IditaProject Forum

Good story Libby, they will probably be friends for life.

From FB:

Sivo Racing Kennel - Joar Leifseth Ulsom

It’s Monday morning. I woke up to a bunch of texts and emails from worried friends and family - wondering why Joar is stopped there on the trail when he just had a pretty long rest.
Do not fear- All is well.

Joar is in a little cabin between Unalakleet and Shaktoolik. There are 10 teams holed up in Shak which usually means a storm/high winds on the coast so he felt resting where it is quieter and out of the wind was wise. We all know Joar loves a good storm and excels in hard conditions- but not with this baby team.

We DO need thoughts, prayers and healing wishes for Emmelou’s recovery.

Emmelou is one of the originals that Joar brought from Norway- she ran many races in lead with Joar, is Jæger’s mom and has become guardian of Henrik.

Since Joar left on trail, she had developed abdominal distention and so I took her to work to ultrasound her abdomen and found ascites and a pretty big tumor. Upon taking her to surgery, that tumor turned out to be wrapping around her gall bladder and infiltrating an entire lobe of her liver. It was removed but that’s not an easy surgery to recover from. So far she has been eating well and in good spirits but…we have a few more days (3 to be exact) until we are feeling out of the woods!

So please send your love to Emmelou.

She is truly a wonderful soul

Thank you to the team at VCA Big Lake for helping me though this surgery - I’m sure it isn’t easy to run anesthesia on a compromised patient when it’s the surgeon’s husband’s dog.

ROFL. I was looking for something else Iditarod-related, and Google helpfully offered this 'roster' of mushers. One of these things is not like the others...

That's hilarious Sar!
I stumbled upon the 'dog of the day' series on Alaska public here is the link. The link to the next dog is the last paragraph of the story & you can just click on the dog's name and it will take you there. Enjoy

https://www.alaskapublic.org/2022/03/14 ... s-to-bark/

OH MY!! https://www.alaskapublic.org/2022/03/16/wind-almost-derailed-brent-sasss-first-iditarod-victory-heres-what-happened/?fbclid=IwAR1Tlus8o4L9xGrYKEX2id5cOlKF8Rlan4VtYZHHINqVVBW5hKnBQGXFbl4

OH MY! is right

WOW! Good for Brent and the dogs. I'm always worrying about the trail WM to Nome especially near the 'blow hole'

Wow, those short little video clips really put you on the scene and show the seriousness of his situation. Sounds like he was lucky that the Insider team was close enough on the trail to orient him - otherwise, who knows where he might have ended up. Sounds rather like what happened to Jeff King a few years back in a similar situation where the wind blew him and his dogs off the trail and forced him to hunker down for pure survival. Did Jeff end up hitting his emergency button and then had to scratch when help arrived - can’t remember? Anyway looks like Brent was treading a thin line between victory and defeat at that point - glad for his positive outcome - he really earned it!

We have many, many, many examples of the courage and perseverance necessary to simply finish the Iditarod in any one year, leaving out placement order. I won't ask anyone here ( yet) to speak from the heart about which musher deserves the Sportsmanship Award, but we all can be thinking about it.
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Sportsmanship Award
This award is voted on by the checkers in the checkpoints as the musher who best epitomizes the spirit of sportsmanship and humanitarianism while competing in the Iditarod. Mushers currently on the Iditarod trail will continue to make their way to Nome.

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Since it is awarded by the checkpoint staff, it isn't limited to behavior towards other racers. It will include all mushers' dealings with all checkpoint staff.