Musher never lost desire to race

WILLOW — Chuck Schaeffer is one of four Native Alaskans who entered the 2015 Iditarod.

Sipping a cup of what he called “cowboy coffee” at his kitchen table near Willow, Schaeffer patiently answered dozens of questions that he most assuredly had been asked many times before. He adjusted the flat-brim cap he always wears, indoors and out.

Snow had been scarce lately and it had hampered training plans for many of the 78 mushers entered in this year’s Iditarod. It had also forced changes in the course.

“The earth’s axis is shifting,” Schaeffer said softly. “That’s why there’s a change in weather patterns.”

Schaeffer, an Inupiaq man, tackled the 1,000-mile sled dog race to Nome for the first time in 24 years this year. In his two previous tries, he failed to finish. In 1985 he was knocked out on a technicality and in 1991 he scratched because of illness.

In the next 20 years Schaeffer did a lot of commercial fishing and carpentry work, but never lost the desire to again compete in “The Last Great Race.”

Now, Schaeffer is 60 years old. If he was ever going to complete the Iditarod he had to get moving.

“This time I’m ready to finish this thing,” he said, prior to the race.

Schaeffer and his wife Tracey, an occupational therapist, have spent 10 years building a team of dogs capable of winning competitive races. They came south from Kotzebue to live and train their dog team near the road system.

It was a matter of economics, Schaeffer said. In Kotzebue, an item as simple as a bag of dog food can be three times as expensive as in the Mat-Su Valley.

Schaeffer’s fellow Native Alaskans in the 2015 race were John Baker, also of Inupiaq heritage, Richie Diehl, an Athabascan man, and Pete Kaiser, who is of Yupik ancestry. Baker is the only Inupiaq to win the Iditarod.

Although Schaeffer said he has “lost most of” his native language, he has continued to embrace many of the customs he learned as a child.

On the trail, Schaeffer’s diet consists of homemade bread, caribou meat, shrimp, Hershey bars, and the much-revered Eskimo ice cream, which consists of wild berries, sugar, caribou fat, and seal oil. The high fat content makes for “great trail food, Schaeffer said.

But seal oil has other uses as well.

“My mom put seal oil in our ears to cure ear problems,” Schaeffer said. “Old Eskimos used it for healing purposes. And it’s also good for dogs.”

Schaeffer said he mixes a teaspoon in each dog’s bucket of food to help keep their fur soft and shiny.

Caring for dogs as best he can, he said, is just an inherent part of mushing.

“To be a musher you have to first love dogs,” he said. “You eat with them, sleep with them, live with them, and you take care of them. They are a part of your family. Without the dogs you have nothing. Mushing is a lifestyle.”

Affording a sled dog race like the Iditarod, for example, is the first big step. The entry fee alone, for the Iditarod, is $3,000. And when a dog team can go through as many as 1,500 booties during the race, the costs add up.

Mushers must also be able to adapt to irregular sleep patterns.

“The daytime sun saps a dog’s energy,” Schaeffer said. “They like to run at night. They see things we can’t see.”

Over time fatigue sets in and mushers fight sleep deprivation and hallucination.

“People out there have sworn they’ve seen women on a beach,” he said. “I once saw ducks fly by in the middle of a snow storm.”

And sometimes, personal habits can make the mushing scene that much more difficult. For Schaeffer, it’s smoking cigarettes.

“It’s my one vice,” he said.

“We spend the first half of our lives trying to kill ourselves and the second half trying to stay alive,” he added.

But no matter what, the dogs are at the center of it all.

“My dogs are amazing creatures,” Schaeffer said. “They are tuned in to me and they communicate with each other. ...If I’m in a bad mood they know it. If we’re having a bad run they know it.”

The Race

While fan favorites like Jeff King and Aliy Zirkle drew flocks of media and autograph seekers, Schaeffer, his wife Tracey, and daughter Bailey pulled up to the start of the 2015 Iditarod in a nondescript pickup pulling their dog trailer. On neither the truck nor the trailer were the shiny sponsorship logos or “frilly” sleds that some mushers had — it was just Schaeffer, his dogs, and a lightweight, carbine fiber sled in the sea of people.

After an 11-mile jaunt around Anchorage for the ceremonial start, Schaeffer prepared himself for the restart in Fairbanks.

“We’ll see what Mother Nature throws at us,” he said.

At the restart, Schaeffer left the gate with 14 dogs, two shy of the maximum allowable. He was one of the few in the race who started with less than 16.

In the early stages, he moved up quickly, settling into a position in the mid-forties.

But by the halfway point troubles had set in. Several of his dogs were stricken with diarrhea, making them susceptible to dehydration. His lead dog, 8-year-old Split, had to be sent home. Two other dogs were dropped, leaving Schaeffer with 11 dogs and hundreds of miles to go.

“The dogs are struggling,” his wife said by phone during the race. “It’s miserably cold.”

When Schaeffer camped beside the trail between checkpoints at Galena and Huslia, it was 50 degrees below zero.

When he continued, his speed slowed to less than four miles an hour. Another dog was dropped. By this time, close to a dozen mushers had scratched.

A severe storm gripped the trail as high winds and near zero visibility forced mushers to take refuge at the Shaktoolik and Unalakleet checkpoints. Schaeffer dropped two more dogs and was down to 8, with 200-plus miles remaining. Rules require that a musher finish the race with a team of at least 6 dogs, and he was worried.

Back on the trail, Schaeffer advanced cautiously, stopping often to rest the dogs. Teams passed him but he resisted the temptation to speed up. Always in his head was that vow he’d made before the race began: “This time I’m ready to finish this thing.”

One by one, the finishers passed under the Burled Arch that marks the trail’s end. Dallas Seavey crossed the finish line Wednesday for his third win. Thursday came and went, and Friday too. More mushers arrived in Nome, but no Schaeffer.

Tracey remained optimistic. “He’s going to make it,” she said, after her husband reached the White Mountain checkpoint. There were 77 miles remaining. He dropped another dog and was down to seven, which “was scary,” Schaeffer said later.

The 22 miles from the last checkpoint at Safety to Nome is often treacherous. Last year, Jeff King was leading when a blizzard knocked him out of the race near the final checkpoint.

But this year, Mother Nature had a change of heart.

The wind died down and the sun shone brightly as the crowd on Front Street in Nome prepared to greet the next finisher on Saturday, March 21. A group of Native Alaskan dancers and drummers broke into a welcoming chant as a sled pulled by seven Huskies chugged toward the finish line. The driver was wearing a flat cap.

Chuck Schaeffer arrived in Nome, exhausted and relieved, after 12 days, 4 hours and 24 minutes. After two failed attempts, he had finished the Iditarod, in 51st place.

The saying must be true — the third time’s the charm.

Ray Gaskin is a journalism instructor at SE Oklahoma State University.