Dogsled.com: Mushing news, Iditarod, Yukon Quest, sled dog events

Everything begins to blur together.  Endless days with minimal sleep begin to catch up to one and all.  Fatigue sets in and one event blends into another as you frantically try to stay on schedule, going through your list methodically, trying to make sense of it all.  Hands once limber and pain free now throb from repeated actions, eyes are bleary, and the brain foggy.  

I’m not talking about the mushers, BTW.  I’m talking about the avid fans, those who climb outta warm beds in the middle of the night to catch updates, click obsessively on the link, trying to make sense of how names once absent from the top rankings are now competing for a spot in the Top Ten.  I’m talking about fans that have compiled a master list of “must check” internet sites to check regularly; fans who form little cliques of equally obsessed friends and debate each and every event as if their lives depended on it.  These are the fans of the Iditarod.

“Who are you rooting for now?”

“At this point,” sighed a subscriber to the Cabela’s Iditarod Talk Forum, “all I want is for ‘em all to get to Nome with all their body parts intact and happy, healthy dogs.”

Iditarod fans are a special breed.  They thrive on information overload.  They come from all over the world, many paying thousands of dollars to attend the race in person, giving up hard earned leave time in order to have the “fun” of volunteering along the trail in -55 degree weather.  Some fly out to checkpoints to cheer on favorites.  Some pay up to $7500 to ride in a musher’s sled at the start, joining an elite group known as Idita-Riders.  Many return year after year, riding with the same musher or branching out so as to get to know other mushers in a more personal way than mere fandom allows.  You’ll see them on 4th Avenue, some behind the barriers cheering on the teams, other leading dog teams down the street countless times as handlers or working security.  And, yes, even those of us wearing media badges are fans.  Just look and you’ll see us everywhere.  You might even hear us softly singing what is considered the race's theme song, Hobo Jim's Iditarod Trail Song. 

You’ll see them in the lobby of the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage, browsing past the Iditarod merchandise table “just one more time.”  Surely, they think, I’ve missed something.  There must be one more thing here that I absolutely must buy.  Already decked out in their Iditarod sweatshirt and wearing patches on their coats, they don’t even stand out in the crowd.  We all look like that.  True, the design on the shirt may differ, but it’s almost an Iditarod ritual to find the perfect shirt each year and, well, browse until your wallet is empty.  Seeing a friend buy a snazzy jacket with paw prints running across the back this year, we all craved one, whether we needed a new coat or not.  It’s all part of being a part of the Iditarod. 

Those unable to attend in person can still follow along.  Idita-parties were common on start and restart day, ranging from places as unlikely as Atlanta, Georgia, to La-La-Land, err, the Los Angeles, California, area.  Even those unable to find a gathering close enough to attend weren’t left out in the cold, pun intended.  The Internet brings fans from all over the world together.  Email brings them even closer.  They zip emails back and forth with a pace at which any sled dog would be proud.

Early on in this year's race, a conversation might have run something like this: 

“There she is!”

“Who?”

“Whose in the sled?”

“Is that Dave (Monson)?”

“What happened to Doug?”

“Oh, man, that hurt!”

““Look at DeeDee go!”

“Wait a minute!  DeeDee scratched?”

“Did you read Tyrell’s story?”

“Did you watch the video?”

“What video?”

“Who’s ahead?”

“I can’t get the video to work!”

“Try this….”

“Who are you going to root for now?”

“Where’s Pinkham?”

“They lost Bill?”

“Wait a minute?  He was just in Finger Lake.  How’d he get to Rohn?”

“Look at Lance go!”

“How do we know when they’re 24’ing?”

“Did you….”

And so on and so on and so on.  Fingers clicking, every possibility is exhausted until they fall into bed, wrists sore, only to be compelled to rise in a few hours to begin the cycle all over again. 

Disjointed conversations like this are the norm, not the exception for those who can only follow the Iditarod via computer.  From the moment the mushers prepare to leave Anchorage, no, actually long before, faithful fans and the curious tag along via cyberspace. 

For those who can’t drop everything and fly to Alaska to follow the race in person, this is the next best thing.  In recent years, there’s been a proliferation of web sites dedicated to the Iditarod, Dogsled.com amongst them.  More recently, several chat rooms and internet groups have been created to serve the purpose of bringing fans together to share their enthusiasm and knowledge.  As a result, comments such as the above tend to fly through cyberspace at a pace almost too fast to take in.  Dozens, sometimes hundreds participate and the shared experience can be a frustrating but fun one.  Information overload can be exhausting, but for number crunchers and those who can’t get enough, no amount of info is too much. 

The starting point for most is the Iditarod’s web site, www.iditarod.com   Whereas fans were once reconciled to hours, if not days between updates, they now expect updates regularly and quickly.  A musher just crossed the line in Nome?  They expect to see it live.  As far as many are concerned, if it isn’t reflected on the updates almost instantly or available live, it is cause for alarm.  We’ve been spoiled by the speed of cyberspace.  Never mind that the web-master might actually be sleeping.  We want info and we want it NOW!  Teachers, students, gotta question?  Email Zuma, the Iditarod’s canine reporter at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Before I take a look at a few of the most popular web sites currently accessed by fans, I thought I’d take a look at the phenomena of email.  The miracle of email has brought people together from around the world and made distance irrelevant.  As a result, try to imagine an email with a Scottish lilt intermixed with a Texas twang or Southern or Norwegian accent and you’ve got a taste for what it might be like to share the race with friends from around the world.  Team Norway fans don’t just frequent the team’s website, but are frequent participants at Cabela’s Iditarod Talk Forum, www.cabelasiditarod.com, then click on Talk Forum to the left), even going so far as to translate stories posted on Team Norway’s website http://hurdal.com into English.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this phenomenon, however, is that most often these friends are people you’ve never met in person and, in fact, are unlikely to ever meet. It doesn’t matter.  The shared interest is all it takes to pull them together.  Toss in, hopefully, someone willing and able to maintain some order out of the enthusiastic chaos resulting from hundreds of exchanges, not all coming through in as timely a fashion as they should, and you can find yourself on the sidelines watching the race through the eyes of the world. 

As one fan just posted to the Idita-support email list, you do get punchy, however.  “Not to minimize the effort Lance is making (or ANY of the mushers for that matter),” says Californian Kathy Mattes, “but I'm about ready to take MY 24!!!  Info overload coming from every direction -- and I only want MORE!!!  I think there should be a "standings" list for race fans...

"Yep, looks like Kathy is taking her 24."

"Oh, look, June just finished her 24 and she's back online!"

"And Betty's still going strong -- when WILL she stop???"

Thus, you no longer have to be there to know what’s happening.  If you're not there, someone else is and is eager to share.  Even without “inside sources,” so to speak, it’s still possible to follow the race quite successfully simply by surfing the net.  More amazing, deep friendships are forged.  In between checking the standings on the Iditarod site and madly, incessantly clicking on other links, many fans stopped by Cabela’s talk forum last year to simply strike up a conversation.  Far from being fixated on the race, some chatters were more concerned about finding a way to stay in touch with those they’d meet at the cyber corner of Cabela and Iditarod Trail.  It’s all part of being a part of the Iditarod Family.  They were trying to figure out how best to exchange email addresses without doing it in public.  It was some relief to those involved, I’m sure, when the forum’s moderator assured them that the forum would remain open for business 24/7 post race. 

Of course, Cabela also boasts the insight and writing of musher-writer Jon Little.  It isn’t always easy, either, as Jon occasionally finds himself weathered in and bouncing along in a place buffeted by 50 mph winds, or perhaps riding on the back of a snow machine in order to move on up the trail.  No matter what the year, his stories quickly became the topics of emails flying through cyberspace and amazingly, Jon even somehow finds time to reply to a few of them himself.  Again, that’s the fun of cyberspace. 

Besides Cabela’s site and our own Dogsled.com, many mushers maintain their own web site.  Links are usually available on the Iditarod site via the musher bios or musher list.  True, some are more active than others.  Some seem stuck in 2003; others start out strongly but fade as the race progresses.  Others have a slick, professional look but don’t necessarily reflect the mushers own personality. 

Since I can’t even begin to cover them all, I decided to focus on a rookie musher site, http://www.hardcorehuskies.com/index.php , that of rookie Heather Siirtola.   While other sites focus on the front runners, Heather's father, based in Nome, has faithfully updated the progress of the back of the pack as they move up the trail with Heather.  In the process, he's tossed in some fascinating bits about checkpoint history and the trail itself.  You begin to feel you know not just Heather, but those out there with her. 

That’s what makes this race so much fun to follow in cyberspace.  Without even being there, you can get to know those involved.  You'll hear stories like the one swirling around Kathy Chapoton, wife of Martin Buser and grounded in White Mountain and drafted to help check in teams, and a story shared a few years ago by Tasha Stielstra, wife of musher Ed Stielstra.  According to Tasha, race officials at Kaltag asked her husband to carry a packet of dog meds to Unalakleet for vets there. 

Thus, history repeated itself in a fashion, only this time with a sled dog team carrying medicines up the trail for other sled dogs.  Who knows what gems are still to emerge from Iditarod 2007?

Comments (2)

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Kathy Mattes said:

Great article, June! I'm currently on my 24, tho, so will have to wait til tomorrow to forward it to friends!

March 08, 2007

Barbara L. Lake said:

Great article, June. I like your idea to take a picture of our patch!

March 09, 2007 | url