Naomi Hagelund

I’d been to Chena Hot Springs before, but on this trip there was no time for a relaxing soak in the water or smoked salmon alfredo in the restaurant. Bundled from head to toe with malfunctioning hand warmers in my pocket (apparently they don’t work if it’s too cold out), I set out with two fellow journalism students, looking for the action. Turns out there wasn’t a whole lot.

A big sign on the musher’s door stated, ‘MUSHERS ONLY’. A handler yelled at us to keep out of the staging area. Volunteers glanced sideways at us, answering questions with “I don’t know” or “you should probably ask someone else.” The blue press passes we had been so proud of the day before seemed to be invisible to everyone around us.

We finally got wind of a musher about to leave. As far as we knew, he was the only one at this checkpoint, and he was due to leave in 10 minutes. We decided on a quick warm-up in the bar and then we headed out to catch him. We set up our cameras and audio recorders and waited for his departure. The bells on the dog's harnesses jingled nicely for my recorder as they ran by. The team then stopped so a dog could relieve itself. They jingled some more, making it about 10 feet before another dog had to pee. Once more the jingling was interrupted and then the team was finally on its way. We discovered later that we missed another musher leaving while we were waiting in the bar.

All in all, we spent about three hours in Chena and captured only a few newsworthy minutes of the Yukon Quest in action. It wasn’t all in vain though; if I hadn’t gone to Chena I wouldn’t have gotten this cool blue press pass.