Despite the blackness, I see a mist hover above the ice in a distance. Is it black out or just an absence of anything to see? There it is, a flick of light and then a short stream skimming the surface of ice. This streamer. Catching one at a time. A faint knowledge of paws turning as graceful as Amanda Gordon’s hands. A bird’s flutter. Pattering paws so far away, they sound of exhalations, a mire whisper in time. When that moving dog-powered sled is mid-ship of me, it is haloed in green Aurora. Remember the mystical.
The ballet I was watching at 5:00 am was Paige Drobny’s as she was slipping quietly away from McGrath. She spent the night with her dogs as she did the three previous nights. The night they were in Ophir it was -55. I know mushers have to barehand a number of their chores. How do they do it?
Biography
Paige Drobny, 45, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and says she moved all over growing up. She graduated from Virginia Tech in 1997 with her B.S. in Biology and from UAF in 2008 with her M.S. in Fisheries Oceanography. Before moving to Fairbanks in 2005 for graduate school, she lived in Colorado and was a fisheries biologist. “I enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. I work as a fishery biologist and help my husband, Cody Strathe, build dogsleds for our company, DogPaddle Designs, during the summer. Our mushing started in 2006 as a way to explore the wilds of Alaska with no plan to ever do any racing. We spent several years camping and traveling with our dogs. In 2010, Cody and I decided to give it a whirl and entered the GinGin 200 together…we had a blast, and suddenly we were on the slippery slope.” Paige has run the Iditarod five times
It’s -36 degrees. I’m not going to linger, the experience will. Back in the cabin, I sit on the mattress in the loft. I set my intention, and start writing this. It’s 75 degrees inside.
The 2021 Iditarod will be over for us by tomorrow afternoon. And the winners will be determined soon. Will I ever see another Iditarod? I hope I’ll remember what it meant to me.
Mountain Peace 