Iditarod as our marketing," said Stielstra.
A combination of kennel costs, lack of trails and tightening zoning rules make it more and more difficult to build a distance dog mushing team outside Alaska, he said.
But as long as it makes sense for his family, and for his business, Stielstra plans to keep returning. He missed the 2010 Iditarod because his son, Nate, was being born.
The boy turns one year old on Saturday and Stielstra is carrying his picture to Nome.
By late afternoon, the musher's 24-hour layover was nearly over. Time to get back to the trail. Stielstra walked the dry snow of a snowmachine trail, carrying a parka and sleeping bag to his sled.
His next cheeseburger?
"Good question," Stielstra said. "If I had to guess, I would probably say next year."
SPOOKY POOCHES
Whitehorse musher Sebastian Schnuelle's team is again sporting eerie glow-in-the-dark collars at night this year. The green gleam from their necks matched the northern lights over Takotna on Wednesday night.
QUEST vs. IDITAROD
Chatanika musher Jodi Bailey, 42, is racing to become the first rookie to finish the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest and Iditarod back-to-back. Allow her to compare the sport's top two marathons:
"There's a lot of hoopla (with the Iditarod)," she said. "On the Quest sometimes you'll leave a checkpoint and you're going to be gone for 200 miles before you reach another checkpoint. You camp. You are alone."
"You take off with your dogs, and you really get much more of a sense of being out there alone with your dogs, that you just don't get on this race," Bailey said.
"Having said that, it's also kind of energizing to roll into these places and have like an entire school full of people screaming. (You) feel kind of like a rock star," she said.
Bailey ladled a tripe stew and kibble into steaming bowls as the dogs curled on straw. Stielstra tended to his team a few feet away. He said he was glad he chose to run the Iditarod rather than the Quest this year.
Cold hammered mushers on the trek from Whitehorse to Fairbanks. Top racers came home battered and frostbitten.
As Bailey left for Ophir on Thursday, Iditarod volunteers walked the trails of Takotna without gloves and a thermometer on the wooden porch of the checkpoint read 25 degrees.
Compared to the Quest, the warmth has made her dogs sluggish, Bailey said.
"Can I get a happy medium?" she asked.
By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com