Dan Snyder Sr. Memorial Race Day 3

Today was day 3 of the Kotzebue Dog Musher's Association Dan snyder Sr. Memorial Sled Dog races. The day dawned rather overcast and dull, with the kind of white light where you can't tell the ground from the sky. By 11:30 a modest crowd of mushers, handlers and spectators were gathering down on the ice. Even with the sun hiding out it was a comfortable 7 degrees causing Fred Jackson to exclaim "Great weather for racing!"



One of Paul's dogs waiting while the rest get hitched.



This is one of Buddoo's leaders. He's a handsome dog. I have posted several pictures of him in the past.



Here's another one of Buddoo's dogs waiting to get hitched up.



Buddoo was the first across the finish (remember winners are determined by time).



Here is Paul and Cyrus coming towards the finish line. Paul had some trouble at the start of the race. The neck line on one of his dogs kept coming off and he lost about 1 minute and 20 seconds trying to get the problem fixed. This allowed Cyrus to gain some time on him.



Oh no! Paul's dogs have veered off the trail. Maybe they were trying to take a short cut to the finish line.



He had to throw his snow hook and stop his team, run to the front, grab his leaders....



....and haul everybody back on the trail.



Meanwhile, Cyrus and his team are bearing down on him as Paul runs back to his sled.



From where I was standing it looked like they were going to end up in a big mess of balled up dogs and tangled lines, but Cyrus was able to go on by as Paul picked up his snow hook and took off.



They shared the trail side by side for the next 100 yards.....



...and crossed the finish together. Even with all the trouble that he had, Paul was still able to hang on to second place in overall time.



Last into the chute is Uncle Bung.

The race trail starts of on the ice in front of Fred's house and over towards Lockard Point. From there it heads towards the Little Noatak and about 7 miles out loops around to the left and heads back towards town on the Noatak trail. The racers took off, one at a time, promptly at noon, with Virgil Naylor Sr. keeping the time and setting off one musher every two minutes. "The trail had a pretty good base", said musher Cyrus Harris, "But anywhere off the trail is soft. We had to be careful to stay on the narrow trail we had in this open terrain". Other mushers had similar reports of trail conditions, "It was pretty good", replied Bung Nelson, "Better than yesterday".

The KDMA's next race will be the 8 Dog Championship (12 mile) held March 15th and 16th. The races start at noon both days with a total purse of $5,000.

Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association Dan Snyder Sr. Memorial Sled Dog Race Results
Day 1
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 57 min 49 sec
2. Paul Hansen 59 min 40 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 60 min 47 sec
4. Arvid "Bung" Nelson 68 min 49 sec
Day 2
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 52 min 15 sec
2. Paul Hansen 61 min 18 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 62 min 28 sec
4 Arvid "Bung" Nelson 71 min 15 sec
Day 3
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 60 min 50 sec
2. Cyrus Harris 64 min 47 sec
3. Paul Hansen 66 min 48 sec
4. Arvid "Bung" Nelson 68 min 05 sec
Overall
1. John "Buddoo" Gallahorn 179 min 54 sec
2. Paul Hansen 187 min 46 sec
3. Cyrus Harris 188 min 02 sec
4. Arvid "Bun" Nelson 208 min 09 sec

Dan Snyder Sr. Memorial Race Day 2

Here's some pics from day 2 of the races.


Here's Uncle Bung taking off.]



Cyrus coming in to the finish. This is a three day, one 16 mile heat each day race. Each musher takes off seperated by 2 minutes. The overall winner is determined by their combined time for all three days, so just because a musher physically comes in first does not mean he is first by time.



This is Cyrus and Joanne's little future musher.



The announcer is keeping us informed on everybody's time.



Here's Buddoo"s finish. He is first overall by time so far with a three second lead over Paul. We will see if he can hold that lead tomorrow. I will be back down on the ice taking pictures tomorrow. I will also have a more detailed write up of the whole race as I am sending one in for the weekly paper (maybe they will print it).

Dan Snyder Memorial Race Day 1

Am I starting to bore everyone with all the mushing photos?? Too bad. Today was day 1 of the Dan Snyder Memorial race. It is a 3 day sprint event. One race each day 16 miles, overall time wins.



I got there right as the mushers were coming in, so hopefully I got everybody right. This looks like Cyrus coming in first.



Watch out Paul, Buddoo might catch you.



Here they come...



Paul's dogs working the finish.



Time Keeper



Here comes Uncle Bung.



It was a beautiful day to be outside and watch the dogs. Day 2 is tomorrow and I will be out taking more photos.

Photo Friday- Surreal

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Thirteen Reasons Why My State is Better Than Yours

13. 24 hours of daylight from mid April to mid August. I wake up out at camp and don't know if it's 2am or 2pm...who cares!

12. No snakes! Not one. No fleas either...at least not in the arctic. My dog is happy about that.

11. The Noatak River.

10. Muktuk!

9. We have the best ice fishing ever. Where else can you go ice fishing and catch a three and a half foot long, 25 pound fish at 10pm in broad daylight??

8. The Northern Lights! We have plenty of dark in the winter to watch them.

7. No light polution. At night the stars are so bright. I never new there were than many stars in the sky til I moved to Alaska.

6. Caribiou hunting season is 12 months long...at least it is in the Northwest Arctic.

5. The Iditarod.

4. No state income tax.

3. This year the Stat of Alaska paid me $1,654 just to live here....me and everyone else in my household....and every other man, woman or child who has lived in the state at least one year. Next year it will be more (we hope).

2. Miles and miles of remote wilderness.

1. Our Governor is hotter than your Governor.

http://thursdaythirteen.com/

Isn't it Ironic, Don't you think??

Those of us who live in Northwest Alaska are no strangers to coastal erosion. We have towns who lose many feet of their coastline a year due to climate changes. There are several villages, such as Shishmaref, Newtok and Kivalina are slowing washing out to sea. There have been articles here and there, such as this on in the Anchorage Daily News that details their plight. This is old new in Alaska. Most of us have heard all about it before....but how about the rest of you? Have any of you outside of Alaska heard about this? Nope Probably not...that is until last week.

I woke up one morning last week, poured myself a cup of coffe, stumbled over to the computer to read the morning news and there it was..... Eroding Alaska Town Sues Oil, Power Companies . What the??? I thought maybe I hadn't drank enough coffee. I headed over to ADN.com and there is was again..... Eroding Alaska Village Sues Oil, Power Firms Over Global Warming . I checked other places and realized that this had been picked up by the AP and it was all over the place and it was NEWS! Alaska has been trying to figure out what to do with this mess for years. Hundreds of people are facing being displaced from the only homes they have ever known, and only now because of this crazy law suit does any news agency outside of Alaska give a crap.

Now this is where it really gets wonky. Tonight I am getting ready to head to bed but I figure I will hit adn.com one more time to see if they have any new Iditarod articles and there it is...... PETA Wants Kivalina To Sue Meat Producers . You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. Let me rephrase that title for those of you who do not live in the great state of Alaska.... "Extremist Animal Rights Group, PETA, Who Does Not Believe In the Consumption of Animals For Human Use, Is Sticking Up For a Bowhead Whale Blubber Loving, Beluga Chowing, Seal Eating, Caribou Stew Slurping, Alaska Native Subsistence Village." I think I hear Alanis Morrisette singing in the background.

Wordless (almost) Wednesday

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A Day at Ed's

Last Friday, while we were out at camp, Uyaana and I decided to go over to Ed Iten's camp. The whole family had already left for Anchorage for the start of the Iditarod, but Ed's dog handler's were there keeping things going. They are busy taking care of the 70 remaining sled dogs, 5 horses, 11 chickens, 1 black lab, and one very spoiled, fat beagle.



Uyaana was very happy to go visit the girls. He had been there before and they had let him help feed the dogs and the horses so he couldn't wait to go do that again. First he helped them give the dogs fresh bedding. All the dogs in Ed's kennel are nice so I don't have to worry about them trying to bite Uyaana. They like him and he like to pat them.



Next we watched at they used a table saw to cut frozen sheefish into pieces to feed to the Dogs. Feeding programs are carefully researched and closely guarded by each musher so I won't disclose the specifics of the dogs diet, but it is well known that mushers in this area utilize sheefish so I don't mind talking about that.



One cut while the other loaded the pieces of frozen fish into 5 gallon buckets.



Then we each took a bucket and made sure that all the dogs had their share. Uyaana helped with her bucket.



We also got to feed the horses. These are Icelandic Horses. It seems that Icelandic Horses will eat just about anything. Believe it or not they really like fish...



......but like regular horses they also enjoy hay.


The girls are from Norway. They came to Alaska last August and will be headed back home at the end of April. After all the hard work they have put in at Ed's kennel they are certainly hoping that he wins the Iditarod....but I know deep down they must secretly be rooting for Team Norway. That's OK...we forgive them.

Sheefish

The days are getting longer, the sun is getting warmer and everyone has sheefish on their mind. Now is the time of year to get out your niksiks (jigs) and ice augers and head out on the ice to hook for sheefish.

Sheefish are found only in arctic and subarctic North America and Asia, but the Northwest arctic region of Alaska is the best place to find them. This website, http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/fish/sheefish.php , has lots of information about sheefish.



This is the size hook we like to use. They seem to like shiny silver lures, but when they are in the mood they will go for just about anything you jig at the end of a line.



This is a photo I took a couple years ago of Uyaana lying next to a sheefish that he caught.



Here's a fish that he caught last year.

Another way we catch sheefish is with a net under the ice. In the fall, when the ice is thinner, a net is placed under the ice. It is done with a series of holes, poles and rope. It's a pain in the butt to first set the net, but once it's in you can use it all winter. You chip the holes open and pull the net out. When you are done you use the attached rope and pull it back under the ice from the hole on the other side.

This weekend we hung out at Uncle Louie's camp to watch his pklace and the rest of his dogs while he is off running the iditarod. While there we helped check his sheefish net out on Kobuk Lake (Kobuk Lake is the local name for Hotham Inlet on Kotzebue Sound).


Pulling the net out from under the ice.



Kaija wasn't sure what to think.



I lined a few of them up next to the shovel so that you could get an idea of how big they are. These are average size.



We fileted a few out to put in the freezer.









Here I am ready to head back to camp. Look at my left eye. I half froze it the day before and it got all swollen.

Just a quick note to say that I am now back home. I have 400 photos to sort through and I will have some new posts up soon.