Video Capabilities!

Lookout internet world, I have figured out how to add videos!  That being said, I have several videos that I wanted to put up on past posts but lacked the necessary tech skills to pull it off.  Lucky for all of you, me + a few glasses of red wine on a Friday night = computer miracles.  I hope you enjoy!

This first clip is from Mom and Jackie's recent visit.  After all the Iditarod excitement died down, they had 1 more day in town.  We decided to drive south down the Seward Highway and check out the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  It's actually one of my favorite things to do, I even sprung for a season pass for this year!  AWCC is a nonprofit organization south of Anchorage that takes in injured and orphaned wildlife from Alaska.  They give animals that would no longer make it on their own a second lease on life.  We were down there in mid-March to see the moose, caribou, pourcipine, elk, bald eagle and maybe the lynx.  What we didn't expect was for the bears to be awake!  What a surprise.  They recently acquired 2 baby brown bears.  We had a ball checking out the little boogers, and they LOVED listening to Jackie talk to them in her best "baby bear" voice!  Here they are!

The Big Finish

We were estimating the first musher to cross under the Burled Arch sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.  This presented a problem as our flight was scheduled to leave Tuesday evening.  We diligently monitored race progress on the internet over the course of our stay in Nome, as well as spoke with every local we could.  As it turned out, the early favorite and defending champion Lance Mackey had to pull several dogs from his team and wasn't progressing as quickly as people would have hoped.  Last year's 3rd place finisher, John Baker was slowly creeping to the front.  As the race progressed Baker surged to the front of the pack.  We got word that he would be in Tuesday morning.  We got down to Front St. about 8am to get a good spot to watch him finish.  The trail breakers were the first to cross the finish lines.  They were a group of several snowmachiners wiarmed with shovels and trail markers. Their job was to break and mark the trail for the mushers.

Then I turned my attention to the porch of a nearby building to see the Anchorage news team prepping for their telecast.

This gentleman is an Inupiat Eskimo from Unalakleet, Alaska.  He was in Nome along with a group of Native singers, dances and drummers who stood at the finish line welcoming John Baker into Nome.  Mom actually got a video but I'm having difficulty loading it at the moment.

There were even celebrities in attendance.  This is Ariel Tweto, of the popular television show "Flying Wild Alaska," a show on the discovery channel about a family who owns an airline in Unalakleet,AK.

And HERE COMES JOHN BAKER!!!  He and his dogs set a new course record by nearly 3 hours arriving at 9:46am with a total time of 8 days 18 hours 46 minutes and 39 seconds.  Pretty amazing that theycovered roughly 1150 miles taking 2 mandatory 8 hour breaks and 1 mandatory 24 hour break!  John is Inupiat Eskimo from Kotzabue, Alaska.  He placed 3rd last year after being in the lead but falling asleep on his sled and getting lost!

One of John's team dogs ready for a snack and a nap!

A normally very reserved John Baker with his daughter walked around and shook the hands of everyone lining the corral.  Myself and Jackie included! He was ery grateful for all the support.

Baker being presented with the 1st place purse:  $50,400.

Not long after John Baker arrived 2nd place finisher Ramey Smyth.  He felt his pups had worked hard enough and done such an excellent job that they didn't need to pull him across the finish line so Ramey ran part of the Bering Sea ice and all of Front Street with his team.  That made me cry. :)



Ramey's pups were anxious to get their booties off.


Mom had planned a helicopter trip to Safety, AK for the afternoon.  We weren't sure if we would see any mushers finish, so she was hoping to at least see them from the air.  Safety is the last checkpoint, 22 miles south of Nome on the coast.  We booked the chopper for 2 PM.  The plan was to fly out to Safety, land at the roadhouse, check it out and fly back.  This was out ride...and I got to sit in the front.  It was all windows and offered virtually unobstructed views!



Heading south on the Bering Sea coast.  This is the sea ice that was jammed into the shoreline during a storm several weeks prior.




And look what we saw about halfway to Safety.  It was soon to be 3rd place finisher Hans Ghatt.




Hans was off the sled tending to the team, changing booties and giving them a quick snack.



Up and down the coast there are very small, one room wooden structures.  These are fish camps during the summer months.

To the east, off the left side of the helicopter were the Sawtooth Mountains.

This is the Safety Roadhouse.  It is closed all winter, except for the Iditarod week.  It closes after the last musher passes through.  It has been run for the last 20 years by the same adoreable Eskimo - Tom.  We made instant friends.  He apparently has a Dr. appointment here in Anchorage.  He plans to find me in the orthopedic clinic so that I can take HIM out to dinner.  He asked if I would take him and I accepted.

This is inside the roadhouse.  Virtually every bit of usable space has a dollar bill stapled to it.  We of course autographed and stapled our dollars as well.  Mine is above the men's room door if you ever make it out there.

The volunteers at the checkpoint informed us that Dallas Seavey was nearly there.  He had to crest one more ridge.  And here he comes...

...and there he goes after a very brief 90 second check in.  His dogs had to be held back.  They knew they were almost done and seemed like they were just ready to "GET THERE ALREADY!"

We bid good-bye to Tom, promising to return next year (probably via snowmachine next time)!

We spotted Dallas not long after taking off for the return flight.

Yes.  Your eyes don't deceive you, those are bare buns you see.  We were MOONED!!  Hilarious.  Our pilot, Russell, spotted it first!

This is Point Hope, just 5 miles south of town.  It is called "Little McKinley" by the mushers.  This is the last true obstacle of the race.  The winds whip dangerously around the cape where it juts out into the sound, potentially blowingg people and dogs into the ice/water.  The mushers have to go over it to the left (just out of view of the picture)



You'll have to take my word for this one, but these are 2 spotted seals that have clawed through the pack ice!  They come up through this ice to sun themselves off shore far from preditors.

This is where someone has dropped crab pots.  They crab for Alaskan King Crab.  Delicious!

 We got back to Nome and hurried to the finish line because Hans Ghatt, the musher we saw from the air heading out to Safety was about to come in.  I couldn't resist snapping of pic of this woman's gorgeous parka!

And here comes Hans Ghatt...3rd place.  When he got into the corral he bent over and snuggled and kissed each and every one of his dogs.  This made me cry too.  LOVED IT!

SNACK TIME!  Frozen salmon of course.

Someone set the bag of frozen fish down and I was thoroughly impressed that this guy just sniffed it...for the first 3 minutes, then he managed to swipe an extra piece or two.  Who could blame him!

Hans loving on and congratulating his 2 lead dogs.

"I'm hot!"

"We're ALL HOT!"

 Traditionally, at the finish, the mushers will tos their used booties into the crowd as keepsakes.  Mom was thrilled that she managed to get a booty tossed to her.  Jackie and I didn't witness it, but I didn't hear a child scream so we're hoping there was no shoving of children out of the way. :)  (Just kidding Mom!)

And here comes 4th place Dallas Seavey.  He is just 23 years old.

It's difficult to tell in this picture, but this pup was leaning on the one behind him.

Dallas was really excited.  He said, "So this is what it's like to come in during the day.  Last year I came in in the middle of the night and it was just my parents out here!"

After the teams come in, the judges check the sleds to make sure all the "required" items are there.  The vets check the dogs and then the teams are taken to the dog lot.  They are kept here for several hours or overnight until they can be flown out of Nome. 

The pups are given straw and a big, hearty meal...and plenty of love from the handlers and volunteers assigned to the dog lot.

We departed Nome Tuesday evening and had an uneventful trip.  Mom and Jackie left the following evening.  The last musher crossed the finish line and blew out the Red Lantern on Sunday, March 20 with a time of 13 days 19 hours 45 minutes and 49 seconds.  Her name is Ellen Halverson, she was 47th this year.  The first winner of the race, in 1973, took nearly 3 weeks to reach Nome.  They've come a long way baby! 

62 mushers started the race this year, 15 scratched for one reason or another.  Some scratched due to injury, some scratched because it was what was best for their dogs, and still others gave no reason why they scratched.  Regardless, they trained and attemped one of the scariest and most difficult things on earth.  They, along with the 47 finishers, certainly have my respect and admiration!

See you next year Iditarod!

Nome!

Before we get to the big finish of the race, Nome deserves a little attention.  Mom and Jackie left for Nome on Thursday and I finished up the work week and followed them on Saturday morning.  A little about Nome.  It is located on the southern Seward Peninsula in the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea.                                                        

There are roughly 3500 year round resident and at one time it was the most populated city in Alaska!  It is home to the world's largest gold pan, that resides in Anvil City Square outside Hanson's General Store  (where peanut butter is $5.49!).

Nome was founded by Norweigen Jafet Lindeberg, Erik Lindblom and John Brynteson in 1898 when they found gold on Anvil Creek.  Gold was subsequently found along the beaches and coast at Nome.  The name "Nome" was kind of an accident.  An early map had the annotation "? Name." and that was misread as Nome...so Nome it was.  This was thought to be the origin of Nome, however there have since been discoveries of Inupiat artifacts in the area to suggest that this was the settlement of Sitnasuak prior to the white man showing up to rape the natural resources.  By 1899 there were nearly 10,000 people in Nome looking for their fortune.  Wyatt Earp even showed up looking for his millions.  He opened up The Dexter, a saloon in town that was housed in the first 2 story buidling in nome.  By 1900 there were 30 miles of tents and buildings serving as a port for ships from Seattle and San Francisco.  Over the next 10 years the gold rush would peter out after original claims were made.  Then, in 1925 a diptheria epidemic threatened to wipe out the entire town, but several brave mushers and their dog teams ran a relay to bring the serum into Nome, thus saving the town from extinction.

Today Nome's population is a combination of Inupiat Eskimos and non-Natives.  They have 2 radio stations, cable television and Alaska's oldest newspaper that comes out weekly on Wednesdays, The Nome Nugget.

There are several roads in and out of Nome that essentially lead to...nowhere.  You can get to the neighboring villages of Teller, Council and Kougarok River but that's pretty much it.  The roads also aren't used during the winter.  If you want to get somewhere during winter you fly or take a snow machine along the rivers.  There is also a hospital in town that we go to for field clinics.  They are actually in the process of building a beautiful new hospital:  Norton Sound Regional Hospital and Nome Health Center.

Life in Nome is a little different than life down in the Lower 48.  For instance the airport.  Alaska Airlines is the onl major airline that flies into town.  There is 1 small terminal with 4 agents, 2 check in stations and seating for about 30 people.  Everybody else stands...wherever they can.  The baggage claim takes up about 20 feet of one wall.  There is no conveyor belt, it's just a hole where the luggage is gently tossed to await pick-up.  All in state Alaska airlines flights allow up to 4 checked bags for free.  This is because many people in the small towns and villages will buy things in bulk at places like Cotsco and Sam's because goods in the villages are so expensive.  There were more large, plastic storage tubs checked onto our flight than actual bags.  When it's time to catch a cab you just walk out front and for $5 you can climb into a conversion van and go on the milk run into town.  You get to your destination...eventually.  It just depends on where you want to go and how it related to where the other patrons want to go.  Kind of charming actually.  All in town cab rides are $3.  All of them.

There is a college campus in Nome, the Northwest Campus of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.  This is it.

Gas is a bit pricey, as you can see.

When I got into town, I was dropped off at the apartment we would be staying at.  Mom had called the visitors center because the 3 hotels in town fill up VERY quickly.  Apparently Mom and Jackie had to request a key to the apartment because "no one locks their doors here."  Interesting.

The next morning we made a phone call to set up a snowmachine ride out to one of the musk ox herds outside of town. 

Musk ox are arctic mammals native to Arctic Alaska.  It is suspected that they are related to wooly mammoths and actually surived the last ice age!  Pretty impressive.  They have an insulating, wooly undercoat called qiviut that is highly prized because it is extremely lightweight yet incredibly warm.  The Oomingmak here in Anchorage is a co-op started in 1969 owned by 250 Alaska Native women from remote, coastal villages here in Alaska.  Each village has a specific pattern derived from aspects of local village life that is knitted into each garmet.  They make hats, scarves and wraps and send them to Anchorage for sale.  Below are some pictures from our trip out to see them.  We could only get so close before they would start walking the other way.  We didn't want to chase them, but I was able to find a youtube video that a man took while up on the north slope working on the popeline that shows them a bit closer.

Along the snowmachine ride back into town our guide, Zack, let us stop for a few pics.  This is an old tug that is literally frozen in timw.  The structure behind it is about 50 feet from the Bering Sea coast.

Mom & Jackie loving life!

This is an aerial view of Swanberg Gold Dredge taken on my descent into Nome.  It was a working dredge up until the 1940's.  Dredging were designed to essentially sift through sediment/sand with gallons and gallons of water looking for gold.  They still dredge here in Nome, many of the newer dredges are out in the waters off the coast and have divers that go down to initiate the process.  I'm hoping to come back to Nome during the summer to see this.

Swanberg Dregdge up close and personal.  To the far left of this picture is where the dredge buckets used to be.  They would bring up water and sediment.  That's Mom in the foreground.

That afternoon, Jackie and I ran the Mini-Mukluk Marathon.  Kind of a misnomer as it was just a 5K, but nonetheless it was pretty rad to run along the Bering Sea coast!  We had cleats on our running shoes and tow warmers stuck to our socks!

Later that afternoon, while we were downtown, they were starting to prepare for the arrival of the first mushers.  The mushers travel northwest along the Bering Sea coast to Nome.  The travel on the sea ice then end up on Front Street eventually passing underneath the Burled Arch to "Finish" the race.  The arch needed to be set up and snow had to be brought in to cover Front St.  The snow needs to be at least 6-8 inches deep.  It's brought in and smoothed with HUGE bulldozers.

Hanging from the right side of the arch is a silver lantern...look closely.  This is lit when the first musher crosses the finish line.  The last musher to arrive blows it out and wins the "Red Lantern Award."  This used to be kind of a joke, but has evolved into a badge of honor for courage, fortitude and perserverence.  Nobody wants to be last in a race, but the point of the Red Lantern is that you are still respected as a competitor and lauded for the accomplishment that IS Iditarod.  I think that's pretty rad, because this is an amazing accomplishment!

The following pics are just a sampling of life in Nome.

A Nome home security system!



Most of the buildngs in  Nome are built up, off the ground like this house.  This is because of permafrost.  Permafrost is soil or rock that stays below freezing (0 degrees celsius or 32 degrees farenheit) throughout the year and forms when the ground cools sufficiently in winter to form a frozen layer that persists throughout the following summer.  This layer will have a thawed layer of soil/rock on top of it during the summer months.  It's hard to build on it because the heat from the buildings melts the permafrost layer and the buildings sink.  You can either use stilts to put the buildings on, put a thick gravel pad underneath them or use anhydrous ammonia heated pipes (like the Alaska Pipeline uses).  These are specially insulated pipes that transport heat away from the ground and into the air. There...we should all feel a little smarter now.

This is the beautiful St. Joseph's Church in Anvil Square downtown in the morning light.  The small wooden boxes in front are holding large cubes of snow that were later used for the snow carving competition.  Stay tuned to see some of the better carvings.

Just a little perspective on how far from home I REALLY am!

The Nome Nugget Inn sits right at the finish line on Front St.  Inside is Gold Rush and Iditarod memorabilia spackled to every spare inch of wall space.  It was originally the old Alaska Airlines hotel built in 1966 but the new owners are capitalizing on it's location.  Nothing has better proximity to the finish line.

Jackie got really excited at the prospect of 50cent bottles of beer...but we realized this was long gone...notice the snow packed halfway up the door.

FOR SALE:  Nome, Alaska.  Dream vacation home where you can really "get away from it all."

Lining the church parking lot are old dredge buckets from the gold dredges outside of town.  These can also be seen outside many homes.  During the summer they are used as planters.  Because of the permafrost there aren't  many plants that grow well in Nome, so if you want 'em, you gotta plant 'em.

Typical Nome residence.  Notice the hide hangning from the front porch, the snowmachines in the yard and the multiple antlers tacked to the home.  Most of the Native Alaskans that live in Nome practice a subsistence lifestyle.  This means that they hunt and fish for the majority of their food.  They will also use all of what they kill.  There are many, many artists in Nome and the neighboring villages that do handmade fur goods, mukluks (boots made of fur & skins), ivory and baleen carvings and other various forms of artwork.  We were lucky enough to see much of this at the Native Arts Crafts fair at the church.

One of my favorite snow sculptures.

I could not resist taking this little sweet pea's picture.  Her owner was outside and after asking permission I cuddled with her and took a pic.  Her name is Cayenna.  She is a future sled dog!  Had she fit in the fanny pack, I would have smuggled her home!

Mom met a young man on vacation in Nome...from Unalakleet.  They compared boots.  Hers are rabbit and his are...polar bear of course!  Earlier in the day he was also wearing a polar bear jacket but once it got above zero he had to take it off...TOO HOT he said!  His mother had made all of this for him.

Me keeping warm with some hot tea as the sun nears setting.  The wooden structure to the right behind me is used for ice fishing.

Me walking on the Bering Sea.  This was on "my bucket list!"

Looking south at twilight.This is the direction the mushers will come from.  The trail markers are on the left...the wooden rods with orange flags on them, you can even see the snowmachine tracks in the snow.

This is the "chute" the mushers will come up to get onto Front St.  The building you see is a combination Subway restaurant and single screen movie theater.  They were showing True Grit while we were there.  And no, not the original 1969 version...the Jeff Bridges/Matt Damon collaboration.

Sunset approaches on Norton Sound.  The ice in the foreground is not generally there.  Several weeks ago there was a storm that pushed the smooth, pack ice that is right at the shoreline shoving it into the shore.  Usually the ice anchors in at the shoreline and the transition to the ice is smooth.  The storm was so violent that it shoved the ice inland creating all the hagged ice mini-mountains you see.  They were about 15 feet tall.

Next post is the finish and some other fun surprises.