Kuskokwim Consortium Library Alaska Room Guide

For the first time, Alaska musher and tribal leader Mike Williams shares his remarkable life story with veteran sports writer Lew Freedman. Williams is a man of many parts, a sports figure, a government figure, a leader of his people, a husband, a father, and a Native man with one foot firmly planted in the twenty-first century and another firmly planted in the roots of a culture that dates back 10,000 years in Alaska. Williams competed in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race fifteen times, and was once the only Yup'ik Eskimo musher, a symbol to all Natives around the state. Although he was never a top contender for the Iditarod title, he was a competitor whom everyone cheered because he resolved that to shed light on one of Alaska's greatest threats to the health and future of its Native people, he would carry in his dog sled pages--pounds worth--of signatures of people who had pledged sobriety. A Yup'ik Eskimo, Williams saw firsthand how alcohol could devastate people as surely as if they had contracted a deadly flu: each of his brothers had succumbed to alcohol-related accidents, incidents, or illnesses. Williams describes how he recovered from his dependence on alcohol through religion, loved ones, and racing dogs. For many years Williams carried those sobriety pledges in his sled, focusing attention on a troubling, seemingly intractable problem. Williams gained national attention, being profiled by CNN, Sports Illustrated, and Good Morning America. Fellow Iditarod competitors have voted him "the most inspirational musher."

Winner of Dog Writer's Association of America Best Book: Rescue or Adoption and Dogwise Best Book Award in 2017. From award-winning writer and photographer Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs is a collection of the funny, fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking stories of the life-changing canine commitment he and his family made. When Robertia and his wife, Cole, first entered the world of dog sledding in Alaska, they had never expected to have their household grow up to forty dogs--"primarily rogues, runts, and rejects from other kennels." But quickly they found their lives inextricably intertwined with each dog they rescued as they learned each one's unique character and personality and how irreplaceable each was for their team and for their family. This book is an invitation to understand the essence of life with forty dogs in its entirety and, through that comprehension, to truly appreciate what Robertia sees every day. Not everyone can sacrifice their spare time, salaries, and sanity to get to know so many characters--from the well-mannered to the wily--but Life with Forty Dogs will reveal the endless adventures and misadventures that come to those like Robertia and his family who have dedicated themselves to their furry companions.

This is the most comprehensive book on mushing to date (1991). Not only will you learn all the fine points of mushing, but you will really enjoy reading this book. Learn everything there is to know on mushing while you share in the excitement with this guide.

A captivating memoir of one woman's attempt to finish the Iditarod, led by her team of spunky huskies with whom she shares a fascinating and inextricable bond. At age forty-seven, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that's where she found herself when, less than 200 miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn't want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after their running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs. Fast into the Night is the gripping story of Moderow's journeys along the Iditarod trail with her team of spunky huskies: Taiga and Su, Piney and Creek, Nacho and Zeppy, Juliet and the headstrong leader, Kanga. The first failed attempt crushed Moderow's confidence, but after reconnecting with her dogs she returned and ventured again to Nome, pushing through injuries,  hallucinations, epic storms, flipped sleds, and clashing personalities, both human and canine. And she prevailed. Part adventure, part love story, part inquiry into the mystery of the connection between humans and dogs, Fast into the Night is an exquisitely written memoir of a woman, her dogs, and what can happen when someone puts herself in that place between daring and doubt--and soldiers on.

A fascinating story told by a first time musher of the Iditarod, with all its history, stories, and trials.

It had been six years since newspaper reporter Brian Patrick O'Donoghue mushed to a last place finish in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Yearning to challenge himself anew, he enters the Yukon Quest, a more brutal 1,000-mile run between Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and Fairbanks, Alaska. With wry humor and diminishing expectations, O'Donoghue shares the trail with Khan, Hobbes, Scrimshaw, Cyclone, and ten other excitable Alaska huskies, plus a diverse collection of rival racers and resident bush rats. The mushers' strategies, dreams and disappointments, the antics of the dogs, and the drama of the race are all part of this punishing personal journey.