I kind of ended my Yukon Quest series because Josh stopped doing his, and I was waiting for him to catch up, but enough with that, here is part 4!
Previously:
Gert entertained us with dirty jokes the entire way. We pointed out mushers and enjoyed the view. I cheered as we crossed over the thick line in the forest that indicates the U.S./Canada border.
We landed in Dawson safe and sound, and little did we know, the real adventure hadn't even started yet.
The Dawson Airport is probably the tiniest international airport in Canada that still welcomes Boeing aircraft. It has a tiny little building, one airstrip capable of landing Air North's fleet, and one border guard, who didn't seem to care where we'd come from.
We waited for our ride. We were all staying at the same hotel, which was great, It turns out we were literally staying feet away. My hope was that when Josh scurried off to the dog yard he'd wake me up on hs way, but that plan had failed in Eagle. While waiting we chatted with locals who told us they had been waiting on the banks of the Yukon River, and hadn't seen any mushers go by yet. Perfect. We had been worried about missing them coming in.
Sam dealt with customs for all of us. Like I said - it wasn't exactly a secure border crossing. He grabbed Josh and my passport, and handed them to the lady and answered the standard border crossing questions as group leader. Do you have alcohol with you? No. No you have any plants with you? No. And so on.
When our ride came it was decided that it would be best if we took off straight to the checkpoint. We got our driver to take our luggage straight to the room for us, which worked out great, and sprinted to the checkpoint to find - no mushers. Good!
We had a few minutes to regroup and check on the progress of Hans Gatt, who was expected to be first. A few of the GPS trackers had malfunctioned and needed to be reset by this point, so there was still a little mystery as to wether Gatt would infact be the lucky winner of the four or so ounces of gold the first musher into Dawson gets.
I ran hectically around the checkpoint looking for Jason, the other Star reporter who was expected to meet up with me. I finally ran into him and handed off the camera equipment - which I would dearly miss.
About a half an hour into our time in beautiful Dawson City, someone snowmachining down the Yukon River had spotted Gatt, and everyone ran out prematurely only to stand around in the cold to no results. Eventually Gatt did show up. The light had faded and he was in one hell of a bad mood, but I would have been too.
In Dawson the CBC camera crew from Whitehorse had come up to cover it, and they have more nerve than a sore tooth. After Gatt got caught up in overflow, jumble ice and every Yukon Quest-related horror you could imagine, he arrived in Dawson to have a yippy reporter shove a microphone in his face. Josh and I held back, knowing Gatt better by this point. Sure enough, Gatt declined the interview, and CBC managed to ruin the News-Miner and the Whitehorse Star's coverage. Thanks guys.
But the moral of the story here is, that after hanging back, Josh and I both got exclusive interviews the next day. Take that CBC, and Pushy McPusherson reporter.
After Gatt headed off to the dog yard, Josh decided he would run over and try to get the interview he desperately needed to catch his 12 a.m. deadline, and his 6:45 a.m. radio unterview (I did not envy Josh's Quest experience, by any means). Due to a series of unfortunate events, Josh didn't make it there. He'll have to explain those in his own blog, but he returned in a mood much like Gatt's. He was frustrated and under the impression that he had missed Lance Mackey arriving in Dawson. We informed him that Mackey had in fact not arrived yet, and he calmed down considerably, but still stewed in the corner for awhile.
It was around this time that Jason and I decided going to the world-famous Downtown Hotel bar in Dawson was a good idea. Mackey was a minimum of two hours out at this point, and there wasn't much point in us sitting around waiting. Gatt had a 36-hour layover, he was heading for bed and obviously not interested in talking. So we headed to the bar - home of the infamous Sour Toe Cocktail - and downed a few drinks. I went over some useless Yukon Quest facts I had collected with him and told him about my experience so far. We returned to the checkpoint a few hours later a little buzzed but still capable of doing our jobs. I was certainly more relaxed.
Mackey arrived finally to his usual celebrity red-carpet welcome, but the snow-covered main street of Dawson was far from a red carpet and he wasn't exactly dressed to impress. Mackey was frozen into his parka with the hood up; icicles hanging from his mustache and eyelashes. He too had hit the jumble ice and overflow, but Mackey knew the importance of the media and gave us a quick few quotes as he was checked in. Hugh Neff wasn't far behind with a dog in the basket. After we got our interview from the always happy to talk Neff, we all went off our separate ways to finish our stories. I believe Josh and Sam headed to the Downtown for their first drinks of the night. I went to my hotel and put the final touches on my stories, while Jason went to his and sent photos to Vince in Whitehorse.
I had a much-needed shower and finally got to put some damn make-up on! I had decided bringing my hair stuff was totally ridiculous so I made due with flat - but straight, clean and shiny! - hair. I finally wandered back to the Downtown bar to find Sam sending his photos. Josh had stayed at the checkpoint or hotel or something. I didn't care at that point - all I wanted was towash the day down witha delicious vodka, soda, lime.
Love,
Annalee.
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