NULATO — Lawrence Esmailka, a 52-year-old born and raised in this village of about 300 residents on the west bank of the Yukon River, said he cried this morning when he heard about what happened to the sled dogs.
"I felt bad about it," he said. "It just hurt everybody when it happened."
Esmailka stood in the middle of the school's gymnasium, where residents brought bowls of pasta, trays of bologna sandwiches and a pot of moose stew on a sunny Saturday, filling the long table already crammed with brownies, chips, muffins and hot dogs.
Esmailka said he never wants mushers to have to reach into their sled bags to find something to eat. Here they can always expect a home-cooked meal, he said.
Plus, they'll find decorations. The walls at the Andrew K. Demoski School's gym were decorated by students with construction paper that they had written mushers' names on, alongside pictures of sled dogs and paw prints.
The school bears the same last name as the man taken into custody Saturday afternoon at his family's home. Arnold Demoski, 26, said he was drunk when he drove his snowmachine into Jeff King's and Aily Zirkle's sled dog teams, killing one dog and injuring several.
Dean Painter, a village resident who raced the 1982 Iditarod, stood on the school porch with temperatures around 20 degrees. He watched the dogs resting in straw. He said the community of Nulato supports the Iditarod and is proud of its status as an official checkpoint. He loves living here.
About Demoski, he said, "That guy just had a bad night." He said he worried that it would reflect poorly on the whole village. "Everybody's not like that," he said.
Painter said the answer wasn't to shut down the village liquor store but to better educate residents about alcohol use.
When asked about life in Nulato, Esmailka said that "the economy is really bad."
"You've got 300 people applying for one job," he said. Most people who have jobs work at the school. Employment can also be found at the fuel depot, liquor store, laundromat, health clinic and city office, he said.
Kathleen Sam, a Nulato resident, said the community quickly organized a fundraising event Saturday morning to raise money for the King and Zirkle kennels. They would sell crafts in the evening — such as earrings, keychains and blankets. She described the community as welcoming and said she couldn't believe what had happened — particularly that Demoski was involved.
"This is such a kind-hearted man," she said.
Nina Schwinghammer works for "Alaskans Changing Together," launched in 2015 by Gov. Bill Walker and Iditarod champion John Baker. It calls for communities to create wellness coalitions to promote healing from a suite of social problems such as suicides, alcohol use, neglect and abuse.
Schwinghammer said she was going to go to Unalakleet to work with people there, but diverted to Nulato after hearing about the snowmachine crashing into sled dog teams. She said negative stories in the media about villages have a huge impact on the community.
"We thought this would be a good opportunity to talk to people in the community about what's going well," she said. "The good things."
Brother Robert Ruzicka was cooking hamburgers inside the village's Catholic church Saturday afternoon for three friends. He said the community is always quick to feed guests and welcome them into their homes. This morning's news surprised the whole village, he said.
"He's not that kind of a person," Ruzicka said of Demoski. "When they told me who it was, my first response was, 'No, not him.'"
By 3:45 p.m. Saturday, Demoski had been driven to the airstrip at the top of a hill. A trooper then loaded the white front cowling of the snowmachine Demoski had been driving into the plane. The suspect wore gray sweatpants and Nike sneakers, his black hood pulled over his face. He was headed to the Fairbanks Correctional Center and to court in the morning.