Lost, found hound — Sterling sled dog loose in Kasilof finds help getting home

Photo courtesy of Ashley Irmen. Pixel the sled dog was on the lam in Kasilof, far from home.

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

A pixel, in digital imaging, is a term referring to a single element of a multicomponent representation.

This definition is still somewhat appropriate to a dog named Pixel, owned by Sterling musher Ashley Irmen. Alone, Pixel is just a shy, 35-pound, cream-colored husky, but when put with her kennelmates, she is a powerful part of Irmen’s sled-dog team.

But there was a glitch — Pixel’s exuberance for exercise caused her to go on the lam for nine days earlier this month, when she slipped out of her harness on a training run. Her adventure led to many ups and downs for Irmen, who wondered if she would get her dog back. But Irmen never lost hope, and her friends — aided by Cohoe Loop-area residents, where the dog was lost — never gave up the search.

“I’ve been amazed at how kind and helpful people have been,” Irmen said.

Pixel, along with another dog, came into Irmen’s life in December 2008. Irmen takes in dogs unwanted or abandoned by others for various reasons. Pixel came from the Fairbanks Animal Shelter and her adoption was facilitated by Carol Klecker and the Second Chance League, a group that works to find homes for the sled dogs that flood the Fairbanks shelter each year.

“She came pretty unsocialized,” Irmen remembered.

“Many of these sled dogs lived previous lives on short chains, with little socialization, and very limited training, and so many develop shy and skittish personality traits,” said Irmen’s friend and one of Pixel’s searchers, Jill Garnet, who also rescues sled dogs.

“Because Ashley fences her dogs and does not chain them all day long, she has worked with Pixel over the years to overcome her shyness. These days Ashley can get her to come to her during feeding and she will come inside the house,” Garnet said. “But, it’s usually on Pixel’s terms.”

The address of a pixel corresponds to its physical coordinates.

For a dog owner, few things are as frightening as their canine companion running away. When the dog is lost away from home, in an area with which it is not familiar, fear can escalate to hysteria for both owner and dog.

Irmen had loaded her dogs and driven to friend Jane Adkins’ house in the Cohoe Loop area, to run her dogs on the extensive winter trail network used by Adkins and other mushers living in those parts. What had been planned to be a day of fun turned into anything but.

“The dogs haven’t been out much this year because I’m in nursing school and working. They’re been spending most of the winter being house dogs, so their energy was pretty high and Pixel just slipped her harness,” Irmen said.

My oh my — Vietnamese rookie musher holds on for T100 3rd-place finish

By Joseph Robertia

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. MyDzung Osmar, wife of Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race founder, Dean Osmar, races her team in the Tustumena 100 on Saturday. Despite having lived most of her life in Vietnam, she has learned the ins and outs of mushing from her husband over the last two winters and finished third in this year’s race.

Redoubt Reporter

Unloading excited sled dogs, harnessing them and preparing her sled and lines, MyDzung (pronounced May-Yoom) Osmar looked a lot like any other musher in this year’s running of the Tustumena 200/100 Sled Dog Race.

But unlike many of the other mushers in this year’s event, who have spent years living in the frozen North and an equal amount of time around their canine companions, it was only within the last two years that MyDzung had seen snow for the first time and first heard of Alaska’s state sport of mushing.
“In Vietnam, the dogs are much different,” she said with a thick Asian accent.
Until she came to Alaska in the summer of 2011, the only dogs she knew had little in common with the perpetually enthusiastic sled dogs. The dogs around her home — in Ninh Hoa, about 400 miles south of Saigon — were much smaller and kept largely as an alarm to warn of anyone or thing that may come to steal ducks or chickens, and the stray dogs in town were not to be approached for fear of being bitten.

“I was scared when I first saw all the sled dogs. There were just so many of them and they were so excited,” she said.

MyDzung was introduced to the dogs by her husband, Dean Osmar, the 1984 Iditarod champion and founder of the Tustumena 200. Grieving following the death of his previous wife in a winter car crash, Osmar began traveling. While on vacation in Vietnam, he met MyDzung and continued a long-distance relationship for several years.

Communicating via the Internet until he could make annual visits to see her between the commercial fishing and mushing seasons, their relationship grew until she finally came to Alaska two years ago and married him.

“I was very cold,” she said, remembering her summer arrival, and it wasn’t long afterward that the seasons changed and the mercury dropped further, making her even colder.

Sorrow of the sport — Dog deaths as difficult to sort out as they are distressing

By Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter

The death of two dogs during this year’s Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race mar what should have been another outstanding year of competition provided by one of the most professional organized and well-run mid-distance race organizations in the state.

The official cause of death for both dogs has been determined by veterinarians to be pulmonary congestion/edema leading to hypoxia. Both mushers have been cleared of any misconduct or abuse.

Any death of a sled dog in a race presents a difficult and dismaying situation. Determining what happened  can be a challenge. Even more challenging is determining whether, how or when a situation could have been noticed and a death prevented.

The death of these dogs, at the very least, should illustrate how temperatures in excess of 40 degrees, combined with shining sun, can be just as dangerous to dogs and require just as much diligence as 40 below with biting wind.

T-200 back on track — Mushing race adapts, surges ahead of past challenges

By Joseph Robertia

Photo courtesy of Tami Murray, T-200 Race Association. The Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race has attracted new sponsors and launched fundraising events, and is back on a firmer financial footing.

Redoubt Reporter

It was roughly a year ago that the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race was in such dire straits financially that organizers wondered if the event could even happen one more year, much less every year into the future.

This year, however, a new corporate sponsor and many upcoming fundraisers have helped the race to hit its stride, like the huskies of a winning team.

“The T-200 purse is back to $25,000, and we can once again have an awards banquet to celebrate the mushers, sponsors and volunteers for the T-200. We can also bring back the T-100, a very popular race with mushers in training,” said Tami Murray, T-200 president and race director.

For the past four years the T-200 has increasingly relied on funds from the Community Revenue Sharing Program, established by the Alaska Legislature to provide funding to municipalities, unincorporated communities and Native villages, in order to host the race. The funds were obtained via the Cohoe community and given to the T-200 as an incorporated nonprofit operating within that community.

Being the only Iditarod-qualifying race on the Kenai Peninsula, and with a nearly 30-year history, several businesses came forward this season to ensure the race would not hit its finish line.

“Last year Apache Alaska became a sponsor of the T-200 and has never looked back,” Murray said, referring to the oil and gas exploration company, which has leased approximately 850,000 acres onshore, in tidal areas and offshore in the Cook Inlet Basin for exploration activities.

John Hendrix, the general manager of Apache Alaska, was raised in Homer, Murray said.

“He didn’t think twice about sponsoring the race,” she said. “He attended the race, went to checkpoints, and even went out on the trail. He just is a big fan.”

Not long after the T-200 concluded in 2012, Hendrix and Lisa Parker, Apache’s government relations manager, approached the T-200 board of directors about a fundraiser.

“They had some ideas on how to celebrate their contractors and help the T-200,” Murray said.

The two proposed a Rainbow Trout Fishing Challenge, which took place on the Kenai River last month. Several of their contractors were invited to the event, and a banquet and auction took place the night before the fishing began, with all proceeds going to the T-200.

“It was amazing,” Murray said. “We now have 10 new sponsors for the race and raised $40,000.”

Fashionable Fido — Photographer takes artistic approach to new Iditarod book

By Joseph Robertia

Photo courtesy of Albert Lewis. Albert Lewis is a fashion photographer by trade and decided to photograph the dogs artistically, rather than in the more typical action shots. Seen here is Butterscotch, one of Colleen Robertia’s sled dogs.

Redoubt Reporter

When it comes to books on the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, there are volumes focusing on the adventure stories of mushers, but there are few publications with the canine athletes as the center of attention, and even fewer focusing on their unique and individual appearances.

“I love dogs and I love photography, so I said to myself, ‘I have to do something with this,’” said Albert Lewis, an Anchorage-based photographer who has spent the summer so far shooting images of sled dogs for his upcoming coffee-table book of photography, “Born to Run — Athletes of the Iditarod.”

The dogs of several Kenai Peninsula mushers are featured in the book, including Anna and Kristy Berington, Paul Gebhardt, Dean Osmar, Colleen Robertia and Mitch Seavey. Roughly 100 dogs’ images from roughly 30 kennels will be selected for the final 208-page book, which goes to print later this month.

Lewis’ background is in fashion photography, and has included more than 20 years serving in various roles, including photographer, art director, creative director and designer for the likes of Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Target and the outdoor equipment titan The North Face.

He is new to the world of four-legged fashion models, but said it was his naivety with The Last Great Race that was the impetus for this project. He moved to Alaska from Lake Tahoe, Calif., about three years ago, but the 2012 Iditarod was the first time he had witnessed the race.

“That’s where it started,” Lewis said. “I wanted to go check it out, to see if they hurt the dogs like so many people assume. My misconception couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Next stop: Nome — Kenai Peninsula mushers tackle Iditarod Trail

By Joseph Robertia

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Kasilof musher Paul Gebhardt takes a training run with a massive team in preparation for the Iditarod. Training with a race team of 12 to 16 dogs is the norm, whereas Gebhardt ran with 26- to 28-dog teams to get them in shape for the race.

Redoubt Reporter

Last year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race stood as an anomaly of sorts. For the first time since 1988 there were no Kenai Peninsula mushers in the top 10, but according to the large contingent of mushers signed up this season, that won’t be the case again.

“There are a lot of good teams coming up, so I’d say the competition from this area will be stronger than ever before,” said Kasilof musher Paul Gebhardt, a 15-time veteran of the Last Great Race who has twice finished as high as second place.

In addition to Gebhardt, other peninsula entrants this year include Anna and Kristy Berington, Bruce Linton and Colleen Robertia, all of Kasilof, as well as Dan Seavey Sr. from Seward and Mitch Seavey from Sterling. Mushers will leave the ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage on Saturday, and hit the trail for real at the restart in Willow on Sunday.

Like 2004 champion Mitch Seavey, who was withdrawn from the Iditarod last year after a knife accidentally closed on his hand and nearly cut off several fingers, Gebhardt also pulled out early, but as a result of dwindling dog numbers.

“Last year I had a hell of a team, but the circumstances were I went home early. But this year I’m planning on being back in the top 10 again and hopefully will win,” he said.

Dynasty of dogs — Three generations of Seaveys take to the trail in this year’s Iditarod

By Joseph Robertia

Photo by Joseph Robertia. Mitch Seavey prepares to leave the starting line of the Tustumena 200 several years ago. Seavey is an annaul Iditarod contender, joined this year by his father, Dan Sr, and Dallas, one of his sons.

Redoubt Reporter

In the world of mushing, few families can claim as many Iditarod accomplishments as the Seavey clan. The now 74-year-old Dan Seavey Sr., of Seward, helped organize the first Iditarod back in 1973. He ran the race in its inaugural and second years, took a hiatus, returned in 1997 and 2001, and is back again for the 2012 race.

His son, Mitch, of Sterling, won the Iditarod in 2004 and has also earned nine top-10 finishes out of 18 attempts at the race. Mitch’s son, Dallas, formerly of Sterling, has run the Iditarod five times, placing in the top 10 the last three years, including a career-best fourth-place finish in the 2011 Last Great Race, which came just weeks after Dallas won the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.

Mitch’s other sons, Tyrell and Danny, have also both completed the Iditarod, as well as his daughter-in-law, Jen, who is Dallas’ wife. Mitch’s youngest son, Conway, ran the Jr. Iditarod in 2011, won the Jr. T in January, and has been cited on several occasions as stating he intends to run the Iditarod when he turns 18.

“We joke about it all the time. We wonder how different things would be if instead of getting those first sled dogs I’d gotten into stamp collecting,” Dan Seavey said. “But, I didn’t, and sled dogs have just always been a part of us Seaveys. They’ve just always been.”

As the 2012 Iditarod takes shape, three Seaveys will again take to the runners: Dan, Mitch and Dallas. The younger members of the Seavey clan will be racing to win, while Dan will be running to commemorate. After years of serving on the boards of directors for both the Iditarod Trail Committee and the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance, he has returned to the runners this season to emphasize the centennial anniversary of the Iditarod National Historic Trail.

“Not since 2001, when Mitch, Danny and I ran it, have three generations of Seaveys been out there, so that is very meaningful to me. But I’m also being sponsored by the Iditarod National Historic Trail Alliance to highlight and educate people about the four decades of the Iditarod race and 100 years of the trail,” he said.

He’ll be educating villagers along the way about the important role their communities have played in the history of the race and trail. That will hamper any attempt at keeping a race pace, but Dan said he doesn’t intend to lollygag.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity, so I intend to do as good a job as I can, and I have no doubts I’ll make it to Nome. I feel better now than I did in ’97. I’ve been blessed with good health, so it’s not like I’ll have a whip sled of pills behind me, and while I haven’t raced in a while, I’ve mushed recreationally every year. I’m always out there, so it’s not like I’ve forgotten what end of the dog the harness goes on or anything,” Dan said.

“There’ve been a lot of advancements over the years, though. In ’97 I was a week faster than my first race, but I placed 30 positions further back, and I’m expecting more of the same this year. My only goal is to make it by the banquet because I don’t like cold food,” he said.

Sprint to the finish — Smyth passes King for T200 victory

By Joseph Robertia

Photos by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Led by a 4-year-old female dog named Jane, Cim Smyth, of Big Lake, crosses the finish line Sunday afternoon to win the Tustmena 200 Sled Dog Race for the third time. Smyth also won in 2004 and 2009. Below, a frosty-faced Smyth was all smiles at the finish line.

Redoubt Reporter

If Big Lake musher Cim Smyth was an animal, he would undeniably be cheetah, as Jeff King found out the hard way after leading more than half the 2012 Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race only to be brought down like an antelope just miles from the finish line.

“I had an eight-minute lead over him leaving Homer and I thought it might not be enough,” King said at the finish line Sunday, crossing it seven minutes later than first-place finisher Smyth. “Both Smyths are known to be hard finishers. (Cim’s brother, Ramey, won the T200 in 1998, 1999 and 2002.) They’re remarkable.”

Smyth — Cim, that is — is no stranger to being in the T200 winner’s circle, having won the race twice before this year, in 2004 and 2009. Smyth also is no stranger to coming on strong at the end of a race, as he is a four-time recipient of the Iditarod’s award for having the fastest time from Safety to Nome.

Piccolo finishes with a flourish — 2012 T200 Red Lantern winner stays dogged on the trail

By Joseph Robertia

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Bill Piccolo, of Kasilof, leaves the starting chute of the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race on Saturday.

Redoubt Reporter

At the front of the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race there was a battle to win, while at the back of the pack, there was another type of struggle going on — one to persevere.

“It was long and cold, and I crashed a few times, but I just never let it be an option to stop,” said Bill Piccolo, who finished in 11th place to claim the Red Lantern award for being the last musher to cross the finish line.

Piccolo originally hails from Connecticut, but came to Alaska in 2009 for a summer job. As with many before him, the Last Frontier grabbed a hold of Piccolo and he hasn’t left since. He’s spent the last few summers working in Wrangell St. Elias National Park, and the past few winters working for various mushers to learn about the mushing lifestyle.

This winter he signed on to be a handler for Kasilof musher Bruce Linton, which afforded Piccolo the experience of being on a sled, rather than just doing dog-yard chores. Piccolo also got two races out of the deal, the first being the Sheep Mountain 150 in December 2011, an arduous race but not nearly as tough as the T200.

“When I went to the Sheep, everyone kept telling me, ‘Have fun,’ but I was really nervous the whole time. I had only been on a sled for about two weeks so I was just focused on all the things that could go wrong — would I lose the sled, would I hurt dogs? Just so many things were going through my mind,” he said.

Despite his inexperience and trepidation, Piccolo made it through to finish 43rd out of 45 mushers. It left him with mixed feelings, so he wanted to try another race to see if mushing was something he should stick with, or if he should move on to the next page of his life elsewhere.

Trials of the trail — Mushers will tackle new T200 route

By Joseph Robertia

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. A lone dog team trains in the Caribou Hills recently, but dozens of dog teams will take to the trail this weekend for the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race.

Redoubt Reporter

As the 28th running of the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race prepares to get under way this weekend, it is shaping up to be a race of champions, with five past T200 champs signed up to run. But with the race taking an entirely new trail this year, not even past winners have an experience advantage.

“I think we’re on track for a great race,” said Tami Murray, T200 executive director.

Signed up so far are numerous past victors of the T200, including the defending champion Dee Dee Jonrowe, of Willow, 2005 and 2006 champion Jessica Hendricks, of Two Rivers, 2000, 2001 and 2010 champion Jeff King, of Denali Park, 2004 and 2009 winner Cim Smyth, of Big Lake, and hometown favorite Paul Gebhardt, of Kasilof, who won in 1996 and 1997.

“I’m really happy with the field so far,” Murray said “It’s a really strong field with so many having already won it, but there’s some other really talented mushers signed up, too.”

In addition to all the past T200 champions, there are also several winners of other mid-distance races around the state, including Colleen Robertia, of Kasilof, the 2010 winner of the Gin Gin 200, Dan Kaduce, of Chatanika, who won the Solstice 100 near Fairbanks earlier this season, and Jodi Bailey, of Chatanika, who won the Gin Gin 200 in 2007 and 2008.

“It’s a race we have not done, but have always heard good things about, so we wanted to come down and check it out,” Bailey said.

Living north of Fairbanks, Bailey has been training in temperatures that hovered at minus 40 for months, so she said she is looking forward to the milder weather of the Kenai Peninsula.

“We made the decision to go down long before the cold snap in the Interior, so weather was not really a factor then. Now, it is appealing to be running somewhere that should be a little warmer than our current temps,” Bailey said.

The T200 has the moniker of being “the toughest 200 miles in the state.” Bailey said her team is no stranger to hills but, that being said, she plans on using the T200 as training for a bigger race in March.

T200 volunteers take to the trail

By Joseph Robertia

Photo by Joseph Robertia, Redoubt Reporter. Tustumena 200 race organizers and volunteers meet at Tustumena Elementary School on Monday to go over the roles everyone will play in putting on the event.

Redoubt Reporter

For Kasilof resident James Banks, being a volunteer for the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race seems more like fate than a choice. Growing up in Michigan, dogs were a part of his daily life for as long as he can remember, but these were family pets or bird dogs used for hunting, not the powerful pulling huskies of the north.

“I’ve always had dogs since I was born. When I was four, my parents used to find me outside, sleeping in the doghouse with our St. Bernard,” he said. “But when I got here I knew nothing about mushing or sled dogs.”

Moving to Kasilof, it is tough not to bump into someone who has or had sled dogs, or who doesn’t take part in the T200 in some capacity, as the race annually relies on dozens of volunteers.

“The T200 starts right in Kasilof, not far from where I live, so right away I started hearing about it from locals,” Banks said. “They started telling me about it, and how they volunteer for it. They told me to come to a volunteer meeting to check it out, so I did, but none of them were there.”

Rather than being stood up, Banks figured out on race day when he saw the folks who had told him about the meeting, that some volunteers have been doing it so long they just show up for the event to do the volunteer jobs they always have done.

“They were all there doing something,” he said.

Banks talked with race organizers and found out what he could do to help. His love of dogs drew him to trying to help with the canine athletes, assisting teams as they moved up to the starting chute, and lending a hand however else he could. After seeing that first team blast from the starting line, he knew he was hooked.

“Seeing all those dogs working together and working so hard pulling their musher down the trail. I had never seen anything like it. I had never seen anything so amazing. I knew I wanted to do more,” he said.

That was back in 2006, and Banks has helped every year since, and was recently voted onto the T200 board of directors. He also has started acquiring his own sled dogs and is up to 11. He hopes to run them himself in the T100 next season.

“Now you can’t tear me away from all of this,” he said.

Unhappy New Year from neighbors’ fireworks

By Joseph Robertia

Redoubt Reporter

While many looked to the sky with excitement during New Year’s fireworks celebrations, Sterling resident Phil Hoekman didn’t think the thunderous booms and exploding burst of light in the sky were anything to be happy about.

Hoekman and his wife are sprint mushers, who, until New Year’s Day, maintained a 19-dog kennel. As the calendar flipped to 2012 they found themselves with two dogs less as a result of the end-of-the-year light show.

“In the morning we found one dog dead and one missing,” he said.

Hoekman said the fireworks annually frighten his dogs, but the size and duration of this year’s show was apparently more than they could handle.

“I had neighbors on three out of four sides shooting them off. They lit them off from about 10:30 p.m. to 12:10 a.m. It was an abnormally large show by all of them. It seemed to go on and on,” he said.

Hoekman could tell the dogs were getting shook up, and he said he tried to settle their nerves.

“They were all freaked out,” he said. “Even our little house dog was hiding behind the toilet. Outside, the dogs were all hiding in their houses, which is usually what they do, but Toby — the one who died — was really freaked out. I couldn’t get him to settle down. When I went out in the morning he was dead from what I think was a heart attack.”