And the plot thickens

Doug Swingley wants his number one spot back, and coming into Kaltag just ten minutes after the current leader, Jeff King…he just might be able to accomplish that… The next spot on the race is Unalakleet, the fist village on the coast of the Bering Sea. With such a close race for the top two spots, and DeeDee Jonrowe being just two hours behind King & Swingley, it really is anyone’s race right now especially with the entire top three all resting at the same time in Kaltag.

The rest of the top ten has been pretty shakey for the last few days. The mushers names are usually pretty similar, but their positions are changing fast, and often. Yesterday was Aliy Zirkle in the top five, today its Lance Mackey. Jason Barron decided he would rather be competitive than mush together with his father, who was able to keep up for a majority of the trail Jason is right now in the 6th position, leaving Nulato late in the evening.

I was in Unalakleet last year when Robert Sorlie came in as the lead musher. About 1500 people live in this village, which happens to be the largest rural settlement outside of Nome. There were several hundred of us that waited out on the banks of the river for a few hours. Teams of snowmachiners would come back with conflicting reports, some saying that mushers where about an hour out, others were reporting mushers taking rests outside of town at a hunting cabin. It was dark by the time Sorlie came in and everyone went out on the river’s ice to greet him while he checked in and tended to his dogs. He was then awarded the Wells Fargo “Gold Coast Award” and went inside for a meal.

This village, which houses the regional offices of the Bering Straight school district was full of happy excited people, because they know that for just a day or even a few hours, their small village, comprised of natives who both live a substance type lifestyle or who work one of the handful of jobs as an agent for a local charter airline or school media specialist would be on the national map…it is their time to shine.