Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod

by Gary Paulsen ($17.99 paperback, available to order online here or call the store, (505-988-4226)

Review by Judith Hendricks, author of Bread Alone, The Baker's Assistant, Baker's Blues, and more. Call the store to order.

Everyone’s heard of the Iditarod, but most people don’t know much about it, except maybe that it’s a long (about 1,000 miles), cold (minus 50 degrees is not uncommon) dogsled race. I had followed it casually until 1985 when Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Iditarod. Susan Butcher followed her, winning it in 1986, ’87, ‘88, and ’90, and prompting Alaskan women to take up the slogan "Alaska, where men are men and women win the Iditarod." That’s when I began to take more of an interest in dog mushing. But living in Georgia made it difficult to participate in anything requiring snow, so my attention shifted to other pursuits. Then, in 2006, came the invitation to visit a friend in Alaska and attend the ceremonial start of the race in downtown Anchorage. I packed my long underwear and flew to Anchorage on February 28th.

In the small bookstores we visited, I found wonderful books about Alaska and the race, but there was so much to see and do that the books I bought stayed in my suitcase till I arrived back in New Mexico. At home, they found a place in my collection of travel books. Then recently, someone told me about a great book they’d just finished: Winterdance. It was still sitting on the bookshelf, waiting for me. I read it and loved it and learned from it.

There are several stories in this book. The first is a tale of one man’s race. Gary Paulsen was a fascinating guy. He had a rough and tumble childhood (he ran away and joined a carnival at age 14), but this book takes place at a very particular time in his life when he lived with his wife in a cabin in northern Minnesota, eking out a living as a trapper. A friend gave him a few dogs and a sled to use for his hunting, fishing, trappin,g and hauling firewood. And then for transportation. And then, as he says, “for joy.”

The second is a story of survival—physical, mental, and emotional. Many of his experiences both before and during the Iditarod were harrowing—the terrain, the weather, exhaustion, frostbite, dog fights, moose attacks, and his own naïvete and inexperience. But Paulsen is a terrific storyteller and he has that gift some writers have of dragging the reader from heart-stopping suspense to tears to hysterical laughter. The third is a love story, love of the wildness of Alaska, and most importantly, love of his dogs. As he worked with his team of mixed breeds, they became closer. The more they shared, the more he learned about them and from them until Paulsen and the dogs were communicating on a whole other level, especially his lead dog, Cookie. 

It came down to this: after seventeen grueling days on the trail, leaving the last checkpoint with the lights of Nome and the finish line flickering through gusts of snow, Paulsen’s emotion was not elation or even relief. 

He simply wrote, “I didn’t want to go in.”