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

Born and raised in Europe. Jlona grew up in the upper Rhine River Valley and the mountains of Austria. She helped out at her grandfather's photo studio, shooting her first wedding when she was twelve. She also learned all about wildflowers and their preservation from the Bergoma, her mountain granny, who sold pressed flower art in Innsbruck, in the summer months.

Jlona has always managed to capture the spirit of the moment in her people photography and has produced some world class images. But coming to Alaska, she put people behind her, although she will occassionally "shoot" people for album covers and model portfolios. Jlona and her husband Philip have been contributing to dogsled.com for several years.

Here, Jlona captured DeeDee Jonrowe's dogs singing to the crowd at the start of the Iditarod.

In 1997, Tracks of Alaska decided to shoot "the Iditarod" because of Jlona's love for sled dogs and the husband-wife teams great respect for the dog drivers. In 1998, they managed to get a photo of everyone of the 64 mushers setting out for Nome.

Jlona is purbreed Mongolian and as such closely related to the ancestors of Alaska's Eskimo. Her grandmother's philosophy reflects the ideals of native elders in the great land. It also explains the great many native friends Jlona has across the nation, always learning from them about the land she makes her home. She admires Marie Louise Defender Wilson, an Ogellalah Sioux elder, who is still an activist at the age of 85, and who also was the very first Miss Native America and congressional worker for the late Senator Quentin Burdick of North Dakota, and a good friend of the "Trax Gang."

Her great loves are Alaska's scenery and critters great and small and she and Philip make a great team.

About Philip Richey
Born in Tokyo, Japan, as a military brat, he became a globe trotter at a tender age. He has been a rock singer, a poet, a horseman, a stuntman, a gunfighter in historic reenactments, a movie extra, a soldier and a rodeo rider. He discovered his love for wildlife and getting close to the critters in Alaska, where he began his photography carreer.

Phil is a natural, the son of a painter and the brother of renowned San Francisco photographer, Leslie Hirsch. Talent seems to run in the family.

Occasionally, Philip dons his gunfighter duds and has a shootout with historian and author/actor Dusty Sourdough at Anchorage's famous Sourdough Mining Company.