John lives in a coastal village, so they will whale and hunt walrus. There aren’t any roads, so you can’t order dog food. The dogs eat what is available.

Weight gain is all too common in dogs and cats after neutering. The hormone change probably messes up their metabolisms.

Village dogs, really? And, eating what they catch? Now that’s truly interesting pieces of information. I had no idea. There was no website mentioned for Williams, so I couldn’t get a look at his dogs. But on Baker’s site, he has some handsome guys. One of them, Velvet, is solid black with blue eyes! But they all look like they probably have good temperaments.

Anyway, Williams & Baker made it to the top 10, so the “eat what you catch” food works. Maybe we could all learn something from that…

Somehow or another, my female dog bloomed anyway. Ever since being neutered, I can’t keep the weight off of her. I keep reducing her portions but getting nowhere yet. She is now officially nicknamed “pork bellies”.

Mike Jr. is at college down in Oregon, but took a semester off to run in his Dad’s place.

This is all part of the Native Alaskan traditional life, and it is important to the communities to have a presence in the big races. That’s why Mike, John Baker, and Josh Cadzow hustle to get together the cash, and to amass the food necessary to run in these events – to show their communities that there is worth in traditional skills – you don’t have to became ‘white’ to win.

They use ‘village dogs’, not specially bred racing stock, and they eat what you catch – salmon, caribou, beaver, etc. not specially manufactured ‘racing food’. Mike’s team would have been sustained mainly on the extra fatty salmon that are trapped at the inlets at the beginning of the trip to the spawning grounds up river. John’s probably got some muktuk [preserved whale blubber], Josh’s crew probably ate a lot of beaver from fur trapping.

DeeDee makes dog treats for her team with beef tallow and cat food, because cat food has much higher fat and protein content than regular dog food. [Hint – don’t let your dog eat cat food or s/he will balloon, unless s/he is pull a sled for 1000 miles to work it off.]

Mike Jr. did his Daddy proud – a last minute substitution and into the top 10. He has the best Safety to Nome time so far so he may take that prize. He is good. He was in the top 30 his rookie year, top 20 last year, and now top ten. He should, however, finish college before he does this again.

Mike is a Yupik, John Baker is a Inupiaq, and Josh Cadzow is an Athabascan.

And it was pretty exciting with all the changes in the leaders all the way into White Mountain. The final winner could have been any of several people up to that point – every time I checked your site, someone else was up front!

It’s 8:24 EST, and the first six are in Nome. John Baker and Mitch Seavey left Safety virtually at the same time, so 7th is up for grabs.

Michael Williams left shortly after. I just read on his bio that he’s a Yupik Eskimo, and it always comes as a surprise to me to see such very English names attached to such very native faces. 🙂 Great to see him in the top 10, too, along with Baker. Do you know if Williams was a rookie in 2010? If so, he’s come a long way in a year!

And DeeDee Jonrowe seems good for placing in the top ten this year. Love to see some women in the top 10. Jessie just barely made it last year – I really missed her this year and hope finances will work better for her next time. She’s been in the race since I started keeping up with it which hasn’t really been all that long, but still – it seems strange without her.