Jessica Lemaire and her dog team glided through the rapidly diminishing daylight. Fifteen miles east of Nome, she flew past familiar summer camps now covered in massive snow drifts. A vicious wind rushed inland from the frozen Bering Sea, just a hundred feet away.
She was on the final stretch to Safety, a narrow barrier island famous for hosting the final checkpoint of the Iditarod trail. As she fought through blowing snow and low-visibility, Lemaire trusted her dogs to lead the way.
“We put each other's lives in each other's hands — paws. They trust you to take care of them, feed them, love them, get them out on cool adventures," Lemaire said. "And I trust them that if we get into some sticky situations, there's a decent chance we're gonna make it home.”
Lemaire moved to Nome five years ago and founded the Comstock Kennel with her husband, Tim Lemaire. Her team was one of three that hit the trail earlier this month for a reenactment of the 1925 Serum Run, a legendary effort that has spawned books and movies and is credited with saving the town from diphtheria.
Sarah Richards and Garrick Fuller joined Lemaire on the trail. The serum run’s 100th anniversary had been on their minds for a while. They had hoped to mush the historic 674-mile run from Nenana to Nome, but settled for the simpler and shorter out-and-back to Safety Sound.
It was cold out, but not quite as cold as the night Gunnar Kaasen brought the serum from Safety to Nome. The Norwegian braved negative temperatures and gale-force winds as his dog team, led by Balto, completed the original run.
Lemaire said that 100 years later, the dogs are the common denominator.
“Even though the technology has changed — we have snowmachines — the dogs themselves are doing the exact same thing they did 100 years ago," she said.
The teams settled for the night at Camp Nuuk, a large cabin on a thin spit separating Safety Sound from the Bering Sea. The mushers tied up their lines, illuminated only by their headlamps. They divvied up a bale of straw, melted snow and prepared dinner for their teams.
Inside, Keane Richards lit a wood stove to heat the cabin and dry out clothes.
The next morning, while the dogs ate breakfast, the mushers reflected on Kaasen’s heroic final stretch into town.
“There's these ghosts of these old people and mushers, like dogs of the past that I'll sometimes — when I'm out at night — I'll think about,” Richards said. “Old mushers that have started this whole tradition. It's just an amazing thing to be part of.”
It’s a tradition she tries to pass on when working with children through the local 4-H program and Nome Kennel Club.
“The whole story is about saving the children of Nome, and so for me a big part of this is getting the kids excited about it and bringing some of that history full circle,” Richards said.
Around noon, deafening choruses of barks rang out as the teams left camp one by one.
“Definitely having to step on my drag brake,” Richards said. “They are excited to get back to Nome and to go meet all the kids waiting for them.”
The teams made one final stop to get together for the final stretch into town. As an airplane flew overhead, Richards reflected on the importance dog teams have held for centuries.
“We don't rely on dogs anymore to carry in the mail. I think it's still really important to preserve that history," she said. "It's such a huge part of our culture, and being able to share that with other people, especially with kids, it's really important to me.”
The teams rounded the corner of the seawall, where a crowd of supporters waited.
Richards unwrapped a white box packed with vials and handed them over to a local hospital employee. But unlike Kaasen’s a century ago, this time the vials were glitter-filled snowglobes, made by local students.