The Tamesis
All Iditarod mushers must follow certain rules throughout the race. Each team comes with a musher and up to 16 dogs: Potts-Joseph’s team, Raven Clan Kennels, includes her dogs Coki, Natrah, Loki, Bodil, Lebowski, Stoller, Sunny, Ninjuu, Revna, Freya, Coconut, Ginger, Anna, Stormy, Kobuk and Blaze. “We had to finish the race with at least five dogs wearing harnesses,” Potts-Joseph said. “Coki is a great alpha dog, super smart and well-trained. Stoller is a seasoned dog. This will also be Blaze and Kobuk’s first Iditarod.”
Potts-Joseph said training for competition is as much about building mental endurance as it is physical preparation, and the same goes for her dogs. “Any endurance sport requires a lot of mental strength – I just try to manage their health and wellbeing like any other human athlete,” she said. On average, Potts-Joseph and her team cover about a hundred miles a day during the competition. “If I can do it in 12 days, I’ll be happy,” she said. “Indigenous villages have checkpoints along the route so we can send out drop bags of supplies, gear and dog food in advance.”
The event also encourages high-profile displays of cultural talent, given that the competition is a long-standing tradition among Alaska Natives. When word got out that Potts-Joseph was entering the competition last December, it didn’t take long for her community to rally around her and create special costumes for her and her dogs. So all 16 of Potts-Joseph’s dogs come equipped with custom-beaded blankets made by Alaska Native artists or Canadian First Nations artists. “Within 24 hours, I had over 30 women wanting to make a beaded blanket for my dog team,” Potts-Joseph said.
