Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
that time as there are Victorian turrets from the Gold Rush. In the best tradition of the
Alaska Bush, where nothing is allowed to go to waste, most of them are still in use, too.
In 1925, twenty mushers running dog sled teams in stages brought the diptheria serum
the 674 miles from Nenana to Nome to stop an epidemic in its tracks. In 1967, in conjunc-
tion with the centennial celebrating the Alaska Purchase of 1867, musher Joe Redington,
Sr., started the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which is why, once again, everyone
knows where Nome is. The burlwood arch, inscribed with the words “The end of the Idit-
arod,” stands to one side of Front Street, ready to see duty as the finish line next March.
The Carrie M. McLain Museum across the street is crammed with memorabilia from
the indigenous Native culture, the gold rush and the Iditarod. An ivory bow drill used by
Native artists is as elaborately scrimshawed as any carved walrus tusk the artist will turn
out. There are copper pocket watches with gold nugget chains. There is a list of the twenty
mushers who carried the diptheria serum 674 miles from Nenana to Nome in 1925—Wild
Bill Shannon, Edgar Nollner, George Nollner, Jackscrew, Leonhard Seppala, Gunnar
Kaasen—and I defy any Alaskan worthy of the name to read that list without a chill going
down their spine. There is an extended exhibit of photographs of gold rush and Native life
taken by amateur dentist and wannabe stampeder Wilfred A. McDaniel, along with his
dental instruments, none of which featured ether, Novocain, or painkiller of any kind. His
Inupiaq portraits are among the finest I've ever seen; those are living, breathing human
beings with a past and a future, and worth the price of the air fare alone.
We stop by the visitor's center to get a map of the roads around Nome. Don't laugh.
There are over 250 miles of road out of Nome, far more than any other remote Alaskan
town I've ever been in. You can drive 72 miles to Teller, an Inupiaq subsistence village,
73 miles to Council, a gold rush ghost town (but you are advised to ford the river only in
company of a local, as you won't know where the holes are), and 85 miles to Kougarok
Mountain, not to mention the four and a half miles to the top of Anvil Mountain, which is
where local photographer Peggy Fagerstrom drives us our first night in town.
Peggy was born in Candle, the start of All-Alaska Sweepstakes dog sled race, back be-
fore there was an Iditarod, and she knows who lives in every house we pass and their fam-
ily going back three generations, and she's related to most of them, too. From Anvil
Mountain you can look down on Anvil Creek, where the Three Lucky Swedes hit it big in
