Wildlife are a common occurrence on the Iditarod trail, and they sometimes have chance encounters with mushers. Most notably was the 2016 incident between wood bison and DeeDee Jonrowe. Now, in this year’s Iditarod, one more musher can say they’ve come across bison along the trail.
During Marcelle Fressineau’s third run of Iditarod, somewhere between Rohn and Nikolai, her dog team stumbled across a few large woodland creatures.
“I saw three bison in the middle of the trail, and I tried to slow down and stop the sled, thinking that they would go away,” Fressineau said. “But they stayed on the trail and I stopped my sled and it was difficult to stop because the dogs were excited. There were two big bison and one small one, and the young one decided to come near the dogs”
Fressineau said she was scared as she did not see any tracks and the bison caught her off guard. So to protect her dogs and herself, Fressineau grabbed the only tool she had.
“So I took my ax and I run to the bigger one, cause I know it’s dangerous to approach the young one and I yell ‘go away, go away’ and they go off into the bushes,” Fressineau said.
The veteran musher from Whitehorse says she has encountered moose on the trail before but not bison. Even though she did not have a firearm with her, Fressineau’s tactics prevented her team and herself from getting injured.
Now Fressineau focuses on getting to the finish line in Nome. According to she left Takotna after finishing her 24-hour layover at around 8:48am today.
Davis Hovey is a news reporter at KNOM - Nome.
Hovey was born and raised in Virginia. He spent most of his childhood in Greene County 20 minutes outside of Charlottesville where University of Virginia is located.
Hovis was drawn in by the opportunity to work for a radio station in a remote, unique place like Nome Alaska. Hovis went to Syracuse University, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Broadcast Digital Journalism.
