10 PM

This is my town at....


10:03pm,




10:17pm,




10:18pm.


How about yours??

.

Open Water

The Noatak River is open all the way to town. Here is a picture of the mouth of the river. People are already boating up to hunt ducks and geese and gather seagull eggs.





Every year spring feels like a miracle to me. When it is January it sometimes feel like it will take forever for it to warm up and melt the snow and ice. I think the opening of the river was earlier this year than last year. I would have to go back an look through my old pictures to be sure.





Noah and I decided to go up on the hill and have a picnic. I still wasn't feeling well but I was tired of being cooped up in the house.





It was pretty windy. About 15-20mph from the south. At least there were no mosquitoes.





Kaija was having fun chasing all the little birdies...





...but no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't catch any.





On the way home we saw a flock of swans (or are they geese?) flying over town.

Arctic Circle Championship Day 2

Today was day 2 of the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association Arctic Circle Championship. I missed yesterday because I hadn't yet returned from Anchorage. This is a three day race, one 25 mile heat each day. The winner is determined by overall time over all three days. There is no dog limit.



It was a nice sunny day. The temp was 13 degrees and the wind was southeast at 23 mph. It was cooler than yesterday so the trail was harder and the cool air better for the dogs which reflected in the faster times today.



These are Bill Kornmuller's dogs.



There were a lot of people out to watch the start of the race. The dogs were excited and they were hollering...



...and leaping...



...and bouncing. The standings so far are......



Terry Streeper is 1st place over all. Day 1 time 1:14:18, Day 2 time 1:08:16.



Bill Kornmuller 2nd place overall. Day 1 time 1:16:49, Day 2 time 1:14:51



Buddoo Gallahorn 3rd place overall. Day 1 time 1:18:42, Day 2 time 1:15:01.



Luke Sampson 4th place overall. Day 1 time 1:17:28, Day 2 time 1:17:14.



Cyrus Harris 5th place overall. Day 1 time 1:21:43. Day 2 time 1:14:38



Paul Hansen 6th place overall. Day 1 time 1:22:14, Day 2 time 1:16:22.


Jay Cadzow is in 7th place overall. Day 1 time 1:58:12, Day 2 time 1:41:57. I don't have a picture of his team because he was 13 minutes behind the 6th place finisher and I gave up to go watch the finish of the snowmachine race. I will be taking pictures of Day three tomorrow and will try to catch the finish of some of the Kobuk 440 mushers. KDMA mushers banquet will be on Monday.

Wordless (almost) Wednesday

8 Dog Championship Day 1

Okie dokie...back to mushing. Today was the first day of the Kotzebue Dog Mushers Association 8 Dog Championship. This is a 2 day, one heat each day, 12 mile race, winner determined by overall time. I forgot to bring a paper and pencil so I don't have any times yet. I will get those tomorrow, but the results without time are (I think I have this right).......



1st Paul Hansen



2nd Levi Harris



3rd John "Buddoo" Gallahorn



4th John Goodwin



5th Joanne Harris

Check This Out

Behold this weeks Arctic Sounder . Those are my pictures. That is my article. I'm not much of an article writer, but that's ok. My stuff is 2 half page spreads....granted the editor is really good about printing stuff people send in, BUT STILL that's MY stuff. I'm a little peeved at a couple things she screwed up changed but they are minor. One of the captions states that this was the first race of the season in Kotzebue...it wasn't. But really, Tamar, it's no big deal, the photos look great and you used all of them and that's really cool. It is always nice to see your stuff published somewhere.

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).