Daily Journal

2001 Iditarod Started ~~ Saturday March 3 ~~ 10:00 a.m. Anchorage
2001 Iditarod Ended ~~ Monday March 19 ~~ 10:53:16 a.m. Nome
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Pictures of the Day
Day 16 part 2
3/17/2001

Location: Winchester, MA!

Time: 1:30 PM

Hello from my home!  I arrived back here Friday night, and now I will attempt to catch you up on the rest of the events as I saw them, on Wednesday, March 14th.  So, this is part 2, of Day 16.

As I told you in the first part of my journal entry, Doug Swingley arrived early Wednesday morning.  It was so exciting!  After that, we had to wait for about 8 hours to greet the second place winner, Linwood Fiedler.  We spent the day anxiously waiting for him, and doing some shopping.

Linwood arrived at about 3 PM, with 10 dogs.  It’s so thrilling to look down Front St. and see the musher running along with his dogs, all having completed “The Last Great Race.”

While Linwood talked to the media and accepted the second place prize of $55,000, his dogs patiently waited under the arch.  Once the lead dog passes under the arch, the team wins.  I took a photo of a Native boy standing next to me, as we watched. 

Linwood and his team not only came in second place, but they also won the first team to the Yukon award, back in Anvik. This is a gourmet meal, consisting of many courses, all cooked on a camp stove. The meal is served on fancy china with crystal glasses and beautiful fresh flowers.  What a treat, in the middle of nowhere! 

The first to the Yukon Award also included $3500 in $1.00 bills.   Linwood surprised the townspeople of Anvik by sharing the meal with them.  Furthermore, he announced that he was giving $2,000 of the prize money to the four villages on the Yukon, so that they could buy new books for their classrooms.  What a guy!

After a team comes in, the dogs are taken to the "dog lot", to be given their final check by the vets.  I went over there to look at Doug’s and Linwood’s team.  Only Doug’s lead dogs, Peppy and Stormy, were still there. I got a picture of one of them.  I think it’s Stormy. The rest of his team had already left for the airport, to be flown back to Anchorage.  These two were staying to attend the musher’s award banquet, on Sunday night!  I wish I could be there, but if I had stayed for it, I would have had to miss even more days of school!  The other dog picture is one of Linwood’s team, but I forgot to write down its name.

The next musher was not expected for about 3 hours,  so I arranged to go over to the Nome Elementary School with a second grade teacher I met.  Since Nome is so much larger than the villages along the trail, it has two schools.  One is grades K to 6, and the other is 7 to 12.  There are even three second grades, just like us! We walked all around the school, but Miss Carlson was only able to show me the inside of her classroom, because the others were locked.  I took a picture of a pretty mural in the hall, which I included here, and I also took pictures of some of the children’s artwork, which I will share with you when I see you, soon!

At around 6 PM, the siren blew, and you can see that Jeff King was soon approaching the burled arch in Nome to receive the $47,000 third prize!  Look at the beautiful pink coat on one of his dogs. Jeff posed for pictures, and then gave his parka to his daughter Ellen, while he waved to the excited crowd.  She decided it was easier to put it on than to hold it!  She told me that some day she would be running the Iditarod, and her plan was to beat her dad!  I was able to get my picture taken with him.  I was very excited!

That was the end of my last full day on the Iditarod Trail, since my plane back to Anchorage was leaving at 11:30 AM the next day.


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