Farthest North Ski Race

Today marked the kickoff of Piuraagiaqta, the spring festival.  There are a number of events all weekend, ranging from a dance, a parade, many different types of races for the whaling crews, free breakfast (provided by our friends at BP.......) and many other events.  Katie will be taking many pictures and entering in an amateur photo contest- so I'm sure we'll post many pictures later.

However, I got my chance to shine today.  The students at Ilisagvik keep asking us if we want to play basketball- for those of you that know me, you know basketball is not my thing.  However, Deb Greene, my cooperating teacher organized a ski race for the festival.  Now we're talking.  I brought my classic skis all the way from Minnesota so I could ski here, and now I had a chance to race!  Deb also successfully convinced both Katie and Jess to borrow skis from the community center and ski as well!

Starting temperature for our race was a balmy 9 degrees, with a windchill of -8.  I waxed up with Rode Green Special (should've used Rode Alaska, but let's be honest, my wax was gone after 200 meters and it's a tundra- not much in the way of hills).  Jess and Katie strapped on their skis and I gave them a 5 minute crash course in cross-country skiing.  I'll be honest, it wasn't my best instruction ever......

After we all showed up, Deb gave the  (un)official "Ready, Set, Go!" as we were all standing in a circle, and off we went.  Apparently, in Barrow skijoring is legal for ski races....  So, I set off in the lead group with Jason and Craig (who was pulled by his husky- that's call skijoring, my blogs shouldn't need a glossary.....)  I hung with them for the first half of the race (partially because I didn't know where I was going- racing on the tundra gives lots of options)  About 2-3 kilometers of flat racing in, we hit the climb.  Well, I guess you could call it a climb.....we gained about 7 meters of elevation up to the rise in the pipeline.  Then, we stopped and turned around.  This is where my competitive spirit got the best of me.  I made the turn and never looked back- mostly because I was worried Craig and his husky would be hot on my tail- especially now that I was double-pole kicking into a headwind.  About 400 meters into the return trip, I chanced a look back- I had built a gap, and now I had to hang on.  I just kept my head down and cranked away checking every 400 meters or so, worried about that dang husky.....  In the end, I hung on to my lead and won the farthest north ski race.  We joked and congratulated at the finish line, then went out to cheer in the remaining competitors.  Jess and Katie finished in the top 10 and were still smiling at the finish line.  All in all everybody had fun and we're looking forward to the rest of the events of the festival to come!

Stay classy,

Peter

oh- pictures of the ski race are soon to come