Dallas Seavey, 2012 Iditarod winner, has 99 dogs at his Willow kennel/ranch Flight 42 ALASKA / GOING TO THE DOGS 52 MYANMAR / ROAD TO MANDALAY 60 AUSTRIA / CHAMPION SKI SLOPES 70 FLORENCE / STORIES IN MARBLE 83 QUEENSLAND / TABLELANDS 93 CANBERRA / INCA TREASURES 100 KIDS CONCIERGE/ MELBOURNE 105 CHECK-IN / HOTELS 110 ONE PERFECT DAY / BOSTON LEADER OF THE PACK Racing for more than nine days over 1600km of ice and snow in some of the toughest conditions Alaska can throw up, these canines really do become man s best friends. Michael Stahl goes to the dogs on the Iditarod Trail. PHOTOGRAPHY THOMAS WIELECKI 42 QANTAS DECEMBER 2013 DECEMBER 2013 QANTAS 43
ALASKA RACE HERE S AN INTERESTING FACT: MORE PEOPLE HAVE SUMMITED MOUNT EVEREST THAN HAVE FINISHED THE IDITAROD TRAIL. Christian Turner grins at his own nerdiness. Through the thickly falling snow, the spruce-speckled shoreline of the frozen lake resembles a fine ink drawing beneath French lace. Turner s voice dissolves into the crisp breeze, the soft yelps and yips of the dogs. It would be no less surprising if one of the dogs was doing the talking. Turner is a tall, tanned, 25-year-old surfer from Sydney s northern beaches. That he should be living in a shed near Willow, in southern Alaska, consumed with the care and training of a team of four-legged athletes, says much about the allure of the Alaskan wilderness and of the last great race on earth. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race began in 1973, evolving from a smaller event held to commemorate the 1967 centenary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Historian Dorothy Page from Wasilla and kennel keeper Joe Redington Sr dreamed of an epic contest to retrace the supply route pioneered by dog sled mushers (from French marcher, to walk) during the Alaskan gold rush of the late 1890s and early 1900s. The Iditarod Trail ran 1850km from the southern port of Seward, over the Alaska Range to the Bering Sea mining settlement of Nome. Dog sleds departed weekly for the often month-long trip, ferrying mail, gold, furs and the occasional passenger. In spring, Nome miners held dog-sled races, the first recorded in 1908. For centuries, native Alaskans had used sleds adapted from kayaks, pulled by three or four dogs. Russian fur traders, who arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries, introduced longer teams and more sophisticated sleds. However, with the end of the gold rush and the arrival of aviation in Alaska in 1913, the Iditarod Trail fell into disuse. Within just a decade of the 1959 introduction of the snowmobile, dog sledding also faced extinction. Not for nothing were the new machines nicknamed iron dogs. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race established an official distance of 1688km, with its starting point in Anchorage, home to almost half the state s population of 730,000. Inaugural race-winner, miner Dick Wilmarth, snared beavers for food and huddled with his 12 dogs in -40 C to finish in 20 days. Only 22 of the 34 starters made it to Nome. In third place was Dan Seavey, who would create one of a handful of mushing dynasties that have become Clockwise from top left: ceremonial start of the 2013 Iditarod down Anchorage s 5th Avenue; wannabe racers; race winners are awarded the Joe Redington Sr Trophy; snow-dusted forest near Anchorage DECEMBER 2013 QANTAS 45
RACE ALASKA staples of the Iditarod race. Some of those names are still among the 60 to 70 men and women who, with teams of up to 16 dogs, gather in Anchorage for the annual Iditarod on the first Saturday in March (March 1, 2014). These days, the route is well marked and some sections groomed in advance by snowmobiles. The race is usually won in 10 days, including two mandatory eight-hour and one 24-hour rests. Alaska s largest winter event involves a mammoth effort of volunteers, including about 50 veterinarians and 30 pilots who ferry dog food, straw bales and the leap-frogging vets between 26-27 checkpoints. Frequent return passengers are dogs left at checkpoints as mushers streamline teams along the route. Despite the peripheral activity, the Iditarod remains a lonely event, a marathon of psychological endurance as much as physical. Once the race has started, mushers receive no outside assistance and carry neither communications nor electronic navigation aids, save for locator beacons. The trail covers endless slogs along frozen rivers, steep climbs and icy descents, and gnarled pack ice on the unsheltered Bering Sea. Just working out the logistics can be a big enough challenge for the Iditarod s usual handful of foreign competitors. In 2013, Jamaica s Newton Marshall, 30, is in Anchorage for his third Iditarod. In 2008, his previous employer, a Caribbean tour company, sent him to the Yukon Quest, another 1000-mile (1600km) race as a publicity stunt. I spent two winters up there training and finished 13th in the 2009 Yukon Quest, Marshall says. It was tough, but I just fell in love with it. I can t do it back in Jamaica, so I keep coming back for more. Marshall s ticket in 2013 is a puppy run. Working gratis for one of the established mushers, most of whom run kennels of 50 to 100 dogs, is often rewarded with the loan of a team of young dogs typically twoyear-olds not yet ready for the A-team. Alaskan Huskies are mongrels, derived from native village dogs and crossbred with faster hounds such as German short-haired pointers. The eerily ice-blue eyes of some dogs betray a lineage to the Siberian Husky. The musher s art lies not only in breeding the right blend of coat, speed and pulling power, but in weaving the best 16 athletes into a team. They all have their own personalities and it s up to you to see how the chemistry works, explains Michelle Phillips, a four-time Iditarod competitor from Yukon, Canada. They are who they are and you just have to work with that. Sydneysider Turner has spent six winters in Canada and Alaska, most recently at the Willow compound of 2012 winner and Iditarod poster-boy Dallas Seavey. Turner helps manage 99 dogs, ranging from newborns to much-loved retirees such as Guinness, the female who, aged nine, led Seavey s victorious Iditarod team. A former junior state wrestling champion, Seavey is in awe of his dogs, all of whom he can name without hesitation. I m never gonna be the kind of athlete that they are, he says. These sled dogs have the largest heart, relative to their body size, of any mammal on the planet. They are a running machine. You get to know your dogs better than anyone, adds Turner. You re with them all day, feeding them, looking after them, running them. You re letting them do what they love doing. Dallas aims to average 13.5km/h for 1700km. The dogs always want to go faster. A series of shorter-distance races in January and February have qualified Turner to start in the 2014 Iditarod. He won t be Australia s first. Thirty years ago, another Sydney surfer, Glenn Finn Findlay, sought his fortune salmon fishing in Alaska. Instead, he met a musher Joe Redington Sr and then wound up contesting, and finishing, the 1982 and 1985 races. Nobody does this for the money. Jeff King is one of a handful of four-time Iditarod winners, a list that includes the late Susan Butcher, the race s most successful woman (perennial crowd favourite DeeDee Jonrowe has no wins, but nine top-five finishes). King is credited with top career prize money of $US765,320 ($805,400); fellow four-timer Martin Buser with $US741,420 ($708,278); Jonrowe with $US490,948 ($516,679). But those take into account careers of 23, 30 and 34 starts, respectively. With dogs to feed yearround, and Iditarod glory netting $US50,400 ($53,041) and a pick-up truck, it s hardly Formula One with fur. The Iditarod s ceremonial start in Anchorage coincides with Fur Rondy, a 10-day festival that dates back to an annual trading rendezvous of trappers and hunters. The informality and wry humour of Alaskans is laid bare in events such as the Running of the Reindeer, a comical take on Pamplona s celebrated encierro. On a two-block strip of fenced and snow-carpeted 4th Avenue, a dozen bewildered reindeer are let loose with 1000 runners in costumes ranging from giant rabbits to cartoon superheroes to skimpy swimming Mush! A team of 16 dogs makes the most of a rare stretch of flat ground 46 QANTAS DECEMBER 2013 DECEMBER 2013 QANTAS 47
Clockwise from top left: Rainy Pass Lodge; one of identical Berington twins preparing dogs; Idita-Riders are members of the public who pay to ride in a sled during the ceremonial start in Anchorage; leaders of the pack briefs. They struggle and stumble and laugh themselves hoarse while the imposingly antlered beasts sensibly steer clear. The 49 men and 17 women of the 2013 Iditarod face the race start proper the following day on frozen Willow Lake, a 130km drive north from Anchorage skirting the breathtaking Chugach Mountains. On a clear day, the big three Mounts McKinley, Hunter and Foraker are visible to the north, more than 150km away. Awaiting their starts, mushers pamper their teams with paw ointment, booties, massages and cuddles. The dogs are clearly impatient to hit the trail, here lined 10-deep across the lake with spectators. The affection between mushers and their dogs is palpable. Their lives are literally in each other s hands (and paws). Mushers mentally divide the Iditarod into three sections. The first third entails ascending glacial rivers and lakes, building to the difficult crossing of the Alaska Range at Rainy Pass, 250km into the race. The western descent is notorious, following knotty trails through birch and willow forests. Rainy Pass, the highest point of the route at 960m, offers a welcome recharge. The Rainy Pass hunting lodge, which was established in 1937, is reputed to be Alaska s oldest. As with so much of Alaska, it is accessible only by air (or by enduring the gruelling trail). At the abandoned goldmining town of Ophir, about 560km into the race, the trail is divided into northern and southern routes, used in alternate years. The routes reconvene at Kaltag, spilling out of the western river system onto the frequently windy Bering Sea coast. One thousand kilometres in, it s a lonely race, with up to 15 hours between checkpoints. Alaskan paediatric dentist Kelly Maixner, 37, is on his third Iditarod. Between checkpoints, even if you re separated from somebody by a quarter-mile, most of the time you can t see them, he says. Maixner shuns the now almost obligatory mushing item, the ipod: I just relax. And be. Drift off into the abyss of thought. There s plenty to think about; including abysses. A constant hazard is overflow, where water lies on the frozen surface of a river or lake, hidden by fresh snow. In the 2011 Yukon Quest, Dallas Seavey plunged into water above his knees. After drying his dogs, Seavey endured a five-hour trip at -48 C to the next checkpoint. The opposite concern is evident this year. If you ve been training up north at 30 below, and here it s just on zero, it can be too hot, says Iditarod volunteer vet Dr Alan Taylor from Orange, NSW. Seavey has streamlined his routine for his longer checkpoint stops. He pre-lights the camp stove on his sled, then quickly lays out beds of straw, puts jackets 48 QANTAS DECEMBER 2013
RACE ALASKA Clockwise from far left: dogs arrive in travel boxes; feeding and resting dogs at Rainy Pass on the dogs and removes their booties, massaging ointment into their feet. Boiled water makes a raw-meat broth, with a side of meat slices; in cold weather (-40 C), fingers of chicken-skin fat help provide a racing sled dog s daily requirement of about 42,000kJ. Seavey says he loses five to six kilograms during the race. It s hard to eat with ice crusted onto your face. I take those little Hershey bars, break a piece in half, put it down my face mask and try to get it into my mouth. The final third of the Iditarod route entails soul-destroying hours of exposure over the barren coastline and frozen sea ice of Norton Bay. On this stretch, early tearaway Martin Buser who ran an unprecedented 285km virtually nonstop from Willow begins to fade. It appears Seavey s athleticism and sustained momentum of 12-13km/h might carry him to the front of the field. Dismounting and running uphill alongside his sled, Seavey slithers past fourth-placed Ray Redington Jr into White Mountain, with just 125km to go. But Seavey will not be the first under the wooden arch in Nome. Not this Seavey, anyway. Two and a half hours ahead of him, 2012 runner-up Aliy Zirkle and her 10 remaining dogs are closing to within 13 minutes of race leader Mitch Seavey, Dallas father. Already an Iditarod champion in 2004, Mitch Seavey s 2013 victory at the age of 53 makes him the race s oldest winner. Dallas, who turned 25 on the first day of his victorious 2012 event, is the youngest. Like the unfurling of the seasons over Alaska s harsh beauty, the generations of the Iditarod Trail continue. STAY The Hotel Captain Cook 939 West 5th Avenue, Anchorage. (907) 276 6000. captaincook.com The heavily timbered and nautically themed hotel is Anchorage s most luxurious, and the largest, with 547 rooms (including 96 suites) in its three towers. The public areas abound with art works and memorabilia of Cook s ships, adventures and exploration. From $US165 ($173). Hotel Alyeska 1000 Arlberg Avenue, Girdwood. (907) 754 2108. alyeskaresort.com The modern 304-room hotel has a luxury-resort ambience, having been built in the mid-1990s to entice Japanese skiers to Alyeska. Beyond the bear-aware signs at the back door, Alyeska s challenging slopes include the longest continuous black-diamond run in North America. The acclaimed Seven Glaciers restaurant awaits at the summit. From $US169 ($178). Historic Anchorage Hotel 330 E Street, Anchorage. (907) 272 4553. historicanchoragehotel.com Anchorage s first hotel was built in 1916 and extended a few years later; today, only the annex survives (along with, it s said, several ghosts). The facade and grizzly bear statue speak of a less elegant era, but the fully restored interiors feature lavish period furniture and fittings. From $US99 ($104). Rainy Pass Lodge Puntilla Lake, Alaska Range. (907) 248 7599. theperrinsrainypasslodge.com A truly authentic Alaskan experience, in a fold of the Alaska Range, some 200km by light plane from Anchorage. A small clutch of log cabins and huts on the shore of Lake Puntilla hosts fully catered hunting and fishing tours on horseback during summer, and cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and Iditarod packages in winter. One-week package, including flights from Anchorage, from $US4950 ($5198). Copper Whale Inn 440 L Street, Anchorage. (907) 258 7999. copperwhale.com The 15-guestroom bed and breakfast offers upstairs rooms with views over Cook Inlet and excellent service. It s also right next door to Simon & Seafort s, a well-appointed Anchorage institution for steaks and seafood. From $US99 ($104). For airfares to Alaska call Qantas on 13 13 13 or visit qantas.com 50 QANTAS DECEMBER 2013