Aaron Burmeister places second on his 20th Iditarod run
Nome-grown musher Aaron Burmeister had his career best run when he finished the 2021 Iditarod Sled Dog race in second place, albeit on a trail that didn’t end in Nome.
The Iditarod this year, due to COVID-19 considerations, didn’t follow the annual trail that starts in Willow and ends nearly 1,000 miles north in Nome, but went from Deshka Landing near Willow to the ghost town of Iditarod and back.
In an interview with the Nome Nugget, Burmeister said that he had planned to retire from racing the Iditarod with his 20th run of the race, but since it didn’t end in Nome, he will run the race one more year. After Iditarod officials made the call to modify the course and not come to Nome, Burmeister scrapped his plans to retire.
“I told my wife, I said, honey, we got to do it one more time because my last Iditarod has to finish in Nome,” he said. Next year, the Iditarod will have its 50th anniversary and will hopefully end in Nome again.
Regardless of where the finish line this year was, he said he was in it to win. He said he was still training his team at the highest level so that they’re fully capable of winning the race. “We went out and had an incredible race, very disciplined, very patient, knowing what the team was capable of and then turned it on in the last half on the way back and kind of ran out of miles to catch Dallas [Seavey] on the way in,” he said.
Asked about doubling back on the trail that in a normal year presents significant dangers one way and now they had to do it twice, Burmeister said that it didn’t really pose any different challenges. “It didn’t matter where we were going because I was focused on my dog team and getting down the trail ahead of us,” he said. “Was I worried about rough trail conditions in the back of your mind? Yes, you think about them because this year going out, we had 20 miles of bare ground between Rohn and Tin Creek. But then, on the way back it had snowed 10 inches and all the bare ground we went across on the way out, was all covered in snow. So, it was a big relief getting there. But, there was a lot of buffalo milling around the trails.”
He described the infamous Dalzell Gorge. “It’s a scary ride because it’s like a luge. I mean, imagine your wildest adrenaline rush, just think of the wildest amusement ride you’ve ever been on, but instead of lasting two minutes, think of it lasting 45 minutes.”
“This year is the first time we’ve ever done it in reverse,” he said. “It makes you aware of what you do go in the other direction. Some of the places I was looking down an ice bridge and 12 feet down there’s boulders and water rushing by as we’re going over ice bridge. You’re wondering if it’s going to break or not. You don’t see down when you’re going down the Gorge in the other direction. All you’re doing is hanging on and trying to keep your sled up right. On the way back up, you’re going a little bit slower and you have opportunity to look around you and see the crazy country you’re going through.”
Crazy terrain is not the only thing that’s thrown at Iditarod mushers. Wild weather swings are also often in store for the dog drivers and their teams. This year, the race started out in pleasant (for people) temperatures of 20 to 30°F but as soon as the mushers reached McGrath and the Interior, temperatures plummeted to minus 50°F. Key to deal with the cold temperatures, Burmeister said, is to take care of oneself, which then ensures that the musher is able to take care of the dogs. Especially hands, he said, is important to protect and the key is to wear glove liners. “Because if it’s 50 below out and if you simply touch that a brass snap to unsnap a dog collar, it freezes your thumb immediately. Your skin will touch that snap and at 50 below it immediately freezes your skin.”
Taking care of oneself also was a bit more difficult this year as there were no indoor checkpoint facilities that allowed the mushers to dry out or heat up a meal in a microwave. All that was done with the cooker that mushers carry with them. The first thing he does in a checkpoint is to melt enough snow to make four gallons of water. Three gallons of that go to make a meal for the dogs. “And then I’ve usually got a gallon to a gallon and a half of water left in there and warm up a premade bag of people food, either ham and bean soup or moose chili,” Burmeister said. “I carry a spoon in my inside pocket of my jacket and I’ll sit there on the back of my sled, holding the bag and eating a bowl of chili or ham and bean soup right out of a Ziploc bag.”
Asked what the Iditarod lifestyle meant for him, Burmeister explained that the Iditarod is its own culture. “The Iditarod is something that as the daylight is coming back to Alaska each spring, it’s an event that brings the communities alive. That brings the villages alive, gets everybody excited about something. And when I go down the Yukon River and I’m coming up the bank at Anvik and the whole village is standing on the bank, they are coming to watch the dog teams come through and to see the excitement in everybody’s eyes… it’s a celebration for the state of Alaska. It’s a celebration of the history of Alaska, the Gold Rush history, the mining history, the trap line days and all the way from when our mail was being hauled by dog team across the state.”
He said the Iditarod has become a part of Alaska and involves thousands of volunteers to help put this event on. “Those volunteers are the eight-year-old kids in the villages that are helping to rake the straw all the way to the veterinarians that come from Florida and from all over the United States to help be a part of the event.”
Burmeister works as the general manager of Tumet in Nome and dedicates most of his time from November through March to training his sled dog team in Nenana, with the goal to win the Iditarod. His kennel partner and former Nomeite Tony Browning helps him with the roundthe-year task of caring for and training the dog team.
He’ll be back next year, hoping “to bring victory home to Nome.”