Rescue on the Trail of Ice
Berda Wilson
Chukchi News and Information Service
As my eldest son mushed his dog
team along the trail on the Bering Sea ice, he felt strong and
alive as the warm
life blood pulsed
through his
young veins. Feeling invincible, he harbored no
thought of the impending danger that lay just ahead
on the trail.
Although just 24 years old at the time, this experienced
young dog musher had run his own team since he was
15. The weather was
cold
on this day,
30 below zero, but there was no wind. For mushers
raised on the typically windswept coast of northwestern
Alaska,
it was a fair
day for running
dogs. Despite years of wilderness travel by dog team,
my son did not anticipate
the ordeal he was about to encounter.
He had run his
dogs over this ice trail many times. The ice, favored by both dogmushers
and snowmachiners,
always
made
a nice smooth
trail. Cape
Nome jutted directly out into the Bering Sea’s
Norton Sound in deep water, making it hard to get
around the cape
without going out
onto the
ice to avoid the nearly impassable huge granite
boulders along shore.
Just the night before, my
son had used this same
trail to transport his younger brother to their
camp at Nuuk
some 20 miles east of
Nome. He was
returning alone the following day for more supplies.
On
this early February day, the sun would not be rising until almost 11
a.m. My son peered through
the inky blackness,
barely able to
distinguish
the ghostly shapes of the snow-covered ice hummocks
in the distance. The dogs knew the trail well,
though, and
their
driver was confident
in. their
ability. No sign of danger offered any reason
to fear for their safety this day.
As my son rounded Cape Nome, the horizon
expanded, diffused in a reddish orangy pink glow. The cold
winter sun would
soon be rising
for a brief
few hours. The wind freshened. He felt the
chill on his exposed face,
so he quickly adjusted the wolverine ruff on
his parka to curl closer around
his face. He called the dogs up to hurry them
along.
Every so often my son pushed with his
foot to give the dogs a little help. Something didn’t feel
quite right, though. His foot felt like it
was sinking slightly
with each pump.
Casually, he glanced back
at his trail.
With alarm mounting, he could see water welling
up from his footprints. He was on thin ice!
“
Gee! Gee!” my son yelled at his leaders, commanding
a turn to the right toward the solid shore.
The dogs did turn
sharply, but the
runners
dug in, and the sled carrying the musher
plunged into the icy waters, dragging the back four dogs with
it.
My son tried desperately to crawl up onto the
thin ice, but it kept breaking under him. Panic
hit.
He lunged and
thrashed with
his young
dogs in the
freezing water, as the other dogs looked
on helplessly. Cold and shock numbed his body
and
slowed his
movements. He was becoming
increasingly weaker. Despite all his frantic
effort, my son managed to calm himself.
He tried to think rationally.
“
If I can throw myself up on the ice, maybe it won’t break,” he
thought.
His strength almost gone, my son
heaved himself up on the thin ice and began rolling toward
shore. When
he thought
it was safe,
he stood
up, only
to break through again!
“
Please, please, let someone help me,” he pleaded silently. “I
don’t want to die.” Somehow my
son managed to get back up onto the treacherous
ice again, and
he continued
rolling
toward
the shore ice
once again.
As he rolled, he spotted a lone
snowmachine bobbing toward him on the shore
ice pulling
a canoe behind
it.
“
Am I dreaming this?” my son thought to himself.
Stinging
tears of joy and hope froze on the young musher’s
face. He recognized his rescuer, the kind and gentle
Herbie Wilkalkia, a fellow
Inupiaq he had known all his young life.
Herbie and his wife Bertha were the only human inhabitants
for miles.
The elderly man had been keeping
watch and listening for the sound of snowmachines
from his home up on the hill about a quarter-mile
away.
Herbie knew the ice had moved out late the
night before, leaving only a thin, unsafe
layer, despite
the frigid
temperatures.
Herbie had readied his canoe and snowmachine
in case misfortunate should strike
some unfortunate
traveler. Incredibly though, Herbie had been
listening for the roar of a snowmachine.
He almost missed
seeing the young
musher and his
silently
moving dog team.
“
I cannot save the dogs without your help,” Herbie told
the musher. “You
must leave the dogs and come with me to change
your clothes.”
The six dogs from the front of the team
stood on the dangerous thin ice as motionless as statues,
as if
they knew
they dare not move.
The four
dogs still in the icy water cried out and
thrashed wildly.
The musher had no choice but to go
with Herbie back to his house to get out of the clothes that
were imprisoning him
in a cocoon
of ice.
They removed
the musher’s frozen parka, leaving
it on the shore. Shivering violently, although
now moving more
freely,
the young musher
climbed into the sled
and they headed for the warm cabin. The
sound of the snowmachine drowned out the
wails
of the four dogs
that had to be left
behind to the mercy
of the freezing water.
Herbie’s wife
Bertha had prepared hot cocoa, tea, and
coffee as she waited anxiously for the
safe return of her husband and the still
unknown
traveler. With alarm, she recognized my
son and quickly went about helping him
out of his frozen clothes and into some
of Herbie’s.
Still shivering, my son
took massive gulps of hot cocoa. The couple
rapidly rummaged
through their
belongings
and found
a snowsuit
almost large enough
to fit, although the too-small clothes
gave my
son a comical appearance. A pair of Herbie’s
largest mukluks with heavy wool socks,
hand-knit by Bertha,
had to suffice for
footwear
instead of the normal size 13
my son wears.
When Herbie and my son returned
to the team, the front six dogs were still
waiting
calmly,
but only
one of the
dogs in the water
was still
moving.
She was the oldest; the three pups had
died from the cold and shock.
Herbie and
my son used the canoe like an iceboat to reach the dogs and sled. They
had returned
with a rope that was
long enough to
attach to the
sled and pull it to safety with the use
of the snowmachine. Incredibly, after
retrieving his
sled and the remaining
seven dogs, the musher
then continued on to Nome.
Herbie wished
the young musher a safe passage to Nome, politely accepting my
son’s heartfelt thanks.
He then calmly went back to his home
and his waiting wife.
Each man silently
and sadly acknowledged the loss of
the dogs and each accepted
without comment the
danger
they
had both
survived.
Although
Herbie was a true hero, typical of
Iñupiaq Eskimos, he viewed such heroic
deeds
as just another day in his life. Herbie
was not looking for notoriety when
he saved my
son’s life and
the lives of most of his dogs. He only
sought satisfaction of helping
others
who needed his help.
Herbie died quietly
in his sleep a year or so after this
heroic
deed, and his loving wife Bertha
followed a few years later, but they will live
on forever in the hearts and minds
of the young musher and his grateful
family.
My son never used that ice
trail again.![End Article](images/NANALogoEnd.jpg)