Brian O'Donoghue - My Lead Dog Was a Lesbian - Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod--The World's Most Grueling Race

Several snowmachines buzzed past us as we neared the village. They swung around and waited on the flats. One of the machines was hauling a huge sled packed with gear. Rich Runyan had accomplished his lonely mission. The radio operator waved and fell in behind the dog teams for the final mile.

A jumble of structures, power lines, and smoke rose at the end of the flats. It was Unalakleet, the largest village on the trail, and home to about 900 Inupiat Eskimo villagers, an airport served by Alaska Airlines, a satellite uplink station, and a medical clinic. And most significant to me, the gateway to Alaska’s ice-locked coast. Nome, that almost mythical destination of ours, lay just 270 miles to the northwest.

The sun was setting as I approached the checkpoint, located by the village’s school gym. I parked my team alongside a building across the street. Cooley and Williams already had their teams bedded in straw, and Daily soon joined us. A woman told Tom she’d drawn his name and had dinner waiting at her house, just down the street. I asked her if there was a restaurant in town. After two days of dining on crackers and raw Spam, I’d pay nearly any price for a fat cheeseburger. She gave me directions but told me to hurry. The place closed in half an hour. I sighed realizing that promised burger was out of reach. The place would be closed by the time I finished feeding the dogs.

“We have plenty of stew,” she said. “Why don’t you come over, too.”

A reed-thin gray-haired villager struck up a conversation. His name was Mugsy, and he bragged about his feats as a champion sprint driver decades ago. The old musher smelled like booze, but he was entertaining. His stories were interrupted by the sudden appearance of the last person I ever expected to see.

“They told me I could find you guys back here,” said Barry Lee. “Hey, Tom, your dogs looked really good coming into the village.”

It was painful to see a musher, and a friend, who had traveled so many miles with me, but who was now out of the Great Race. If only he had come with Daily and me. If only we had waited in Grayling.

“Someday I’m going to write a book about this, Barry,” I blurted out. “I’m going to dedicate it to you.”

One of my dogs growled over a snack and I turned away. The distraction lasted a couple of seconds, but when I looked back Lee was gone.

“Am I going crazy,” I asked Daily, “or was Barry just here talking to us?”

“I saw him too,” he said, wonderingly. “He did sort of vanish.”

But I wasn’t having visions. Lee had flown into Unalakleet with his dogs and was waiting for a connecting flight to Anchorage. Earlier that day, Barry had got in an argument with local mushers, who thought we were “wussies” for traveling so slow.

“So you’re Bobby Lee’s brother,” the man said. “Should I tell him you’re a wussie, too.”

“You don’t know what they’re going through,” Lee said. “You have no idea.”

Lee had spent the afternoon watching for us from a bank overlooking the trail. Lee had greeted Herrman, the first one to town. He had talked to the Mormiles, Johnson, and Lenthar. He had helped Terhune park his dogs and had discussed feeding schedules with Plettner. And he had assisted Cooley with his blood tests. This had enabled him to prolong his involvement in the Iditarod, if only for a few hours. Seeing us, he knew it was time to say good-bye. He took off because he was crying.

Daily didn’t have time to dwell on Lee’s disappearance. His fancy boots were wet again. Tom was changing them, with his back to Mugsy, when the old musher calmly stepped on the runners of Tom’s sled and pulled the snow hook. In the excitement of the big village, Daily’s dogs hadn’t settled down. They were antsy and took off at the graying racer’s command, loping down the center of the busy village street.

Throwing his boots aside, Tom Daily chased his Iditarod team down the street in his socks. Doc and I watched in astonishment as the villager dodged head-on traffic from cars and snowmachines and gradually pulled away. The guy could drive dogs, you had to give him that.

The infection in Terhune’s eye warranted immediate attention from a specialist. The medic at the Unalakleet clinic advised the musher to consider flying to Anchorage for treatment at a real hospital.

“There’s no way I’m going to scratch,” declared Terhune.

Though his back also hurt and his hands were throbbing from a brush with frostbite, Terhune refused to accept any medication for the pain. He was worried that painkillers would make him sleepy. He settled for having his bad eye flushed out and treated with antibiotics. The musher left the clinic with a pocket full of pills and sulfa drops, shrugging off warnings that he could suffer long-term complications if the infection worsened.

Tom Daily found his dog team parked in a driveway a few blocks from the checkpoint. The sled bag was open, flapping in the wind. Dog pans and other small items were blowing across the yard. The woman who met him at the checkpoint greeted Tom at the door of the cabin. The old racer was her uncle.

The cabin was gloriously hot inside, spiced with the aroma of rich caribou stew. We passed a fine evening listening to Mugsy’s stories. In the background, a child was watching The Wizard of Oz on a big color TV set.

Not long after dinner, Mugsy, the woman, and I cleared out, leaving Daily alone in the cabin.

“Whatever you do,” the woman said as she departed. “Don’t let my uncle in if he comes home drunk.”

Daily didn’t like the sound of that warning. The last thing he wanted was to become ensnared in a family dispute. He locked the cabin door and went to sleep. A few hours later, Daily’s rest was disturbed by pounding. It was Mugsy. The villager was drunk, and he was furious at finding the door to his warm cabin locked. Daily explained his orders, which just made the old musher angrier.

“Let me in,” the man cried, “or I’m going to kill your dogs.”

This thrust Daily into a dilemma. If he opened the door, he sensed that Mugsy was going to come in swinging. Tom didn’t want to fight the poor old guy. All he wanted was a few more hours of rest.

“Mugsy, if you’re going to kill them, go do it, get it over with. I’m going back to sleep.”

Leaving the sled dogs in peace, the old musher headed up the street.

After dinner I went to check on my dogs. They were sleeping peacefully, so I went over to the gym. I talked for a while with the checker, a local musher, and one of the race judges. Al Marple had flown in to Unalakleet that afternoon to “give us a pep talk” and make sure we backpack mushers didn’t overstay our welcome.

“Don’t lump me in with the guys who stayed three days at Eagle Island,” I said, feeling defensive. “Doc, Daily, and I spent that time battling storms on the Yukon. We got into Eagle Island at night and pulled out in the morning, same as we’re doing here.”

Marple appreciated my attitude. “We want to see you guys make it,” he said.

There was a shower in the gym bathroom. I let the burning steam wash away 900 miles of pain. The shower left me richly satisfied, but dizzy. I collapsed on the hardwood floor of the gym next to Cooley. I didn’t bother with a sleeping bag, I just stretched out on top of my suit. A feather mattress couldn’t have felt any finer.

Shouts awakened us a few hours later. I knew that voice. Who was it? Oh yeah, it was that crazy old musher. I fell back asleep as a Unalakleet public safety officer, Alaska’s village equivalent of a policeman, hauled the drunk away.

A cloud of smoke enveloped the streetlight. A pair of snowmachines throbbed in the street below. Doc, Williams, and I carefully lined up our dog teams facing the deserted intersection. It was 4 A.M. I was last in line.