“I can get home, but I can’t get home with my dogs. And I won’t leave them.”
Thomas Waerner achieved the pinnacle in sled dog racing, winning the 2020 Iditarod race in Alaska. But while he was competing in the two-week-long race, something was happening around the world.
Alaska reported its first Covid case on March 13, and by the time the race finished five days later, the world had changed.
And because of flight cancellations, especially of cargo planes, and newly tightened rules on international travel, Waerner and his 16 sled dogs couldn’t get home to Norway.
After more than two months stranded in Alaska, Waerner concocted a seemingly preposterous scheme. He had learned of a 1960s-era Douglas DC-6B plane in Alaska that an aviation museum in Norway hoped to acquire but didn’t have the money to transport. By offering to chip in, he and his dogs were able to hitch a ride.
After a 20-hour flight, they landed safely in Sola, Norway, on June 3. Waerner, a licensed pilot, even took the controls for an hour over Greenland. The cabin was unpressurized. “It was really loud,” Waerner said. “And it was pretty cold in the plane.” But the dogs were fine. “As soon as you put them in the box, they fall asleep.”
“Flying nerds and dog nerds — they were actually coming together during this trip, following the plane,” he said. “It was really great fun.”
Waerner, now 52, is still mushing.
Looking back on his triumph in Alaska, he mostly remembers “the power and the spirit in that team.”
“From Kaltag to Unalakleet, they were just crazy,” he said. “Twelve hours of running without breaks. They were just screaming to go every time I tried to stop.”
Sled dogs peak from about age 3 to 8. “You build up a dog from a puppy, 3 weeks old,” Waerner said. “Of course, the strength, physical things. But most important is to get the dog to learn to be on the trail and be strong enough in the head.”
Retirement comes for every athlete, though. “My old superteam are getting retired now,” he said. “They are 9 and 10 years old.” Bark, the team leader in Alaska, is still healthy at nearly 11, Waerner reports. “He is doing really good, but you can see he’s getting older.”
Waerner has not returned to the Iditarod since the 2020 race, but he wants to.
“It has gotten just too expensive to travel with dogs from Norway, but I am still dreaming to get back.
“I am building up a new team,” he said, “so they are a little too young for the race.”
“It’s kind of hard,” he added. “You know you have that superteam. And you want that feeling again, and you know the hard work you have to do to get it.”
Waerner said he would always remember the victory and the extraordinary journey that followed it.
“It’s something you’re going to look back on for the rest of your life,” he said. “Going to Alaska, being so lucky that you’re the champion and then you have that kind of crazy going-home story that was insane, actually.”
“I’m going to die sometime,” he added. “Maybe laying in bed and saying, ‘What did I do in my life?’ I think this is one of the things.”