Mike Dillingham - Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers - The Adventures of Balto, Back of the Pack, Honor Bound, Rivers

After an hour and maybe two miles Lisa’s leader won’t go any farther through the drifts on the slough, which are just as bad as last night. The only difference is now we can see everything, and the revelation isn’t reassuring. I knew this country was bleak, but out here in the middle of it I wish I was back in the relative lushness of the Farewell Burn.

We decide to move up onto the barrier dune and try to run along it until we can pick up what Slim said is a less-drifted part of the trail closer to Shaktoolik. Once we’re up on the dune we find it varies from 30 to maybe 60 yards wide. There are numerous patches where the scouring wind has left a surface of hard-crusted snow.

I start to work Socks from patch to patch, zigzagging back and forth across the top of the dune line as we inch our way ever closer to Shaktoolik. He never falters as I give him a constant stream of commands: “Gee; haw; little gee; okay; over haw; okay, go on; little haw; go on….”

Periodically we must turn into the teeth of the wind or plow through wind-packed three-foot drifts which collapse as the team clambers over them. Sometimes we must skirt stunted clumps of willow bushes or thread between driftwood snags sticking up out of the snow or retrace our steps when we reach a dead end. But Socks remains as steady as the wind itself, following my commands as if we did this kind of thing every day.

After two hours of the most intense command work I’ve ever done with a team I see trail markers ahead on the dune. As we break through one last drift I see an open trail, actually a narrow road for ATVs, stretching ahead toward a shadowy cluster of buildings on the horizon which must be old Shaktoolik, two miles this side of the new town. I turn and shout to Lisa, who’s following 50 yards behind me. We’ve broken our way through and Shaktoolik is only five miles ahead over a fast trail.

We don’t even notice the 30-mile-an-hour quartering head wind as we accelerate down the road. We’ve just beaten — at least temporarily — an implacable, impersonal adversary which had every intention of destroying us if it could. It’s an exhilarating feeling and the dogs seem to understand what we’ve accomplished. We’ll certainly have more battles to fight but we’ve won this one.

The outline of old Shaktoolik, abandoned when the new village was built in 1967, grows steadily closer. Like many Native villages, the actual townsite has changed many times over its 1,000-year history, although it has remained in the same general area. Old Shaktoolik dates from the 19th century; it, in turn, replaced an earlier village somewhere close by, but still near the mouth of the fish-rich Shaktoolik River with access to the fishing grounds of Norton Sound. It is now a ghost town, although it sees much traffic from its nearby successor.

We are approaching the two dozen buildings of “Old Shak” end-on as we run the track up the barrier dune. Perched on a low rise, they float above the haze of the ground blizzard. From our viewpoint they appear to coalesce into a single structure looming like a castle above the featureless expanse. I know it’s an optical illusion aided and abetted by fatigue and stress, but it seems like we are knights of old charging home toward Camelot after a grueling quest.

Soon enough the shining castle resolves itself into shabby, weathered wooden buildings with windows broken and doors ajar. One or two houses seem to be occupied and Socks tries to turn us into their yards; I urge him back onto the road to the new village, now visible a couple of miles farther on. I estimate the wind is gusting to more than 40 miles an hour and I want to get into the checkpoint without delay.

As we pull out of the old town, I am startled to see three six-dog teams materialize out of the blowing snow ahead. They are making almost 20 miles an hour and rocket past my surprised workhorses before they even have a chance to react. The drivers wave as they pass, and I return their greeting. I’ve heard Shaktoolik has rediscovered dog mushing in the past couple of years and these must be village teams.

It’s only fitting: the Natives in this region are Malemiut Inupiats, who over the centuries developed a hardy breed of work dog bearing their name — the Malemute. These are the first non-Iditarod teams I’ve seen since the race started. They certainly look good as they vanish into the blizzard, heading back the way we just came.

In a few more minutes we enter Shaktoolik’s single street. It is ridged by semipermanent four-foot drifts, the result of a winter’s worth of north wind whistling between the houses. The drifts would be worse if not for the half-mile-long, eight-foot-high windbreak fence paralleling the slough to the north, protecting the entire village. This is probably the windiest checkpoint on the race, and no one likes to spend any more time here than necessary for fear of being delayed when the gales come up — as is happening now.

Old Shaktoolik sits abandoned on its low line of dunes next to the Bering Sea. The town moved to a new location a few miles west in the 1960s.

It’s been more than 20 hours since we left Unalakleet, and most of that time has been hard work breaking trail, fighting the wind, and banging through drifts. We’ve spent almost five hours just on the last 12 miles into Shaktoolik. The dogs will require some rest here before we tackle the 60 miles up to Koyuk across the ice of Norton Bay, all of which will be into a nasty head wind. So much for our goal of making it to Nome in time for the big banquet Sunday afternoon; we’ve lost a full day to the whims of Mother Nature since Kaltag.

The checkpoint is in the local National Guard armory; the teams are parked behind it, out of the direct wind. There is only one team here: rookie Mark Black scratched just before we arrived. He was running with the group ahead of us but got delayed leaving Unalakleet. By the time he pulled out yesterday morning, just before we got in from Old Woman, the wind was already increasing and he had a rugged 15-hour trip through the Blueberry Hills. He had to do it on his own and didn’t get in until midnight.

His team apparently didn’t want to buck the wind this morning, so he felt he had to scratch. Lisa and I are sorry for him and wish we’d had a chance to talk him out of it; we’ve both been there and know how easy it is to fall into the mental black hole. We agree he would have been a perfect candidate to join our slow freight to Nome, and we could have used the company.

For the moment our concern is for Andy, who didn’t keep up with us as we were working our way over from the shelter cabin. Slim says the village teams who roared by us are part of a local race; they will check on his progress. In the meantime I busy myself with getting the dogs fed and as comfortable as possible.

As I’m walking back to the checkpoint with a bucket of water for the cooker another team comes in from the direction of Koyuk. I see immediately it’s not a village team, which means it’s an Iditarod team which has turned around. The driver gives me a “Hi, how are you?” as he passes and parks his team beside mine behind the armory. I spend the next 15 minutes getting my cooker going and then head into the checkpoint to see who the returnee is.

As I come through the door I’m shocked to see the driver who so casually greeted me a few minutes ago stretched out on the floor, looking very, very ill. He’s surrounded by an agitated cluster of people headed by the vet, who is a volunteer from Australia. This is well beyond my scope and I stay out of the way, but I hear muttered words like “heart attack” and “stroke” along with “medevac.“