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Day 6
March 7, 2002
Flying into Takotna
Hello Everyone!
Today we flew from McGrath to Takotna. Takotna is another Athabaskan village, and a very quaint one at that. I've always read about the camaraderie, or friendliness, of the village people here. The children are very actively involved in making the mushers stay as comfortable as possible. The older students were in charge of the "Internet Café." They are trying to raise money to enable the older students to go on a trip somewhere, perhaps to Anchorage. One of the teachers said that Anchorage may be getting a water park and she thought they would love that. At another school the students were raising money to pay for transportation so their sports teams could travel and play against other villages.
This is the view from the town of Takotna
The mushers go to the community center in Takotna to eat, and they sleep in the library.
This is the inside of the community center
The mushers are greeted with this huge welcome at the community center.
Hay for the dogs is stored here
I went down to the school and it was beautiful. There are less than twenty students in their school from kindergarten to high school. That's as many as we have in one class! I met some of the kids and they were very friendly too.
While walking into town I ran into Al's dog handlers. I asked how he was doing and they said very well, and that both he and his dogs are very strong. They also explained that he had one heck of time going through the Dalzell Gorge (I sent pictures of the gorge a couple of days ago). I guess Al rolled his sled in the gorge and lost his team briefly. Thank goodness that they stopped when he said whoa. His sled hit a tree and was damaged pretty badly. Here are some pictures of it that I took here in Takotna. He left it here and picked up his other sled. I need to be fair and tell you that many of the mushers roll their sleds in the gorge. It is a very fast and scary stretch of the trail. One musher rolled his 10 times!
Can you see the wire and clamps holding the sled together?
Here Al used a big branch to brace where the wood had cracked in half.
Al's crew with the Garth Elsdon, center, a rookie musher.
Al is okay and running strong. He still has 16 dogs too. He tore his pants pretty badly though. I wonder how Nikki, our beanie baby husky, did in the sled?
I ran into a musher when I was heading into the community center. She asked me where I was from I told her Vermont. She said that she had lived in Vermont too. When I asked her where in Vermont, she said Norwich! I couldn't believe it! A musher from our very own town!
Melanie Gould lived in Norwich, Vermont too.
Another musher I had not yet seen along the trail was Nikolai Ettyne. He is from the Arctic region of Russia and runs all Siberian huskies. They are the most beautiful dogs! Look at his parka and mukluks.
Nikolai Ettyne makes a meal for his dogs
Ettyne feeding his dogs
Two of his Siberian huskies.
These dogs are just beautiful
So tired he could not stay awake
Ettyne's mukluks were beautiful
The Siberians get a vet check
The children love petting the dogs
Garth Elsdon showed me his team. He has some very young dogs. Most mushers run dogs at the age of two on up. He has some dogs that are from one to eight years old.
Beretta posed for the camera
Garth was on his 24-hour layover so he was pretty relaxed and enjoying the sunshine and a puff on his pipe
I have found that many of the mushers are quite relaxed on their 24's and it is a great opportunity to get to know them.
I really enjoyed Nikolai. Tonight we are heading to Ruby. This is supposed to be a very friendly village also. I'll talk to you as soon as I can!
Mrs. Holmes
McGrath, - Friday, March 08, 2002 at 16:09:18 (EST)
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Mrs. Holmes
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Webspace for Mrs. Holmes Iditarod 2002 project was provided courtesy of
ValleyNet of Norwich, Vermont.
