At almost 3am this morning, Rookie Ellen Halverson became Iditarod 35’s Red Lantern winner. She was the last of 58 mushers to finish this year’s Iditarod sled dog race, when she passed under the burled arch the widow’s lantern, which had been burning since the beginning of the race, was extinguished.

With arguably the toughest trail in Iditarod history, and 23 scratched mushers, in 16 days, 11 hours and 56 minutes, Ellen can still be extremely proud just to have finished this grueling race. Halverson, who is 46 and a native of North Dakota started mushing nearly 15 years ago and moved to Alaska in 1998. She was the last one to finish this years race, and only 14 minutes behind Donald Smidt from Wisconsin.

Brooks Disqualified

There has been a cloud of controversy surrounding the Iditarod this year because of the disqualification and investigation of musher Ramy Brooks. Things got bad for Brooks as he was on the Bering Sea coast, on his way to the final checkpoint of Safety, it was there that one of Brook’s dogs died. Heartbroken, Ramy continued onto Safety and told the checker there that he would like to scratch from the race. The checker tried to get a hold of the Race Marshall in Nome but was unable to do so, vets checked out Brooks’ dogs and advised that he continue the last 22 miles into Nome. Once Brooks arrived in Nome he was not checked in until an investigation could be done on the death of his dog, the process that one would normally go through at the checkpoint. About 6 hours later he was checked into Nome in 15th place, instead of 12th.

It wasn’t long after that when rumors started flying about allegations made against Brooks stating that as he was passing though the village of Golovin, he “spanked” two of his dogs that refused to continue on the trail, it was reported that he used a thin piece of wood, used as a trail marker to hit his dogs. This action was seen by a teacher in the village and some students. The students went home, told their parents, and a parent notified race officials. Brooks was disqualified from Iditarod 35 on the evening of March 17th, a few hours after Nome’s “Meet the Mushers” gathering, where I noticed a obviously troubled Brooks. A panel of 3 investigators had been meeting, and unanimously agreed to disqualify Ramy Brooks from the 2007 Iditarod.

Since that time, it has been reported in the media that the extent of Brooks’ abuse to his dogs in Golovin was more than originally confirmed. The teacher is claiming that Brooks punched and kicked each of his dogs when the team stopped outside of the village. Another accusation is that Brooks’ mother – Roxy Wright, a famed musher assisted Brooks’ by standing on the back of his sled while he was trying to get his dogs to continue. This violates another Iditarod rule about the type of help you can get while out on the trail.

Race Marshall Mark Nordman has said that a investigation will continue looking into these events, and right now it is just the word of one person against another. The result of an inquest could be a permanent ban from the Iditarod for Brooks. Ramy has accepted is disqualification from this year’s race and does not dispute the original story but has not made a comment on the details that came out later. The investigation into Brook’s dog death coming into Safety suggest that the two incidents are not related.

GB Jones’ Dog Found

You may remember a while back we reported that GB Jones decided to scratch from the Iditarod after one of his dogs got loose and was lost. Jones chose to scratch so he could find his dog Aafes. After 11 days in the Alaskan Wilderness, two volunteers found the dog near the checkpoint of Rohn. According to Jones’ website Aafes was airlifted out of the Alaska range and was given a physical health exam by the Bering Sea Animal Clinic in Anchorage and is reported to be in relatively good health. Jones’ also adds that Aafes is been doing lots of sleeping and eating since, and when found she was still wearing her blue dog coat, her harness, a bandanna and green Iditarod tag.

Posted by admin on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 2:29 pm.