EXPLORE | THROUGH THE LENS
Immediately I asked the driver if he could wait, and
I rushed to photograph the scene. The vets told me
that these dogs had been dropped from their team.
The bags would keep them safe and calm while
flying home.
Sled dogs, considered by some to be the world’s
greatest endurance athletes, are bred to thrive in the
cold, snowy wilderness. Most mushers have trained
their dogs since they were puppies. Even so, during
such a long race, dropping dogs is a common occur-
rence. Sometimes a dog is tired or it’s injured or it
seems to have simply lost interest in running. (One
year a dog got sick from eating the neon booties that
protected its feet.)
When a dog team hits its stride, it is a beautiful
sight to behold—paws tapping the snow like a soft
chorus, legs swinging in quiet rhythm, hot breath
leaving trails of billowing smoke that cluster like
clouds in the cold air. It makes it easy to forget that
every dog is different. Seeing the dropped dogs
separated individually—into sacks, no less—was a
stark reminder of this.
I spent the next few days focusing far more on
the dogs that were leaving the race than those that
might win it. The local media and race officials prob-
ably thought I was nuts. I thought my fascination
with dogs in sacks flying in airplanes was pretty
self-explanatory. Looking back, perhaps I also felt
connected to the dropped dogs. I could relate to
the idea of having a goal you’d worked toward your
whole life, only to have something happen that
changes your course.
Bad weather hit Eagle, and for days there were no
commercial flights. I was close to missing the finish
in Fairbanks on my first big National Geographic
assignment. Fortunately I was able to join a late-
night charter flight—in a tiny plane loaded with
dropped dogs.
We took off, and I remember smiling as I looked
out the window at the night sky opening up over a
pitch-black Alaska wilderness. Buckled up in that
plane, wearing the fancy parka I never ended up
returning, surrounded by 16 dogs in sacks, I too felt
safe and calm. jIt felt like another planet, a fairy tale. Some days I
wish I could go back in time just to experience my
first few hours in Dawson City again.
Meanwhile the cold was as brutal as the land was
beautiful. When I stepped outside, the air was so
dry I could barely breathe. But at that moment bor-
rowed clothes and the kindness of strangers were all
I needed for warmth. A feeling came over me that I
hadn’t experienced in a long time: As long as I had
my camera, everything would be OK. I wanted to
take pictures again.
I have been covering the Arctic, among other
places, ever since. The following year I returned
to the north to follow the Yukon Quest yet again,
this time on assignment for National Geographic.
I remember it was more than halfway through the
race when I flew to a checkpoint in Eagle, Alaska. A
pickup truck was waiting to take me and my fellow
passengers, mostly from Alaska media or race vol-
unteers, to our temporary sleeping quarters—the
floor of the local school library.
Before we drove away, I noticed a pair of race vet-
erinarians, identifiable by the medical patch on their
giant red parkas, loading what looked like heavy
potato sacks onto a small plane. Then I saw furry
heads with pointy ears sticking out of the sacks.A day or two into her first trip north, Katie Orlinsky meets some
of the contenders in the 2014 Yukon Quest sled dog race during
their 36-hour mandatory stop in Dawson City, Canada.Photographer Katie Orlinsky, based in New York City, has
covered the Arctic for more than five years. Her latest feature,
“The Carbon Threat,” focused on permafrost thaw.ASIA
Eagle,
Alaska