In the morning, bifore taking off I met Helen Patsi, the Eskimo girl who 19 years ago ( while I was waiting for my brother Armen who was lost for 29 hours in the Norton Sound in the Iditarod 1984 ) wrote me a paper with the most important Inupiat language words. It has been a very significant meeting, she remembered my name and we hugged each other. Now she is married with 4 kids and she is pregnant for the fifth! She asked me if she could have photocopied the original paper written by her that time and keep it as a memory. I gave her one of my postcards inviting her and her family to spend some holidays at our place in Tarvisio - Italy. At 11 am we took off heading to Elim…on our way to Nome.
In my Iditarod 1996 I raced this section of the trail in the dark and only today under a clear sky I can realize the immense beauty of this country. Sea ice, open sea, remote tundra, gorgeous hills, steep bluffs on the sea ice, endless flats, ghost towns, fresh snow, ice snow, glare ice… the entire repertoire ! A perfect workshop for testing the NAPAPIJRI Clothing and the KEFAS Footwear that I am using ( check their products clicking on their logos at the home page of this web site ).
We arrived in Elim after 6 hours of good travel. My friend Paolo Rossi who came all the way from Torino - Italy with his girl friend Cinzia, was there to greet, cheer and hug me.- I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THIS !
4 kids helped me to bed properly my dogs underneath some spruce trees and to find me some warm water for their feed. As to their " collegues " in Koyuk I gave them as a gift some chocolate and my post cards. Megh and Ciors and the other 9 alaskan team mates ate eagerly both the snacks of salmon fish and caribou meat and their regular Eagle Premium soaked dog food. An Eskimo Iupik boy sold me for 10 $ a King Crab just fished..that Gianni and I cooked and ate. Tomorrow morning we'll attend a presentation at the School where we are guest at in a classroom, and then we'll leave for Golovin and White Mountain - NEXT TO LAST village before NOME ). I'd like to remind you that in the 1925 serum run HENRY IVANOFF ( part Eskimo and Russian ) transported the serum just out of Shaktoolik, when his dogs came to a fight. He was reached by the mythical LEONARD SEPPALA ( 48 by that time - my age ) with his dog team of Siberian dogs led by TOGO and SCOTTY. To make a short cut they ventured the 20 miles straight crossing of the Bering Sea between Cape Denbigh and Point Dexter in a non stop run of total 90 miles to Golovin. Nowadays it is impossible to do a short cut like this because of the open waters in the middle of the sea ice. For the purposes of our calculations of the total compared travel times, we will make an average of times and distances done just by my dog team and by the total of the 20 relay mail carriers.
TOGO today is taxidermed and visible at the Iditarod Headquarters in Wassilla and we will honour him too once back in Anchorage.
Big Hugs ARARAD K
