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

I began volunteering for the Iditarod in the late 1970s, flying amateur radio operators along the trail in my venerable Cessna 170. Every year, I became more intrigued by the race and the heritage it represented — and by the mushers who ran it and the army of volunteers who supported it. My Air Force flying reinforced my interest in the race, sending me to countless villages and remote locations around the state. I became fascinated by the unending variety and vast solitude of the Last Frontier, as well as its astonishing array of ancient cultures.

After completing my tour, I endured a five-year absence from Alaska while the Air Force steered me to warmer climes and higher headquarters. I flew my Cessna back to Alaska every summer on leave, eventually returning for another tour at Elmendorf in 1985. I quickly resumed my involvement with the race, which had grown into an internationally famous event. By then, the Iditarod volunteer pilots had coalesced into the Iditarod Air Force, a more or less formally organized group donating their flying skills as well as their own planes. The IAF — already becoming something of a legend in its own right — carried everything from dog food to sick dogs to dog doctors among the 20-odd checkpoints.

I reluctantly left Alaska once more in 1988 for another Outside engagement (this time in the Pentagon), during which I traded my old Cessna 170 for a heavy-duty Cessna 206, which I continued to fly north every summer. After several interesting but intensely frustrating years inside the Beltway, I retreated to Alaska for a last assignment and subsequent retirement. I promptly reenlisted in the IAF once I was back in Anchorage, fully intending to fly for the race well into the next century.

In 1991, I was trapped at Unalakleet, with several other pilots and numerous mushers, by the ferocious storm that swept the coast during the race. I almost wrecked my airplane at Shaktoolik in 20-below zero temperatures and hurricane-force winds while trying to pick up 11 sick and injured dogs. At the same time, the maelstrom threw the entire front end of the race into chaos less than 100 miles from the finish. When Rick Swenson incredibly pushed through the howling blizzard to gain his fifth victory, with Martin Buser not far behind him, I started to wonder what kind of people would willingly put themselves through such punishment year after year — and why.

In 1992, I worked the rear of the race while Martin Buser blazed a new record. Then I waited in Nome for the tail-enders while one of them, Bob Ernisse, whom I’d helped sponsor, almost died in a storm not 40 miles back down the trail. He finally made it in — not with his team but aboard a medevac helicopter. When I got a chance to see him I was shocked by his frost-ravaged face and bandaged, frostbitten hands. He broke down in tears because he hadn’t completed the race, and swore he’d do it again and finish it. As I talked to him, I could only ask myself, “Who are these people?”

In 1993, I helped fly out dogs of another acquaintance who scratched at Finger Lake. I then hunkered down with my plane as yet another raging storm battered the coast and pinned down the last half of the race. I watched in awe as a pack of never-say-die drivers and their dogs banded together and finally pushed through everything to pass under the burled arch in a grand 17-team parade, even though they all finished out of the money. I looked on as my friend (and former Iditarod Air Force chief pilot) Bert Hanson plodded into Nome with his dogs after two and a half arduous weeks on the trail. He was followed a day later by rookie Lloyd Gilbertson, dead last, but with a smile a mile wide as he carried his Red Lantern across the finish line. My overriding question was, “Why do they do it?”

Nome, the City of the Golden Beaches, lies on the north shore of the Bering Sea. More than 20,000 people lived here at the turn of the century during the height of the gold rush. For a year the beaches themselves yielded gold to anyone who could wield a shovel.

This year I was the only IAF pilot who stayed with the back of the pack all the way from Anchorage. Martin Buser rewrote the record book for a second time, thundering into Nome even as I watched the last-place musher, Lisa Moore, toil into Galena. I flew overhead as Lloyd Gilbertson was evacuated from a lagoon at the foot of the Blueberry Hills north of Unalakleet, 1,000 miles into his second Iditarod, after he spilled his sled and broke his leg; he said he’d be back. I also looked on as my friends Bruce Moroney and Diana Dronenburg conducted a nationally televised courtship while both of them ran the race — he for the first time, she for the sixth. And only a couple of hours ago I hugged Bob Ernisse after he finally fulfilled his promise of two years ago, finishing 43rd after a fortnight’s journey.

But I’ve been following Ron, and several other mushers I know, with more than casual interest. I met Ron at several checkpoints along the trail and managed to overfly him a dozen more times. As I watched his slow, steady progress, and talked to him along the way, the impossible thought of running the race myself slowly began to germinate.

Now I’m standing in the swirling snow on Front Street waiting for Ron to make the last few blocks to his 45th-place finish. There aren’t many people here because the huge awards banquet has been underway across town for two hours. Almost everyone in this end of the state is there. In the finish chute with me are only a handful of race officials, the odd bystander, and Martin Buser. Martin is personally greeting every finisher under the arch, no matter the time of the day of night, and he has left the banquet — his banquet, really — to come out here in the blowing snow to welcome Ron.

As Ron’s team pulls into the fenced-in chute for the last 100 feet, there’s no more doubt in my mind: I can no longer stand here and watch others complete this journey. I must do this myself, no matter what it takes.

Martin Buser (right), winner of the 1994 Iditarod, greets Ron Aldrich (bib number 14) after his finish. Ron, a veteran of the first Iditarod, finished his seventh trip to Nome in 45th place — at the age of 68.

Today I’ve dropped in on the annual Iditarod Air Force post-race party at a remote cabin northwest of Anchorage belonging to one of the pilots. As I’m exchanging flying “war stories” of the recent race with other pilots and a few mushers who showed up, I mention my intention of running the race to Diana Dronenburg (now engaged to become Diana Moroney this June). She immediately offers me four dogs and I don’t know what to say, since I haven’t even thought about building a team yet.

I only talked to Ron a few days ago to seek his tutelage and assistance. I hadn’t even thought about getting dogs this soon. But I can’t turn down an offer like this — Diana has good dogs, as attested by her 19th-place finish this year. These are older second-stringers, of course, but still superb sled dogs. I agree to pick them up in a few days when I can get into Anchorage. At least Ron has already said I can keep my dogs at his place, along with his kennel of 50 or so.

As word of my folly becomes generally known at the party, other pilots seek me out to shake my hand and congratulate me, although I’m not quite sure for what. After all, my total mileage on a dog sled can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I fly back home later with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I see a grand adventure about to begin; on the other, I’m not sure how I can ever carry through on my brave resolution. Only time will tell.