Determination shines through

WASILLA -- A love of dogs and racing brought Claire Tallman from France to Alaska more than 20 years ago to buy dogs, and eventually across the Iditarod finish line at Nome.

Tallman was 25 when she left Paris, where she had been born and raised, to live at Fontainebleau, a small village about 40 miles south of the French metropolis. Her new home was close to a large forest where she could pursue her passion, racing sled dogs.

In France?

Once one has accepted the improbability of sled dog racing as a popular sport in Europe, the rest of Tallman's story becomes more plausible, although no less surprising.

The image is compelling: Tall trees dark against the snow, a team of eager Siberian huskies, and a slight young Frenchwoman calling commands to her team as they race through the forest.

Fast forward another 25 years and I am sharing a cup of tea with Tallman at the home overlooking Knik Arm that she now shares with her husband Larry and their daughter Crystal, surrounded by art and retired sled dogs and the beauty of Alaska. This petite, dimpled and seemingly fragile woman made up her mind to train a team of dogs to run the Iditarod, and she has done it four times.

Tallman began her love affair with sled dogs in 1977 when she went with her family to Canada and came home to France with a purebred Siberian Husky as a pet. Another year, another trip, another dog, and then Tallman spent a winter in Alaska with legendary musher and dog breeder Earl Norris and his wife, Natalie, learning about dogs and racing.

Bitten by the bug, she won a couple of sprint races in Europe but soon fell under the icy spell of the Iditarod.

She was the last musher to sign up for the 1985 Iditarod, encouraged by Iditarod founder Joe Redington and her father, Marcel Alezra, that she could finish the race.

"And that's what I did," she says. "The wrong idea is that you are going to go in and beat everyone. You just go in to do your best and finish."

Her best that year was a 37th place out of 40 finishers.

She built up her kennel of Iditarod dogs and returned to Alaska in 1987 with the goal of finishing the race in a better position.

Tallman did that, too, finishing 26th in the teeth of a terrible storm that struck about 60 miles from Nome.

"I was so lucky to be kind of following Herbie Nayokpuk in that race," recalls Tallman. As she tells it, Iditarod Hall of Famer "Cannonball" Nayokpuk knew that Tallman was behind him and waited for her at a particular point on the coast.

When she asked him why he had waited, he told her that there would be a terrific storm, and he feared she would not survive it by herself.

"The storm came, and it was so bad I couldn't even see my leader," she said. She believes that Nayokpuk helped to save her life.

Back in Europe, Tallman began running the Alpirod, a point-to-point sled dog race staged like the Tour de France bicycle race. But she was enthralled by the Iditarod, and by 1990 moved to Alaska where she lived in Willow, building up a kennel of Iditarod dogs.

What is the magic of the Iditarod?

"I cannot explain what it is like," she answers. "It is an adventure, but more than that it is a race where you challenge yourself."

Tallman ran the Iditarod in 1992 and again in 1993, finishing an impressive 13th in both races. Still a French citizen, she then returned to Europe to finish 10th in the 1994 Alpirod and 8th in the final Alpirod in 1995.

In 1996 she married Canadian sprint musher Larry Tallman and they joined their dog families in a combined kennel of 120 dogs at one point. But Tallman knew that if she wanted children, she could wait no longer. Although Tallman retains her French citizenship and her husband his Canadian citizenship, their daughter Crystal was born an American citizen in Alaska. Tallman now takes Crystal twice a year to France to visit her family, and says that Crystal does speak French as well as English, but prefers English.

Tallman tried to train for the 1997 Iditarod, but her life had changed too much. True to form, she decided that if she couldn't do it right, she would retire from mushing and concentrate on being a mother. Her husband retired with her and became the owner of the Animal Food Warehouse. The couple now cares for 13 retired dogs, four of whom are from Tallman's Iditarod teams.

Still fit and beautiful, Tallman leads a quieter life now.

"I am just happy to enjoy my life and my family," she explained. "I have nothing else to prove to myself."

That dog flat out will not run, to put it in terms a veteran musher, even a French one, can comprehend. She may not be racing anymore, but anyone can see that Tallman continues to challenge herself.

She has been a watercolor artist for decades, and the walls of her home are hung with luminous, exquisitely-rendered paintings of wildflowers and plants that would give most artists a deep sense of satisfaction. Tallman, however, is not satisfied.

She brings out her current projects, paintings that include a collage technique exponentially increasing the difficulty of watercolor, a discipline knotty enough by itself. As she describes the problems in perfecting the technique, it is obvious that she will always strive to better her performance in the things she is passionate about.

Although she is now actively involved with her 6-year-old daughter's activities -- volunteering at Crystal's school as well as doing other volunteer work -- she looks forward to a time when she will have more time to focus on art.

"I paint because it's what I want to do," she explains. "You have to keep at it. Painting is up and down, first you are happy and then it is crap, but I love to go through all the levels."