Besboro Island Visible From Unalakleet and on the Run to Shaktoolik (Photo: Siri Raitto)

Dallas Seavey has a 15 mile lead over Jessie Holmes and Matt Hall with 164 miles to the burled arch.  Seavey has gone through Koyuk with Jessie and Matt approaching the Norton Bay checkpoint.  Travis Beals is 14 miles behind holding tight to 4th position.  Paige Drobny and Jeff Deeter are 13 miles behind Travis on the bay.  The rest of the top ten Otto, Royer, Kaiser and Porsild are resting in Shaktoolik.

Think about the history of this stretch of the trail.  In the 1925 Serum Run to save the children of Nome, everything went right on the frozen ice between Shaktoolik and Koyuk.  Having run all the way from Nome, Leonard Seppala thought he was going to meet a Serum Runner somewhere on the Yukon River then take the antitoxin and head back to Nome.  But a new plan developed after he left Nome.  He didn’t know that the serum was traveling by means of a relay toward him faster than anticipated.  Henry Ivanoff, carrying the serum from Shaktoolik to Koyuk stopped Seppala just off the shore of Shaktoolik.  It was only by chance that the two teams met on the sea ice.  Had Leonhard Seppala decided to take a shore route rather than cross on the tenuous sea ice, he would have missed the serum. Ivanoff handed the serum off to Seppala who immediately turned to begin the run back toward Nome.

Bryce Mumford is the caboose of this 249 mile long train.  He’s departed Galena heading to Nulato with 12 dogs in harness with tracker showing 24 miles to go.  Joshua Robbins is resting in Nulato.  Jeff Reid is on the trail to Kaltag.  Cathry, Good and Eklund occupy the Kaltag checkpoint.

There’s a mix of rookies and veterans on the portage trail between Kaltag and Unalakleet.  Matts Pettersson, Bailey Vitello and Anna Berington are joined by re-rookies Gabe Dunham and Sean Williams and 1st year rookies Will Rhodes, Anna Hennessy, Calvin Daugherty and Lara Kittelson. 

Somewhere  along the cold Yukon River Jessie Royer shared the challenges of cold on the trail.  Musher needs to wear more clothing to keep warm – more layers create more cumbersome movement.  Mushers use hand and toe-warmers inside mitts and boots.  The cold makes working with the dogs a little more difficult – bare hands compared to gloved hands.  To ensure the safety of the dogs, dog chores take on a new dimension with coats, belly wraps, and fox tails for the male groin area.  Everything is doable, it just takes more time to do everything.

Rookie of the Year hopeful, Josi Thyr, is in Unalakleet along with veteran Jessica Klejka.  The sun is shining with below zero temperatures and colder wind chills.  Aaron Burmeister and Ryan Redington round out the teams in Unalakleet.  Ryan has family ties to Unalakleet, his mother Barb grew up there.  No doubt some of his uncles will come to the checkpoint to see how he’s doing.

Four teams are on the trail to Shaktoolik – Jason Mackey, Matthew Failor, Wally Robinson and Nicolas Petit.  They might have a chance at a top ten position but the teams up in front all look strong.

That accounts for the 33 teams that remain in the competition.  Deke Naatkeboran and Hunter Keefe scratched earlier, bringing the number of scratches up to five.  More information can be found on the Iditarod front page.

Besboro Island pictured above changes shapes as the weather changes due to a phenomena known as Fata Morgana.  It’s a mirage that occurs when rays of light bend when they pass through air layers of different temperatures.  Sometimes the mirage is called a cold weather inversion.  Local residents can predict the weather based on the shape of Besboro.