Musher plans for '06

GENE JANSEN/For the Frontiersman

BIG LAKE - Taking time off from running the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will be no vacation for Valley kennel operator Lynda Plettner. The 55-year-old Big Lake resident was all set to compete in the 2005 Iditarod until about a month ago, when she had to throw in the towel.

"I need to take a year off to regroup and make some money," Plettner said Thursday before heading to Anchorage for the mushers banquet Thursday. "I'm only taking a year off to run my business."

Plettner, who won the Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award and the Most Improved Musher Award in the same year, 2002, has competed in 11 Iditarods, including the last five in a row.

After spending the last year recuperating from a divorce, Plettner is putting on the skids so she can prepare for a summer season of tourists wanting a true Alaskan experience. But her ascent in the tourism business did not occur overnight.

Her Lazy Mountain roots did not offer the true Alaskan entrepreneurial spirit she wanted to pursue. She lived on a magnificent plateau overlooking the Talkeetna Mountains, but tour buses and paying visitors were unlikely to drive up the side of Lazy Mountain to take a scenic ride in a dog sled.

In 1993, she decided to test the tourism waters by hauling her dogs over to the Iditarod Headquarters to run daily dog sled tours between May and September. It went over well enough for her to plunge into the tourism industry, so she could launch her dog sleds from a new home and take paying customers on two-mile tours all year long. So Plettner bought a 20-acre Big Lake parcel in 1995 to take advantage of the convenience a Parks Highway access point might bring.

"All the other things I do, I do so I can run the Iditarod," she said. "I need to make more money so I can have fun. I'm on the cusp of that with my business."

Finding help to run a kennel is foremost in Plettner's mind. Lacking healthy sponsorships top-10 mushers find, she has to be resourceful about how to fund a sport she loves. Plettner said she cannot commit to running the Iditarod unless she can afford handlers and kennel operators to run her business while she is away training, competing and most of all, playing.

She trains committed people who are interested in training for the Iditarod. Plettner's "Work to Race" plan is a two-year commitment. Two handlers are currently training under Plettner's tutelage. They are preparing a puppy team to run the big race in 2006.

One of her aspiring apprentices is a 25-year-old New Yorker named Katrina Pawlaczyk and the other is Nina Bringsdal, 21, from Norway. Plettner gives them room and board while they spend time learning the mushing trade.

"They're all here because of the dogs," Plettner said.

Plettner also supplements her Big Lake business by managing a full-time assisted living home for the mentally ill and developmentally challenged. By the time her divorce was finalized in 2003, permitting for the home was nullified and she had to close the business. She endured a five-month lag in clients before getting relicensed in March 2004, which partially contributed to her decision not to race.

"No matter how well you have it planned, you can still get surprised," Plettner said. "You just don't know what is going to happen in life. I had to re-establish my client base all over again. It wasn't supposed to be that way."

Plettner has spent the last several months remodeling two of her three rental units and upgrading her four-person bunkhouse to accommodate all her permanent and temporary visitors.

"There are no empty beds on this property," she said. "We have no more foreseeable space."

Many modifications to Plettner's business remain on her plate. She is planning to install a visitor gift shop to sell unique Iditarod-related merchandise, which is scheduled to open on May 15. Plettner also plans to unveil a new tour sled she is having customized for the opening.

"Tourists don't fit in my sled anymore and they are coming by the busload," she said.