Nome, Day 5 The First Musher Arrives

When we got up this morning we knew that the winner would be in today, and, over breakfast everyone was saying that it would be around 5 pm.  We had just finished prepping all the stuff for dinner when the word came in that he would be in around three.  In fifteen minutes we got our cold weather gear out and raced over to pick up our security badges.  We got to the chute about 2:45 and had to get people out of the VIP area to make room for the real VIPs (corporate sponsors - Exxon/Mobil, GCI (telephone), Donlin Mining, & Anchorage Chrysler Dodge).

We heard the siren that announces that the musher is coming up onto Front Street from the ice.  Looking down the street you could see that the city road grader was still moving snow up onto the street so the mushers would have a track to run down.

The announcer started telling tales about the first race... it finished at city hall and one of the city workers just walked out onto the street with a box of Jello and spread it on the street to create a finish line.  The first race took 30 days.

Today Mitch Seavey came in in a record time of 8 days 3 hours and 40 minutes.  Here's his arrival.

After the race he promptly went down the line giving his dogs a treat.  Then he had to deal with the awards ceremony and the media interviews. 

They bring out a platform for the winner to sit on with his dogs.  The dogs did not really want to be there, but Mitch held onto them, scratching their ears.  The one on his left just curled up and went to sleep. 

Afterwards, the winner went down to the convention center and had a "press conference" -- it was really more taking questions from the audience.  Fun. 

We walked back to the church and were fixing dinner when #2 came in -- Mitch's son Dallas.  Less than 5 minutes later, the siren went off again and #3 Nick Petit came.  (Both beat the previous record, owned by Dallas.)  We are sitting her at 10:30 waiting for the next musher - one of the Norwegians.  I am sitting next to the teacher on the trail, a gal from Chicago who has been moving along the trail with the mushers.  She flew in to Nome from White Mountain and missed the finish.