Album: Dan, Pat, & Lori in the Arctic

My sister, Marcy, is well-known as a key organizer of the Kobuk 440 Sled Dog Race, and a familiar face along the trail. Each year she travels by snow machine the entire four hundred and forty miles from Kotzebue to the villages of Noorvik, Kiana, Selawik, Ambler, Shungnak, and Kobuk. While Patrick has also traveled this by snow machine, I hadn’t done it for 20+ years – preferring an airplane as my mode of transportation. A few years ago, Linda and I traveled by small airplane to two of the villages including Ambler and Kiana, and I was perfectly comfortable doing that.

Well, this year was different . . . maybe the fact that I’m going to turn fifty . . . maybe it’s being back in school and feeling like I can conquer the world. Whatever the reason . . . when Patrick was unable to take time off from work and we had a new, used snow machine sitting in Kotzebue waiting for a rider . . . I decided to ‘go for it’. Still, I was not sure if I could do the entire trail, so I prepared Robyn to be ready to fly out to the village wherever I quit to continue for me. Once I gave myself permission to do it ‘checkpoint by checkpoint’ I was good to go.

On Thursday afternoon, two hours after the dog teams left in the traditional mass start, we drove off into the arctic wilderness in the midst of a blizzard. For the first half of the race the temperatures were warm. The snowflakes were wet and sticky – making it necessary to constantly wipe our goggles. The weather and trail conditions were sometimes dangerous with open water in places along the river.

During the race, my brother, John, switched the lead with tough competitors Martin Buser and Mike Jayne. We didn’t visit much with these front runners as they were seriously racing. We were careful not to make any mistakes along the trail and always made a wide pass when we came up to each musher. This meant going off into the deep snow and being careful not to bog down but to barrel through it.

I had a few mishaps, even falling into a creek and getting soaked, but I always came up smiling with a ‘can do’ attitude. I was determined to learn from each mistake and not be a burden to my traveling companions. The next half of the race greeted us with cooler temperatures and a fast, hard trail. I’m pleased to report that I didn’t need to call Robyn. Each day I gained more confidence and by the end of the race on Sunday, when we crossed the finish line, I didn’t want it to end! I could hear Marcy telling family and friends, “That Lori is tough!”

Getting a compliment like that from my tough, little sister made the trip that much more memorable. You know, I think that I could even do the Iditarod Trail . . .

This year was probably no different than past years of planning for the Iditarod but it just seemed harder. So a couple of weeks ago I sent an email to my siblings and suggested that we consider doing a weekend at John’s cabin for a fun outdoor excursion focused on the kids and dog mushing. It turned into a kind of an end of the mushing season family party – a way for John to say thank you to the family for helping him. With very little planning it all came together and we had a great time ice fishing and dog mushing.

April 1, 2008 Linda