Iditarod 2008 takes off to glittery start

TAMAR BEN-YOSEF

March 07, 2008 at 9:27AM AKST

"MUSHER COMING, MUSHER COMING!"

An Iditarod volunteer shouted like a crazed fan, her voice as excited as if Elvis himself had entered the room.

Except in this case it wasn’t a crowded concert hall but the middle of snow-covered Fourth Street in downtown Anchorage.

And it wasn’t Elvis, but Seward’s longtime Iditarod champion, Mitch Seavey, arriving in his car with 16 dogs in tow.

On this Saturday, the ceremonial start of the 36th Iditarod Sled Dog Race – and for the two weeks to follow – Seavey is just as much a celebrity to Iditarod fans as Elvis was to teenaged girls.

"You really are a celebrity," agreed Louis Nelson of Kotzebue.

Having finished the Iditarod three times himself , Nelson also had appeared accustomed to his sledding fame while he signed hats and shirts for race lovers at the bib draw banquet two nights before.

This is the largest year yet for the Iditarod, with a record-breaking 96 dog teams – nine more teams than ever participated in 36 years. Of those, 15 are international and only about two-thirds of the teams are from Alaska.

Media coverage of the race also grew this year, with a Discovery Channel crew documenting the race for the first time.

In October, the channel will air a six-week series titled "The Iditarod," produced by the same team that made Dutch Harbor famous with the show "Deadliest Catch."

Eight cameras were distributed among eight dog mushers and hooked on to their sleds. One lens faces the musher, the other faces straight ahead in the direction of the dogs.

Darin Nelson, Louis Nelson’s son and an Iditarod rookie, is one of the mushers chosen to carry a camera along the trail.

Darin said he was reluctant at first, not wanting to add more weight to the already packed sled. But eventually he said yes, and the camera crew flew up to Kotzebue in the Northwest Arctic and filmed Darin training and building his sled.

In an effort to gain even more popularity for the race, the Iditarod Trail Race committee requested that some race veterans carry with them a satellite tracking device so that followers can determine where each team is on the trail.

Onl y 20 mushers agreed, while some others feared the data could somehow be seen by other mushers, who would use it to their advantage.

Seavey is one musher with a tracking device on his sled.

"If we wanted to perform the race in secret, we wouldn’t have much of a following, would we?" Seavey said.

"Even if we did know where other mushers are on the trail there is nothing we could or would do about it," he said.

Seavey was confident that morning of March 1.

He said he would probably continue to race the Iditarod forever.

"What would I do otherwise?" he said.

Even when talk of the tough parts of the trail came up, Seavey showed no signs of concern. "It’s just the Iditarod."

As wind swept through the streets of downtown Anchorage, one by one, the teams arrived with their entourages proudly wearing the white and black "Iditarod Handler" badges that gain them entrance into the coveted street.

The ceremonial start was scheduled for 10 a.m. sharp. At 9:15 a.m., all the teams were in their allocated spots, but one space still stood empty. Iditarod rookie Robert Nelson, Darin’s brother, was missing, and race organizers showed signs of concern.

They need not have worried though, for five minutes later Robert’s team arrived, and his race was on as planned.

Two years ago, Brian Mills broke his foot running the Iditarod. Unable to continue running races for quite some time he asked Robert Nelson, his friend, to train and run the dogs for him.

So Robert stopped his work at Red Dog Mine and took over the team for Mills, who is still recovering from the injury.

Not far from Robert’s parked truck stood John Baker’s team, wearing black "Team Baker" jackets. Family and friends made the trip from Kotzebue to see Baker off. For some it was the first time at the Iditarod start.

A man wearing a big silver cross on his chest walked by the team, a harmonica in his mouth, and played a tune. On another corner, "canine fairies" – women dressed in large, white, ruffled dresses with flowers on their hats – walked up and down the streets.

Some in the audience wore fur hats with claws, heads and tails of various animals. Clearly there was more to the show than just the dogs and their leaders.

But while the ceremonial event was a source of entertainment for the thousands of people crowding the sidewalks, for the mushers it is just one more step they must make before getting out to the trail’s real start line in Willow, and they can’t wait.

"I am waiting for all this stuff around to be over and start the race," Darin Nelson said.

Tamar Ben-Yosef can be reached at (907) 348-2419 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 419.