Caricatures of the Quest part II

  Day 5 of the Yukon Quest and the race is starting to spread out a bit. Just as Hugh Neff left Dawson City after his mandatory 40 hour layover, number 18 and 19 (Rob Cooke and Matt Failor) were coming into town ready for a long rest. There are four other mushers still on their way to Dawson City. An airplane has gone out to take a look at where they all are on the trail and make sure they are doing okay. Snowmobiles are on hand if someone needs help in the middle of the bush. The hope is that they will all make it to Dawson by tomorrow (Friday) morning. Meanwhile, Hugh Neff is well on his way to redeeming his prize of four onces of gold. As the first into Dawson City, he needs to finish the race to Fairbanks before he is given the $6,700 bonus. Hugh left at 5 am this morning (thursday) and is supposed to arrive in Eagle around midnight. Now for some more caricatures:

Jake Berkowitz- Twenty-six year-old Jake Berkowitz has been running dogs for eight years and is steadily rising to the top. He is originally from Michigan, but now lives in Big Lake, Alaska. His 3 month pregnant wife, Robyn, is following him along on the Quest. He is a veteran musher and this year he brought two teams with him to the Quest. He hired a guy named Markus Ingebretsen from Norway to run his "B" team. After the Quest, he is going to combine the best sled dogs from both teams to put together a super team for the Iditarod in March. He is currently within the top three mushers and has high hopes for a successful race. Unfortunately, this afternoon, one of his dogs, General, was taken from Dawson City to Whitehorse by Vet-Ambulance and died on the way.



Markus taking a rest while warming by the fire.

Markus Ingebretsen- An adventurer with an enthusiastic spirit, Markus Ingebretsen sounds a lot like my friend Rachel R. This rookie musher (one year of mushing) has been impressing his boss, Jake Berkowitz, since August when they first met. Markus just returned from an attempt to sail around the world when he applied to the dog mushing job Berkowitz posted on the internet. Markus was planning on doing a long expedition along the Northwest Passage using skis and a dog, but due to the Quest, those plans have been delayed until next year. I hope he can keep up his amazing rookie performance once he meets the tough climbs of the second half of the race. Markus is currently in 6th place.  



Lance Mackey- "Lance Mackay is one of the most decorated mushers in Quest history" (Whitehorse Star). He won his rookie Quest race in 2005 and then went on to win three more in succession. (2006, 2007, 2008). He also became the first musher to win both the Yukon Quest and Alaskan Iditarod in the same year and then did that again a second year (2007-8)! He appears a true outdoorsman- fierce husky eyes, weathered skin and face, not to mention his missing finger and large scar on the side of his neck. He is missing his index finger on his (left?) hand due to frostbite (or so the rumour goes) and his neck scar is from a battle with cancer- one he says was much harder to fight than any dogsledding race. Check out his livestrong video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4itoaTozjg
Last year, Lance had a mostly female team and apparently many of his dogs went into heat during the race and so he had to drop them and ended up only in third. He was striving to get back into the winners circle this year by recreating his team with only male dogs. However, his race started rough when a number of his dogs weren't eating and he had to drop (leave them at a checkpoint) four, disadvantaging him greatly in the race to Dawson City. Today, after a difficult trek with only seven dogs to Dawson City, he scratched himself from the race for the health of his dogs.




  Ed Abrahamson and Kelley Griffin have also left the race. Ed left not because of the weakness of his dogs, but admittedly his own weakness. Kelley was doing really well, but had to stop due to the health of some of her dogs.

 Marcel flew to Eagle Alaska today in a little float plane and I'm glad to report he has still been able to text me sporadically. I'm so glad we can communicate. I picked up the newspaper this afternoon and was pleased to see some great photos on the front page and inside as well as some great Quest updates. The Star photographer that was with him has now come back to Whitehorse, and from now on Marcel is reporter/photographer. He seems to have found a rythmn. Here is one of his stories about the perilous trail ahead due to the warm weather and then subsequent snowfall north of Dawson.

http://www.whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/mushers-face-a-historically-perilous-trail/

  I also recently realized that if you like Yukon Quest Official Site (2013) on Facebook, you will get the updates in your newsfeed as well as some of the photo albums of checkpoints and race action. It's pretty cool.