Iditarod is challenging for international mushers

WILLOW — Whatever else it is, by this point in its 42-year history it should be beyond dispute that the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is an international event.

Among the mushers are competitors hailing from Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada, but also less-snowy environs like Australia and Jamaica. Heck, though he’s solidly a Big Lake resident, even four-time champion and Iditarod legend Martin Buser retains his Swiss accent.

But what does it take to be an international musher?

Bib No. 2 in this year’s race and therefore the first musher out of the gate (No. 1 goes to a ceremonial honorary musher) went to Curt Perano, of Otago, New Zealand.

At Sunday’s Willow official restart of the race, Perano said that he’s found a way to make his internationalism work. Dogs that retire off of his Iditarod team go to live in New Zealand, where they pull tourists for a business he runs there.

If dogs are your sport, you kind of have to move to Alaska in some capacity, he said.

“There’s nowhere else in the world that you can run at this level,” he said.

So far in this year’s Iditarod, Perano has been able to stay in the top half of the field of competitors for a good portion of the race.

Newton Marshall, a fan-favorite Jamaican musher, drew bib No. 9 this year. Asked if he has been able to relocate to Alaska, Marshall said, “I wish. But I have to go back to Jamaica because I have a visa.”

A visa allows a person to visit, not to stay permanently.

“I’m up here for the whole winter and back in Jamaica for six months,” he said.

Marshall spoke as he got his dogs ready for this year’s race. So far on the trail he’s had an eventful race, coming to the aid of Anchorage musher Scott Janssen after an injury left the “Mushing Mortician” with a bruised arm and a broken foot in the snowless, treacherous early part of the race.

Marshall, who this year as in past years has been in the back of the pack, said he keeps coming back because mushing is the only sport he’s ever been involved in.

Also, “I’m the only black man doing it right now.”

Traditionally the most well-represented country in the race is Norway. Ray Redington Jr., a member of the storied clan of mushers that includes race founder Joe Redington Sr., said he admires the Norwegians. They seem to bring good ideas to the race.

As he got ready for the restart, last year’s rookie of the year is a Norwegian — Joar Leifseth Ulsom. He sized his team up with short sentences.

“It’s a good team,” he said of his dogs. “Surprisingly good.”

This year, Ulsom has lived up to the promise he showed last year, spending most of the race somewhere in the top 20. Ulsom said that he and his team have both relocated to Alaska. They’ve been residents here for two years.

“I go home for a few weeks in the summer,” he said.

Ulsom has something of a reputation for seeing mushing almost as a math problem.

“The tricky part is to know how long you can run your dogs between rests,” he said.

Run them too long and performance suffers. Gauging that is a big part of what training accomplishes.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.