Jeff King, Rohn Buser, Paul Gebhard, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, Jake Berkowitz and Cim Smyth are all in Tuluksak, the last checkpoint of the race before the mad dash. After the 4-hour mandatory stop the teams will cross over the Kuskokwim River to put this mighty highway behind them, instead heading overland the last stretch to the finish-line.
From what I gathered at the Musher Meeting on the day before the race, this change of route - forced by poor ice conditions as the river gets closer to its mouth into the Bering Sea - is quite welcomed by the mushers… Most of the mushers at this time having slept less than 5 hours in the past 40 hours, they are happy to get off the wide…meandering.. booooring river!
The name "Kuskokwim" comes of the native Yup'ik word "kusquqviim," which means something like "big slow moving thing"… This river is indeed a broad flat body of water that runs more than 700 miles cutting its way from the interior of Alaska to the west coast where it mouth feeds tremendous amounts of water into the Bering Sea.
The 2nd largest river in Alaska, The Kuskokwim River is the 9th largest river in all of the United States. The river is one of four making up the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest delta areas in the world. An immense landscape of flat marshland dotted with lakes, ponds and sloughs which was once part of the land mass called Beringia have had people living here for thousands of years since they first came across the Bering land Bridge, from what is today known as Chukotka in Russia.
About the size of Oregon, today this remote, still pretty much road-less region is home to about 25000 people, mostly Yupik---and millions of waterfowl. It is one of the world's great waterfowl nesting areas.
This time of the year, its the time of flying sled dogs in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta! A most exciting experience for all of us to explore and re-discover this magnificent ancient region of our planet, the beautiful culture and traditions of people here, and not least: sled dog racing at its best.
Mille Porsild, Racing Beringia
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