KOTZEBUE — As racers across the state ramp up for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Kotzebue mushers John Baker and partner Katherine Keith of Team Baker approach the race across Alaska with different goals — one to win, the other seeking an encouraging performance.
Just five years ago, Baker shattered the race record by three hours and was celebrated across Alaska as the first Inupiaq champion — and the first Native to win since 1976.
This year marks Baker's 21st Iditarod and Keith's third.
"I'm still really new at it, but I get more experience each time," she says. "My goal this year is to have the most dogs finish as possible and to run a happy good race. For now, I'm content to learn how to train the dogs."
The strongest canines will join Baker while Keith will run younger dogs. "John runs a hard, tight schedule, so he needs dogs mature enough to handle it," she says. "The goal for our kennel is to have a champion team again," she adds. The team that runs with Keith will learn and, hopefully, be ready to move up to the first string next year.
Team Baker kennel overlooks the wide expanse of Kotzebue Sound and is home to more than 50 sled dogs. Among them is Feather, the puppy that snuggled with President Barack Obama during last year's historic visit. Too young to run in this year's Iditarod, Feather should be ready to hit the trail next year.
Competing in Ironmans
While the Iditarod offers a supreme challenge, Keith is no stranger to grueling endurance competitions. She ran her first sprint-distance triathlon in 2008. "At first I thought I'd try it, just to see what it was like," she says. She had so much fun, she wanted to try the longer Olympic distance.
Eventually, she entered a full Ironman, consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. Keith finished one in 2009, winning her age group, and then deciding to do one annually. The 37-year-old athlete now has completed six full Ironmans.
"Part of racing for me is always this refusal to give up," says Keith, who finished 32nd in her rookie Iditarod run and scratched last year. "It's saying yes (no matter) your inner demons or outer circumstances."
Born in Minnesota, Keith was a spirited adventurer who rock climbed and hiked throughout the Lower 48 before purchasing an ice cream truck in 1999 and driving it north to pursue her dream of living in Alaska. When she ran out money, Keith worked as a sea kayak guide in Seward and a dog handler for glacier tours. Her love of dogs led her farther north to Kotzebue to work for Iditarod musher Ed Iten as a dog handler. There, she married and started a family with husband David Keith, and they built a cabin together 20 miles outside of town.
But before long, tragedy struck the young family, and Keith lost her infant daughter and her husband perished in a boating accident. Love for her second daughter Amelia kept Keith fighting to keep moving forward despite her pain and grief.
She began a new chapter of her life by moving to Fairbanks, where she became a licensed pilot and an emergency medical technician. She designed her own degree program in renewable energy engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and spent years working on projects across the state while racing and raising her daughter — occasionally returning to her cabin near Kotzebue. As small towns would have it, she came across a man named John Baker, who convinced her to stay.
"I guess you could say he swept me off my feet," says the exuberant blonde athlete. By contrast, Baker is a quiet Kotzebue man of Inupiaq descent with a deep voice and a calm, steady nature. The former commercial pilot is considered one of the most consistent Iditarod mushers, with 13 finishes in the top 10. Heading into Iditarod No. 21, he's never scratched.
Baker was a small boy when his pilot father, Bob Baker, died in an accident, leaving his mother to care for seven children. Yet Marjorie Baker, originally from Selawik, pushed past the challenges to become respected figure in Northwest Alaska as a generous community leader and the first woman to own an air taxi, Baker Aviation.
"My father started that air service, and my mother kept it going," says Baker. "People respect me because of her," Baker adds, pointing to a photo that included the radiant face of Marjorie Baker, hugging her son the day he won the Iditarod.
"She's the one who inspires me," he says of his mother who passed away later that year. "She's my hero."
The legacy of his mother's dedication to her community fueled Baker's commitment to use his Iditarod experiences as a platform to encourage perseverance, hard work and achievement with programs such as Sivulliqsi, Teck John Baker Youth Leadership program and Dream, Try, Win.
"For myself, having a dream was the first step in winning the Iditarod," Baker says. "If someone has a dream to do something good, we're all here to help." The motivational message Baker took to schools across the Alaska: If you dream, and you try, we all win.
Working together
Today Keith is an engineer and project manager for Remote Solutions LLC. Both Baker and Keith combined their skills to start the company that provides technological expertise to rural Alaska communities trying to become more independent and sustainable. Remote Solutions offers grant writing, project management, action plans and education.
Increasingly, though, Keith and her team of employees realized that people in rural communities need to be healthy in all aspects of their lives to progress.
"Wellness is really a keystone issue," she says. "Many individuals and families are having a hard time. It's critical for communities to reclaim their wellness before being able to move forward with sustainable development."
Last fall, the couple helped create Alaskans Changing Together, a statewide nonprofit that aims to connect communities with existing prevention programs and resources.
With the Iditarod approaching, Keith and Baker also have launched ACT on the Trail, an initiative targeted at communities along the Iditarod Trail. "John's message has always been that if you set a goal and try for it, you're going to have success simply by moving forward," Keith says.
ACT on the Trail will run a social media campaign to highlight community action, with support and assistance available to participating communities after the Iditarod ends. Registration opened Feb. 1.
'Big dreams'
Both Baker and Keith have overcome personal challenges.
"Life is hard, it throws you lots of curveballs," Keith says.
"We lose people we love, fight against addictions or lose our jobs. Regardless of what it is, individuals can tap into their own inner strength," Keith adds. "When you're out there racing or set out to achieve your goal, you position yourself to not quit. You persevere, overcome and learn from it. It's part of the challenge of surviving."
Managing dog teams, businesses and a nonprofit in addition to raising a family isn't easy. The key, Keith says, is delegating. "We have great teams here in Kotzebue and in Anchorage," she says. "John talks about teamwork with the dogs. One leader pulling on the gangline doesn't mean you'll go anywhere.
"It's like that with working with people in any capacity. You need each individual on the team to do what they're good at, and as a leader you give them that space," says Keith.
With momentum for ACT on the Trail accelerating along with race preparations, Keith and Baker acknowledge their challenge is growing.
"It can be hard to focus on your own race and not worry about the house freezing or how the other person is doing on the trail," she says. Two teams racing require double the preparation.
"That's why we call it Team Baker," Keith says. "Getting ready for the Iditarod is a yearlong thing, planning and preparing everything in advance."
Baker and Keith are creative balancing work, training and family life throughout the seasons. During winter, Baker works closely with kennel handlers Marinna McGourty and Mikey Moore to run the dogs. Keith trains them on weekends so she can be available at the office during the week to her staff. "We're very fortunate to have good handlers," Keith says.
Keith and Baker also rely on the strength of their commitment to their work and each other.
"We grew up in different cultures, so you have to give people a lot of leeway," says Baker. "Everyone in different parts of the world grow up with different habits. Being able to change habits, adjust them to make it 'we' instead of 'I' is a big deal."
"We both have big dreams as individuals," adds Keith, "so we really have to work at supporting each other's dreams and build new ones as a family."
Keith's 12-year-old daughter, Amelia, lives with the couple in Kotzebue. Baker also has a 14-year-old daughter, Tahayla, who lives in Kotzebue, and a 27-year-old son, Alex, living in Spokane, Washington.
"For young people today, it can be really easy to give up on your dreams for someone else or for both people to be heading in opposite directions," Keith says. "It's important to balance a person's individual sense of self while working together as a couple. John and I are set in our ways at this point in our lives. But there has to be give and take. Nothing's insurmountable."
Including the Iditarod Trail.
Jennifer Nu is a freelance writer in Alaska. Contact her at jennu.jnu@gmail.com.
More information about Alaskans Changing Together: alaskanschangingtogether.org