TAKOTNA -- The checkpoint here on the bank of the frozen Takotna River is flashing some Norwegian flair in this year's Iditarod.
A large white banner stretched across the trail to greet mushers as they pull into the checkpoint. "GO NORWAY," it read, next to a picture of the Norwegian flag and a list of the nine mushers who hail from the Scandinavian country (including Ketil Reitan, a musher born in Norway but who lists his hometown on the Iditarod's website as Kaktovik).
There's a record number of Norwegian mushers in the race this year and by 8 p.m. Wednesday, two-time champion Robert Sorlie was the third musher to reach the halfway point in Cripple.
Ralph Johannessen, Joar Leifseth Ulsom (who spends most of his time in Willow) and Reitan were also running in the top 20.
Terje Schjelderup, a 37-year-old Iditarod volunteer from Norway, said he last visited Takotna in 2004 as a student at the Norwegian Folkehogskole adventure school. As a student at the yearlong school, he spent three months in Alaska, including time in Takotna staffing the Iditarod checkpoint. Now he's back and a group of Norwegians joined him, some as volunteers.
Musher Geir Idar Hjelvik said he was taken by surprise when he got close to Takotna and saw the large banner sporting his name.
"It was very nice that somebody did it for us," said Idar Hjelvik, who is running a team from the kennel of three-time Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey's kennel. "I'm a long way from Norway."
To be fair, the checkpoint featured a spread of flags alongside the trail — including ones from Sweden, Germany, the United States and, of course, Norway. Mats Pettersson, the lone Swedish musher, said with a laugh that he would have liked to see a tiny picture of a flag from his home country on the large banner.
"In Scandinavia, we're bigger than Norway. But not in mushing," he said.
Libby Harrop, 68, is a New Zealander who is following the Iditarod trail. She wore a winter hat with three flags on it: one for New Zealand, one for Norway and one for Sweden. She said she's rooting for the Norwegians, mostly because she likes Ulsom.
"I think they're quite a threat this year — a serious threat," Harrop said.