Posted in the comments section, from Marlene Moto, a resident of Deering (which was only a 45 minute snow machine ride to Candle).

I was at candle to witness the top 10 mushers in and outta there, king waited in candle just when mackey was coming in, he came in just in time to sign in and take off, I’m sure king heard me yellin “welcome to candle Lance , bye!” (then i yelled)”WAY TO GO LANCE, WAY TO GO”witnessing this outcome MAKES a grown women like me wanna cry. I’m a former vet student from the chucki college at kotzebue (thru university of alaska fairbanks). All the dogs looked lively, seaveys team wanted to keep going while he was feeding them, so did brooks team. Looks like all the dogs are in their best racing SPIRITS themselves. One of the race officials at the candle check point said “my gosh this is a TOTALLY different race than the iditarod, kusko-300, kobuk 440″ or any other races he’s seen so far. The race officials have good ham radio operations for this race, also the locals like the shermans, weinards, fairbanks and kotzebue-buckland-deering people are using vhf radios channel 68 for communicating, in case sno-go problems,Vic Lawyor a pilot and a candle local himself has been busy himself with the planes coming in on the “Candle River”makes shift airport, we even had the last born “candle kid”dickie moto sr.”there (born in the middle 60’s) to witness this historical event. In the end everyone there was making sure the Candle end is having a safe trip there, dog’s first. Vets, Race Officials, and People from all walks of life are having the best welcome for mushers in and otta there,”GOOD LUCK”to the WINNER, and thank you all for mushing in this historical event, MAY GOD RICHLEY BLESS YOU ALL

Posted by admin on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 4:45 pm.