 |
| Victor "Duke" Kotongan |
Victor “Duke” Kotongan was a sled dog musher. Duke grew up around dogs used by his dad to herd reindeer and for transportation. He was a seasonal worker and did not have a steady monetary income; however the land provided him with a lot of what was needed to run dogs. In addition to running the Iditarod, my dad’s dogs were a working dog team. Duke used his dogs to work his trap line.
For rural mushers, running the Iditarod was a 12 month job. Victor did not buy commercial dog food. He caught and dried fish and killed seals and put the meat away for his dogs. Often this is how it was for bush mushers that wanted to run the Iditarod because there was not a lot of year round employment.
In the old days mushers had to know how to treat and care for their dogs. Sled dogs were wormed by feeding them ptarmigan with the feathers and skin still on attached and seal oil. It cleaned the dogs out. In the bush there weren’t stores for medicine, but there was always something from the country that would remedy the problem.
During the long winter months, Victor would build dog sleds in an upstairs bedroom of his home. Puppies would be born in the kitchen because it wasn’t safe for them to be born in 40 below weather. The mom and pups would stay in the house until they could be outside. Other dogs that were let into the house were lead dogs. Two of Victor’s kids, Patrick and Victoria, enjoyed them as playmates when they were growing up.
To train for the Iditarod Victor ran his dogs back and forth from Egavik, where his father had a reindeer herd. Duke or fellow musher, Doug Katchatag, would sometimes run 18 or 20 dogs at a time. It was an impressive sight to see, like the string of dogs was endless, and took a skilled musher to control the dog team. He participated in the Kuskokwim 300; his best placing was 3rd in the 1984 race. Duke was involved in the Norton Sound Sled Dog Club which began putting on the Norton Sound Portage 200 in 1984, which he also ran.
There was a need for a race in the area to give local mushers a chance to qualify for the Iditarod. It was more affordable for locals than the Kusko 300. The Portage 200 became the Portage 250 and this drew bigger names to the race. The Portage 250 was a little longer than a qualifying race for the Iditarod. The popularity of the race grew and the Norton Sound Sled Dog Club became instrumental in the building of the tripod flats cabin.
When Duke ran the Iditarod, his mother Hazel Kotongan, would make fish agutak for him to take on the trail. Judie Kotongan would make caribou or moose patties baked in a crust that could be heated individually. Similarly when someone in a family chose to mush dogs or race in the Iditarod, the whole family pitched in. Family members or friends helped make booties, put away food for the dogs or make cold weather gear.
Without the help of Northern Air Cargo it wouldn’t have been possible for Victor or a lot of local mushers to race the Iditarod. The airline would fly the dogs for free from the bush to Anchorage.
On years that Victor didn’t run the Iditarod he was involved in other aspects of the race. The first year of the southern route, he was gone for weeks with his dogs and traps breaking trail. Duke had a knowledge of sled dogs. Mushers would come and talk to him about a specific dog that he or she was having trouble with. Twenty years ago there were a lot more people mushing dogs. They enjoyed chatting with each other about training schedules and what was being fed to the dogs.
Duke was particular about the breeding of his dogs. He tried to get new bloodlines from other mushers. Joe Redington Jr. was a good friend of his and there was some of the Redington line in his dogs. He was conscious of what traits to look for in a puppy in order for it to grow up to be a good sled dog.
In those earlier years of the Iditarod, families in the villages signed up to have mushers stay in their homes. It didn’t matter if the musher was a rookie or if the musher was a well known veteran in the mushing world, they were always welcomed into the home with a hot meal.
Homes were open to the families of the musher’s as well. If a wife or husband wanted to see the musher on the trail they could come a day or two before the musher was to arrive at the checkpoint and stay with the family.
Some big names stayed in the same neighborhood and kept an eye out for each other. Susan Butcher stayed at Tia and Larry Wilson’s. Rick Swenson stayed at Oscar and Mae Koutchak’s. Dick or Rick Mackey stayed at Elmer and Ruth Kotongan’s. And Don Honea or Joe Runyan stayed at Victor and Judie Kotongan’s. The mushers could see each other from the houses in the neighborhood and always kept one eye open to see who would leave first.
In the beginning of the Iditarod the race was a huge event for the villages. It was like the circus came to town. Locals took the opportunities of musher’s staying with families to wander around visiting. They stopped by to pet the dogs and mushers always took the time to say a few words to someone that came by to check out their team. There was a bond that the people in the villages felt with the runners of the Iditarod. People remember having tea or coffee with big name mushers like Susan Butcher, Dick Mackey, or other “famous” mushers and yet the last ten mushers were treated the same as the first ten mushers.
When the mushers could no longer stay in the homes, the race changed. It took something from the communities located along the Iditarod Trail.
