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

But the thing I need most — sleep — will not come so easily. When I lie down on my sleeping bag, the pain in my right hand becomes excruciating, so intense I cannot even think about sleeping. I suppose somehow the swelling is affected by body position. I’ve already taken more of the naproxen but it’s only marginally effective. And I still refuse to use any of the high-powered stuff I’m carrying because it would put me out of the picture even more effectively than the hallucinations which so warped reality for the trip over from Sulatna.

All I can do is toss and turn and try to find a position which allows some relief. By sitting up I can doze off for maybe five minutes at a time. These catnaps are apparently all I’m going to get, which means I’m not going to make much of a dent in my steadily growing sleep deficit. At least the dogs are resting well outside, and they’re the ones who are going to do the hard work. But I think I’m going to make a lot of use of the fold-down seat on the sled in the next few days.

I finally give up trying to snatch fragments of sleep and decide to leave at mid-morning. My right hand is even worse than last night; the swelling is so bad I can’t even make a fist. However, I can still use enough fingers to bootie up the dogs and get ready to go. As I’m working down the line I decide to drop Panda, my two-year-old female. The trip from Ophir has frazzled her more than the other dogs and I don’t want to push her to the point she doesn’t like the trail. I’m happy just to have gotten her this far; she’ll be a first-line dog next year.

There are still a couple of teams left when I check out. Lisa Moore and Andy Sterns will both pass me down the river somewhere and I’ll be the last one into Galena, keeping my tail-end record intact. But I remind myself we’re still moving; that’s more than some teams can say, including one of the early leaders who scratched here because his dogs quit on the river ice.

As we head out onto the mile-wide Yukon I’m awed by its sheer size. It is undoubtedly the least-known major river in the country, even for Alaskans, most of whom have never seen it in person. It’s easily a match for the Mississippi and even had a large fleet of Mississippi-style steamboats working its muddy waters for the better part of a century. The last of the Canadian boats retired in Whitehorse in the 1960s; today the opulent Nenana , the last big American stern-wheeler to work the Yukon, is on display in Fairbanks.

I wish I had a steamboat as my guys plod down the river in the bright morning light. We’re definitely the slowest team in the race, at least partly because I keep running during the daytime. If I were doing this properly, I’d be traveling on the Yukon mostly at night and giving the dogs quality rest during the day, but I’m out of sync thanks to the Ophir-to-Ruby demolition derby. This is another consequence of being at the back of the pack: I don’t have much leeway to adjust my running schedule to take advantage of darkness or weather because of the constant worry about being left behind.

Additionally, there’s the rule which says we must be into Unalakleet within five days of the leader or risk being withdrawn. Lisa and Andy and I and all the other tail-enders are trying to stay well ahead of that deadline, and so far we’re succeeding: we’ve got until Friday morning to cover the 250 miles and it’s only Monday. In fact, we’re a day and a half faster than last year’s caboose.

The trail down the broad Yukon is good but b-o-r-i-n-g. The modern snowmachine highway is out on the snow-covered river ice; the old mail trail kept mainly to the wooded shoreline because of the vagaries of the Yukon’s yearly freeze-up and the lack of snowmachines and airplanes to easily find a safe trail. The overland route also provided more shelter from the wind and the sun and wasn’t as subject to the drifting that often demolishes unprotected trails.

Most mushers will only run their dogs for two or three hours without a break and a snack. On the vast expanse of the Yukon, and especially during the heat of the day, frequent stops are very important to relieve the boredom and keep the dogs (and the musher) focused.

I’d much rather be in the shade of the spruce trees on the bank as the dogs slow down in the midday sunshine. By two p.m. we’re making only two or three miles an hour; this is no faster than I can walk beside the sled, which I do occasionally to stay awake. Lisa and Andy pass me several hours out. Pullman accelerates to chase them for a few miles but we quickly drop back to all ahead slow as the faster teams pull away.

Finally the cool of the late afternoon perks everyone up again and we’re turning a respectable seven or eight miles an hour. As the sun sets we come through a slough I know is within 10 miles or so of Galena. I’ve flown into this place so many times over the last 20 years I know almost every hill and tree by memory, and for once being on the ground isn’t much different from being airborne — only slower.

The town was founded in 1919 as a steamboat landing for a lead mine whose ore was lead sulfide, or galena. Athabaskan Indians in the region gravitated to the town over the years, but its major feature — the airport — was built as an Army base in 1941 during the massive pre-World-War-II buildup in Alaska. The airfield became a major stop for thousands of Lend-Lease planes heading to Russia, and later evolved into a frontline Cold War fighter-interceptor base.

That’s where I came in, flying C-130s out here for many years to bring in everything necessary to keep a modern 500-man military base operating at peak efficiency. The base was put on caretaker status in 1993 but the town still has almost 600 people and is one of the biggest settlements on the Yukon River in Alaska.

Galena hugs the shore of the Mississippi-size Yukon River. The regional airport and a small inactive Air Force base lie behind it, sheltered by high levees to protect against the spring floods.

As we come in sight of the familiar lights of Galena it’s just dark. I turn my headlight on for the final miles into town. Overhead, in a reprise of last night’s standing-ovation performance, the aurora is already gearing up for another evening of celestial fireworks.

Suddenly I realize this is deja vu: For a moment it’s the 1994 race and I’m standing on the river bank at Galena watching the headlamp of the last-place musher work slowly down the Yukon toward the checkpoint as the northern lights flare over the Brooks Range. Fast-forward to 1996: Now it’s ME bringing up the rear of the race, MY light out on the river. The musher out on the ice I thought could just as easily have been me IS me. And in a deliciously ironic twist, Lisa Moore — the tail-ender whose light I watched two years ago in this very same place — is already at Galena watching me.

It’s all too much to take and I can’t restrain myself from laughing out loud. As if sensing my feelings, the dogs accelerate across the river and up the bank into town. We steam into the checkpoint in good order, in last place but definitely still in the race. This has been a particularly satisfying arrival, another milestone on what I’m guardedly starting to believe is going to be a successful trip to Nome.

But first things first. Taking care of the dogs consumes an hour and a half, after which I head into the checkpoint to see the M.D. who’s volunteering as the communications person. He takes a look at my right hand and pronounces it fractured, and then arranges for an x-ray at the local clinic. Surprisingly, keeping the hand jammed into the heavy cold-weather mitten has acted as a whole-hand splint and has kept the swelling down. It still puffs back up once the mitten is off, but at least I can get some use out of it on the trail.