Mushers and Mutts Chase Glory in Iditarod

It can hurt to hang on to a dream. So Linda Joy discovered last year, racing in her first Iditarod.

Her left knee was bending in ways a knee shouldn’t, its main ligament snapped by a sledding mishap the month before. Her fingernails were coming loose for unknown reasons, so she stuck them down with Superglue.

Then, about 200 miles into the 1,150-mile race, Joy’s sled tipped over as it crested a snowy hill. She bounced along behind it, clinging by one arm as her team of 16 huskies charged downhill. She saw the tree stump coming and knew she would hit it if she didn’t let go of the sled, but she also knew how easily a runaway team of dogs can be injured.

Linda Joy held on.

The stump smashed into her face, and the dogs lurched to a halt, then looked back curiously at their driver, blood now dripping down her cheek. Joy threw the sled upright, tasted blood and called out, “All right, kids, let’s go!”

On Saturday, March 1, Joy and her huskies will be on the run again, joining 53 other mushers and more than 800 dogs in the 25th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Like its racers, the Iditarod has never known enough to let go, enduring animal-rights protesters, fickle corporate sponsors and the nasty surprises of subarctic winters to become a touchstone of Alaska’s mythically tough frontier spirit.

After 25 years--long enough in this young state to qualify as ancient tradition--the Iditarod captivates fans worldwide with its blend of cute dogs, rugged adventurers and wild scenery.

But despite the hype and hoopla attending what boosters call “The Last Great Race,” it remains at heart a hidden affair. Beyond the cameras, between the cheering start-and-finish crowds in Anchorage and Nome, mushers pursue their lonely dreams and flush out private demons.

No-nonsense competitors at the front of the pack push the boundaries of canine speed and human endurance, aiming to share in a $400,000 purse. They battle numbing cold and exhaustion-induced hallucinations--dogs that turn to lobsters and swim away, freight trains that roar through their teams.

Behind them come romantics with no hope of financial gain, drawn by the need to scratch a wild itch within, to pursue an epic quest in the company of dogs.

For 35 of her 43 years, Linda Joy was blissfully unburdened by any such notions. She lived near Minneapolis, a single mom with two teenage children, a hospital unit manager who wore dresses that matched her fingernail polish.

Then, in 1989, she volunteered with a group that took handicapped people on dog sled rides. Seeing a bond between musher and dogs that seemed as strong as that between a mother and infant, Joy plunged into dog sledding.

In 1992, with her children out of school, Joy loaded what she could into her pickup truck, sold or gave away the rest, and headed to Alaska. She had $20,000 in savings--long since spent on dogs.

Today, Joy lives in a two-room plywood shack in Willow, 75 miles north of Anchorage. In her yard are 30 huskies, a howling, mongrel horde chained to tipped-over steel drums lined with straw.

The dogs are her propulsion, her teammates, her confidants.

“I like people, but I like the dogs more,” she says, sitting on her bed in canvas overalls, her feet resting on a pile of dog booties. “I enjoy my privacy, and the dogs give me that.”

Joy didn’t finish last year’s Iditarod. Although her encounter with the tree stump failed to stop her, her wrecked knee finally did. By the time she reached Unalakleet, 270 miles from Nome, her left leg and foot had swelled so much she could barely squeeze on her boot. Officials pulled her from the race.

She immediately began planning for this year’s Iditarod. A top competitor can pour $100,000 into running the race. Joy has budgeted a bare-bones $33,000, most of which she has raised by begging companies and individuals to sponsor her.

“I’m the average American woman with a dream,” Joy says. “So many people wish they could just break free. I found a way to do it.”

Seventy miles south of Joy’s shack, in a snowy parking lot outside Eagle River, 1996 Iditarod champion Jeff King stands on a dog sled going nowhere.

Spotlights, reflectors and video equipment sprawl before him. Half a dozen shiny new Dodge trucks and cars stretch out behind him. And King makes a valiant if unconvincing attempt to appear as if he enjoys shooting this TV commercial more than, say, untangling a surly moose from his dog team.

“Cab forward, that’s my choice,” King recites for the 20th time. “Automotive design with comfort in mind. And the big $1,049 Idita-Dodge dividend makes them really comfortable to own!”

In the Iditarod business--and a business is what it has become--Jeff King is a hot property, a two-time champion who can attract sponsorships and product endorsements that far exceed the $50,000 first prize.

Most of the money is plowed back into his kennel of 80 dogs. He sends dog foods to the lab for nutritional analysis and obsesses over the color and consistency of dog droppings. “Diet is everything,” King explains.

Early Iditarod racers, prone to swigging Yukon Jack and swapping yarns around the campfire, have yielded to more fastidious athletes like King who tend their dogs and themselves with scientific precision.

There are no campfires anymore, just the hiss of alcohol-burners heating dog food as exhausted front-runners play mind games with each other at village checkpoints.

“You going to drop that dog that’s limping?” King asked archrival Doug Swingley last year as Swingley pulled into Unalakleet.

“I don’t have a dog that’s limping,” Swingley snapped.

It’s a mental, not physical, hardness that defines Iditarod champions. At 41, King says he probably couldn’t run a six-minute mile, but he’s able to maintain focus after hundreds of miles on the trail with less than three hours of fitful sleep a day.

King tunes out howling winds, villagers clamoring for autographs, the snarls of other dog teams. His goal is to reduce his universe to answering two questions: How are my dogs, and where are we going?

“You have to put yourself in the mind of the dog,” he says. “You have to know what they want to do.”

While rookies exult over the Iditarod’s rugged wildness, King tries to tame it, aiming to shake out its bumps and kinks in pursuit of faster times to Nome.

The first Iditarod was won in 20 days. King finished last year in nine days, and he believes another two days could be shaved off the race with more efficient mushers and better-trained dogs.

Sure, the Iditarod is tough, King allows. “But a lot of us have gotten good at it,” he says. “Is it tough to pilot a Boeing 747? I don’t think it is if you know how, but you’ll kill yourself if you don’t.”

Indeed. Such a possibility occurred more than once last year to Linda Joy--but wasn’t that part of what drew her to the Iditarod?

As she slid across the empty miles with her swelling leg, separating fingernails, black eye and mashed lips, she found herself reopening long-closed memories: childhood abuse, adolescent yearnings, battles with her own rebellious daughter.

The thoughts bubbled up through her pain, and slowly--by the snowy brilliance of day, by the moonstruck blueness of night--Joy found places for them all.

“Maybe that’s why I run the Iditarod after all, to find out more about myself,” she says, now standing by the door of her shack. “You live your whole life over, out on the trail.”

Then she hitches up a team, a dozen of her closest friends: Sally, Queen, Zingo, Christi, Cadaver, Trim, Ashley, Flute, Smokey, Colt, Sara Lee Fruitcake, Philadelphia.

The dogs pant and pull, and Joy waves goodbye as the sled whooshes past. Huskies still in the yard howl, sore at being left behind, but gradually they settle down. As fat snowflakes drift through the trees, the world falls silent.

Linda Joy and her dogs are somewhere in the darkening woods, sliding through a dream.