Forget Torino, focus on Nome AK

The Winter Games Have Only Just Begun
by Greg Asimakoupoulos

The Torino Olympics may be history, but the excitement of winter sports competition is not limited to the Italian Alps. This month marks the 34th running of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Upwards of seventy mushers and their dog teams will participate in the “Last Great Race” that commences in Anchorage and culminates in Nome.

For the past two decades Wendy and I have followed this unusual arctic event with keen interest. Ever since our family spent six weeks in Nome in 1987 working at the Covenant’s missionary radio station, we’ve been Iditarodians. Three years ago while researching the history of Covenant missions in Alaska and KICY unique ministry, I experienced a dream come true. I was able to witness the Iditarod in person.

At two o’clock in the morning on March 13, 2003, I joined a thousand enthusiastic fans on Front Street to watch Robert Sorlie, a forty-five year old fireman from Norway, drive his team of dogs to victory. With sub-zero temperatures and a brisk wind off the Bering Sea, I can honestly say (even with long underwear, layers or clothing and a heavy down coat) I have never been so cold in all my life.

Of the sixty-four competitors who had begun the “Last Great Race” nine days earlier, Robert Sorlie was the first to glide beneath that famous burl arch that marks the Iditarod’s finish line. With eight of the sixteen dogs with which he had begun the thousand mile trek, a virtual no-name became was the first Scandinavian ever to win the Iditarod.

Sorlie was not however the first Scandinavian to travel in and around the coastline of the Bering Sea with hopes of breaking new ground. A Covenant missionary from Sweden by the name of Axel Karlson traveled by dog team blazing his own trail more than a century before. For Karlson the reward he sought was not a check for $68,000 and a new Dodge pickup. The thirty-something missionary would be satisfied with nothing less than the joy of leading the indigenous people of Alaska into a relationship with their Creator.

It was Axel Karlson who would penetrate the permafrost of Western Alaska and the frozen hearts of Alaskan natives with the news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. This nineteenth century dog musher is credited with beginning our denomination’s mission in the North. For this young Swede, it was an urgent mission to save lives from an epidemic of sin and death for which there was only one known cure. Curiously, that urgency was illustrated fifteen years after Karlson’s death through a sled dog race in the very region where he’d lived and ministered.

On January 21, 1925, the lives of countless children in Nome were at stake. An epidemic of diphtheria had broken out. Tragically, the gold rush city did not have a sufficient amount of antitoxin. Dr. Curtis Welch telegraphed Fairbanks, Anchorage, Seward and Juneau, asking for help. 300,000 units of the serum were located at a hospital in Anchorage. It was the only serum in the entire state.

The problem was to get it to Nome in the shortest time possible. With the Bering Sea frozen and no railroad or roads extending to Nome’s remote location, dog teams were the only solution. The 300,000 units were packed in an insulated container and transported to Nenana on an overnight train.

Once the serum arrived a 674 mile relay race by dogteam awaited. It was a distance mushers who delivered the mail normally covered in a month. The first musher took the insulated cylinder of serum 52 miles where he passed the lifesaving baton to the second musher who traveled 31 miles. From musher to musher the relay continued until a total of twenty sled dog drivers cooperated to get the needed medicine to Nome by February 2nd. In only 127 ½ hours the lifesaving serum arrived due to the cooperative effort of individuals who were willing to do brave the austere Alaskan wilderness, sub-zero temperatures and blinding blizzards to accomplish a goal they alone were in a position to reach.

Isn’t that a remarkable story? No wonder Alaskans celebrate its significance each year. Since 1973 the Iditarod has been held to commemorate that historical lifesaving event in which Dr. Welch saved helpless children. It is also a gripping human drama that parallels how the Covenant mission in Western Alaska continued to persevere toward the goal of bringing a lifesaving message to Eskimos dying without knowledge of a Savior.

If you would like to know more about the Covenant Church’s efforts to evangelize the native arctic peoples of Alaska including the part played by a Christian radio station in the legendary gold rush town, why not read Ptarmigan Telegraph?

You can order this book online from www.covenantbookstore.com.