The Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race starts on Saturday morning from downtown Fairbanks. The race, 550 miles long, is roughly half the distance from what it was pre-pandemic. Gone is the international flavor of the race, with Alaska and The Yukon going their separate ways.
In addition to the 550, there will also be a 300 mile run and an 80 mile youth mush.
Only time will tell if the race can survive without the international aspect of the Whitehorse – Fairbanks cooperation.
I’m not sure which I find odder: The people skating on the river, or the people on the bridge watching the skaters on the river.
Times have certainly changed.
An Alaska Railroad freight train found itself stuck in a snowbank, when the train plowed into avalanche debris that had just previously swept across the tracks along Turnagain Arm. The 3144 foot long train was making the run from Whittier to Anchorage, when it hit the debris around 2am on Tuesday morning, just south of Girdwood.
The impact derailed two locomotives, and partially derailed a third. No crew members were injured during the impasse.
The area is known for its avalanche threat, and conditions on Monday were prime. The Seward Highway, which parallels the railway along Turnagain Arm, was not impacted, since the snow did not make it as far as the roadway.
That engineer was living every kid’s dream, who had a train set up in their basement.
Snow was still being cleared from the Anchorage side of the snow drift as of this writing.
Friday Night Lights on ice:
I recently saw the documentary, Hockeytown. This very raw film, follows two high school hockey teams in Northern Minnesota during the 2019-2020 season. Two rivals on very separate paths: Eveleth is the iconic Iron Range town, home of the U.S Hockey Hall of Fame. Both the town and the hockey team are long past their prime years. Hermantown is on the rise, gaining both population and championships.
All the pressure, pride, excitement and disappointment in playing Minnesota’s state sport at the high school level is laid out bare in this very well done documentary.
Texas has football; Indiana has basketball; Minnesota has hockey.
The forecast calls for another week of mild temperatures across Alaska’s Interior.
