March 12-2001
The mushers are
just about through Shageluk. The last one (Red lantern)
just made it here today March 12, 2001. His name is Jason Halseth
with nine dogs. We are still doing some interviews and projects
on the Iditarod.
Shageluk Iditarod
Trail Breakers!
Desiree and Krista
interviewed the Shageluk Trail Breakers!
Martin, one Trail
Breaker is interviewed below:
He enjoys breaking
trails. He volunteered because he had nothing to do, he wanted
to see the ghost town of Iditarod. Martin hauls wood for a living.
He said that it was easy to break trails because he was the caboose(last).
It took them 2 days, 6 hours each day. The best part of breaking
trails to Martin is getting to Iditarod. The worst part of breaking
a trail was that the markers were hard to find along the way.
Two people broke down on the way back to Shageluk. Eli Hamilton
and Martin Hamilton's suspension broke eight miles out of Shageluk.
They did not see any animals along the way.
The town of Iditarod
had a lot of caved in houses and a lot of tents.
Martin Hamilton, one
of the Iditarod Trail breakers from Shageluk.
His dad, Rudy Hamilton,
his Uncle, Arnold Hamilton,
and his Grampa, Adolph
Hamilton were from the original trail breaking crew from 1977.
The undercarriage of
this machine broke about 8 miles from Shageluk on the return from
Iditarod.
Glen Howard, one of
the other trail breakers this year had to give him a ride home.
The next day Martin
went out and got this machine with another one and his dad welded
it up.
Miscellaneous
Iditarod Trivia
by Roger, Sophomore
Here's a little something about scratching
from the race. If someone scratches from the race the person has
to arrange their own way home. Once the person signs the scratch
paper they are no longer part of the race. There's a guy who scratched
this morning Pedro Esteban Curuchet from Argentina who can't speak
English and one of the veterans is translating until Pedro and
his dogs gets a ride home.
Last night there was some snowmachines that
came from Iditarod called trail sweepers. They are the clean up
crew cleaning up after the mushers and making sure that everyone
is off the trail.
Well, that's about all for today,
folks! The last 2 mushers are in, as you can see from the official
race statistics but stay tuned! More is yet to come on our web
site! We have interviews of Elders, Pedro Esteban, a great interview
from Jeff King when he passed through a couple days ago and some
other interviews of village volunteers.
And....burning straw....
See you tomorrow for the GREAT IDITASHAGELUK CLEAN UP STORY!