Iditarod Postcard: Mushers Breeze Through Shaktoolik Checkpoint
By Colin A. Warren
A version of this story was previously published in The Nome Nugget.
The steel-sided armory in Shaktoolik buzzes with action. At mile 908 of this year’s lengthened Iditarod course, the three people in charge of the checkpoint gather in the back room,, which used to house a massive Cold War-era compostable toilet.
“We called it the Red Monster,” Heidi Uhl says as she glances up over her readers. “It filled this entire room. Of course, it was frozen when we got here, so we’d use it for a few days before it gurgled to life. Thank God it’s gone.”
Uhl is the checkpoint lead, and she’s in charge of communications, or comms. Her desk is positioned over a large square on the floor that’s been filled. Her readers slide down her nose as she glances between a handwritten chart on a clipboard and a laptop.
She’s relaying the “in” and “out” times of the dog teams to Iditarod headquarters in Wasilla. Once they get the information,, they post it on Iditarod Insider, the online subscription service required to watch the event. She also coordinates events like rescues, if need be, or the pick-up of dropped dogs.
Paige Drobny just took off 30 minutes ago, and it looks like the next team to arrive will be Mille Porsild, but who won’t be coming in for a few hours.
“I told the Corp. [Iditarod Corporation] we need more oil,” Gary Bekoalok chimes in.
Uhl has been working on for Iditarod Communications for 16 years, most in Shaktoolik. Her enchantment with the race was seeded when she watched it on her grandmother’s television as a child in Ohio. She rooted it in her life when, on her first time to Shaktoolik, a 5-year-old girl in a red parka sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to her in Iñupiaq. Now all grown up, that little girl works for Bering Air in Unalakleet; Uhl visited with her before going to the checkpoint.
“I’m usually an introvert, until I come out here,” Uhl says. “I come early to visit elders and friends.”
Bekoalok dons a purple parka plastered in Iditarod patches. He won’t say a number, but says he’s been the Shaktoolik checkpoint checker “forever.” He leads the set up of the site beforehand – it takes a team of locals two or three days – and is the person who registers each musher as they arrive. He wears a perpetual grin that tells everyone he gets the cosmic joke. He’s proud that the Iditarod website describes Shaktoolik as “one of the most treacherous segments of the trail.”
Bekoalok’s ribbing Uhl, and she’s laughing. People on the couch nearby are complaining about the 30 mile per hour wind gusts. Bekoalok's smile eclipses his face.
“Two years ago, it was blowing 80 miles per hour,” Bekoalok says.
He explains how important this event is to the community. He gets kids involved by giving them chores and practicing math with them by calculating the arrival times of the mushers. They make posters of the mushers ahead of time and put them up around the checkpoint.
“All the people and all three entities pitch in to make this happen,” Bekoalok says, referring to the trifecta of the city, the tribe and the corporation.
Mark Cox crams into the old bathroom room too, wearing a beaver fur hat and pensive round spectacles. Cox has been with the race for 36 years and has been a judge for 22. His job is mostly to hear complaints from mushers, support the veterinarians, solve problems like fixing sleds, and, occasionally, recommend when teams scratch.
“You never want to see them cry. But it happens,” Cox says about doling out scratches.
Cox is a retired forester who raised his family in McGrath, which is usually a checkpoint on the race. He says there are 8 judges observing this Iditarod, and they leap-frog from checkpoint to checkpoint. His spots have been Ruby, Shagaluk and Shaktoolik.
Across the inside of the armory, past the six two-by-four bunk beds and the 32 nail-hangers for coats and other things that need drying, LeeAnn Sookiayuk and Paul Bekoalok sit around a table. It’s covered with granola bars, superglue, Sharpies, hot sauce, syrup, and paper bowls full of Chex Mix, Cheez Its, M&Ms. The posters the town kids made of the mushers are plastered all around; they show cartoon versions of the mushers and a couple random facts: Jessie Holmes runs ultra-marathons, Lauro Eklund bought his first dog in Nenana.
“Let me tell you about Merbok,” Sookiayuk says, “The ocean tried to eat us alive.”
Paul Bekoalok gently explains that Gary Bekoalok is his little brother and that he served 27 years in the National Guard.
“I'd still like to volunteer for this, but my arm is full of metal. I fell 30 feet into an anti-tank ditch in Iraq.”
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Mille Porsild’s head is poking in the office asking about other musher’s locations.
“I don’t want to be here when the next person shows up,” she says.
Her face is red like she just spent a week in the Caribbean. She took off her boots to dry, but she has a whole bag of various fleece and fur-lined booties that she wears under her shoes, and she sifts through them, chatting.
“Where is it cool?” she says.
Porslid cannot stand how hot it is in the armory. She wants to find a cool place to rest,, but there isn’t one. Uhl suggests a corner of the office, but Porslid balks.
“I’ll go sleep on my sled,” she says.
But she continues to search around the checkpoint for a cool spot, running her hands in corners here and there. When she comes back to the office, she tells of the time she overslept in Shaktoolik, for seven whole hours; she only woke up because she heard Michelle Phillips banging pots in the dog yard.
As she says this, she pulls a round white plastic clock from her pocket, 6’’ in diameter, with a cord around it, and sets the alarm, hangs it around her neck.
“Not this time,” she says.
Immediately, she passes out on the couch like a starfish.
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The two veterinary technicians hang their stethoscopes, hats, and gloves on a rack before the Toyo heater. It’s Mallory Cade’s second Iditarod and Sheila Billingsly’s first. The former is enamored enough with the state that she’s searching for a second home here. The latter says she’s here because of a “wild hair meets bucket list sort of thing.”
At a minimum, they check the dogs’ lungs, hearts, and bodily condition - even if the mushers try to move through the checkpoint quickly, they put a stethoscope on every dog. They muse that if they come back next year, they’ll buy these new Bluetooth stethoscopes that use rubber earbuds in their ears, and they’re sure they won’t get nearly as cold as the old school kind of stethoscopes.
Someone is trying to figure out how to get the Boys Basketball State Tournament streaming. The Shaktoolik boys play in half an hour.
“The boys' team had a successful caribou hunt before they left,” says Gary Bekoalok.
The vet techs are still talking gear. They bought the brightest headlamps they could find before they came up, mostly to ensure they could see the dog’s gums color well.
“Gums tell you everything,” Cade says.
They both work in small animal emergency rooms back home. They say that prepares them for the 12-hour volunteer shifts here.
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Emily Robinson, four-time Jr. Iditarod champion, pulls into the checkpoint on a snow machine. Her younger brother, Stanley, all smiles and freckles in a fur hat, mushes their team. They left their house in Nenana the same day after the official race went by. They skipped the Kaltag lollipop loop, but otherwise, they’ve mushed the whole trail.
Judge Cox walks in and recognizes them.
“Still on the trail,” he says.
“Yep,” she says. “It’s windier here.”
Everyone in the room laughs.
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Michelle Phillips, Mitch Seavey, and Travis Beals blaze through the checkpoint, barely coming inside.
The Shaktoolik boys basketball team wins their game, and then the girls’ team wins.
A plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies is passed around.
Ryan Reddington arrives next, beds his dogs down before coming inside and making as much hot water as possible. While Porslind was whipped, Reddington was the first musher to seem zombie-like. He stares right through everyone, even while he’s talking to them.
Suddenly, Bailey Vitello pops in all chipper and chatty. He takes no gear off, just heats up water. Some Shaktoolik kids ask for his autograph.
“Five bucks!” Vitello jokes, as he signs.
Rhonda Langley, who took time off her job as the tribal family coordinator to volunteer as the checkpoint cook, serves Reddington a big bowl of Shepherd's pie. Shortly after he sets his boots to dry by the heater and sits barefoot in his skivvies.
Vitello takes off.
“What happened to your dogs, Ryan?” says Sookiayuk. “They used to be better.”
Reddington can barely get the spoon to his mouth but he manages a hearty chuckle. He looks right through her.
“Are you from Unalakleet?” Sookiayuk asks.
“No, my mom is.”
Soon, he’s asleep in the bunk beds, snoring.
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“Strip poker, let's go!” Trail volunteer Pam Kerr shouts with playing cards at 10:00 p.m.
“Kidding, I’m kidding,” she says.
It’s quiet in the armory now. Reddington is gearing up to get back on the trail post-nap. He holds a large ziploc bag with Poviderm ointment in it, which Cade explains is basically gelatinous iodine. He’s also heating up more water.
Kerr is a retired psychologist turned Alaska Air flight attendant from Salem, Oregon, but she used to live in Alaska. This is her fourth year on the trail and second year in Shaktoolik. She got her dog handler's certificate last year and wishes she had done it earlier.
“It’s really spiritual,” she says.
By the time Reddington’s dogs are ready, everyone piles outside to watch him go and gawk at the green aurora borealis ripping across the sky. He commands his team, and they shoot forward for about twenty feet and come to an abrupt halt.
Reddington runs to his lead dog to find him head deep in a bag of open kibble. He watches as the dog gorges.
Cade says from the stairs, “You sure you want to let him eat all that?”
Reddington stands there for a minute, grabs the bag of kibble, and wrangles his leaders back on the trail.
This time, they go.