The Iditarod began last week on March 7 while I was coincidentally reading Winterdance, The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulson.  The book kept me up way too late a few nights and only encouraged my mild obsession with the light and sound and great expanses of wilderness in Alaska and Greenland.

I think that my fascination began some years ago with the movie Atanarjuat.  The visuals in that film marked me, and so shortly after, when I heard Gretel Ehrlich talking on NPR about her time in Greenland, I knew I had to read her book, This Cold Heaven, Seven Seasons in Greenland.  Her vivid descriptions truly captivated me, and sealed the deal on my enchantment with large expanses of snow and ice. 

After many years of lying dormant, the allure was rekindled this last summer when I had the fortune of attending a screening at the Walker Art Center of the movie Sikumi by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean.  During the q and a after the film, as Andrew spoke, I had dreams of being more courageous than I am, and asking him if he would, or if he knew someone who could, take me out onto the ice for days…maybe for a hunt, or simply just to visit a special place and experience the magnificence, the wonder and intensity. 

The sounds of the ice, the great expanses that appear to isolate, yet somehow establish an intimacy (if only with ones self), and the light.  Really it is the light that intrigues me the most (at least from here where it is all quite in my head).  Not only the everlasting light of the summer months, but the preciousness of it in the winter ones.  And how the sun and moon reflect upon the whiteness of the ice that becomes no longer white.

These are elements for many daydreams and fantasies, and I do hope that one day I am able to spend some time way up there on the top of our earth.

But the Iditarod is real.  And it is going on now while some men and women risk their lives because they may share some of the same obsessions as me.   And since the first dog I ever fell in love with (when I was 9) was a beautifully gentle and loyal husky malamute mix, I have always had a soft spot for the wolf dog, and that far away race is in my thoughts these days. 

I can’t give you a direct link to a most quietly beautiful video that I found while spending way too much time on line “researching”, but if you take this link, and click on the video (it’s only about a minute long) from 3/9/2009 labeled Paul Gebhardt in Pass, I promise you will be pleased.  

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.