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Hard to believe we're counting down the last month of the millennium. Okay, I know the "real" new millennium begins in 2001, but the numbers change in 29 days, and that's the point, I think. Look at it another way--we can have two millennium celebrations instead of just one. As for the Y2K furor, I can absolutely, positively guarantee my dogs are Y2K compliant.

I had hoped to be putting in diary entries every two of three days, but it seems I'm chugging along at barely one a week. I've just been incredibly busy between running dogs and taking care of a million and one different little things. My computer sees me so infrequently I think it's starting to regard me as a virus.

And it's not going to get a lot better for the next several weeks. I've got yet another class to go to in Anchorage on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for the next two weeks, plus a bunch of meetings and even a couple of book signings scattered all over south central Alaska.

Barrie is helping me run the dogs, but she's got her own team to train and care for. At least we're getting a little snow, an inch since five this afternoon and the promise of a little more. We still need six inches and preferably a foot to really have decent trails, but even a couple of inches will resurface everything and give us another week or two before the rocks start to show up again. Sooner or later we're going to get our big dump (we hope). I just hope it doesn't wait until March, as it has in some years past.

The first distance race of the season around here is supposed to be just two weeks from now, the Sheep Creek Christmas Classic on the weekend of the 18th and 19th. The race is held less than 10 miles from my place, but the usual route requires a lot more snow for a decent run than my training trails. It's normally 40 miles each day, and I might have my guys ready, assuming there's enough snow for the race. I've got half a dozen new dogs I'd really like to try out under the pressure of a race. However, I don't want to try to race them on a bad trail and risk injury--I don't have enough dogs.

We had one very unfortunate incident in our area Monday night. Iditarod rookie David Straub was on a training run with eight dogs when they missed a turn and took a trail parallelling the Parks Highway, the major road from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Dave had used the roadside trail for four-wheeler training, but he was on his sled, with much less control. He thought he could get the dogs to the next turnoff a mile down the road, but they bolted onto the highway directly into the path of an eighteen-wheeler and he couldn't stop them even by turning the sled over. The truck went right through the team, killing three dogs outright and injuring a fourth. Dave and the other four dogs were miraculously unhurt. He's extremely upset and blames himself, and he's not sure he wants to run the race, which has been a 25-year dream for him.

Hopefully Dave will work through this disaster and find a way to run the race along with the 93 other drivers who have signed up. The deadline for signing up was Wednesday at 5 p.m. Probably fifteen or so of those will withdraw before the start of the race for various reasons. The most common causes for pulling out before the start are injuries, illness, personal problems, dogs not ready, and the biggest one, lack of money. I stopped by ITC HQ yesterday afternoon and Iditarod officials think there will probably be about 80 mushers at the starting line, which will be a record.

Yesterday I also stopped by one of my favorite places, Kema Sleds in Wasilla. The owner, Keith Poppert, has been making sleds and supplying mushers with everything from rope to runner plastic for 35 years. Practically every musher in this end of the state knows him on a first-name basis and he has helped many a rank rookie and seasoned veteran with a much-needed sled or set of ganglines on a handshake and an I.O.U.

Keith is one of the last of his kind, a craftsman who still makes sleds the old-fashioned way. He has built thousands of sleds over the years and most of them are still banging around trails from Barrow to Bar Harbor. Quite a few of them have been to Nome. I've owned a couple of them myself--I gave one away and I still run the other one.

Keith's sleds aren't technological wonders like some of the space-age conveyances some mushers use. They're about as traditional as you can get, solidly built, relatively inexpensive, and easy to fix. He has built many different types, from all-wood basket sleds to more modern toboggans with tough plastic beds, and in all sizes, ranging from small kids' sleds to extra-long freight haulers like the old-timers used.

His shop is one of those places to spend an entire day, a feast for the senses, redolent of freshly worked wood and alive with the bang of hammers and the hum of drills and the whine of saws. The big wood stove crackles as it converts sawdust and scrap wood into radiant warmth. There's always time for a cup of coffee and pleasant conversation. Keith not only knows sleds, but he used to run his own dogs as well, and he's got plenty of stories.

If it's early in the season, he might be steaming birch and ash to bend it into the various shapes required for runners and rails and handlebars and brush bows. The steaming process may take days for the heavier pieces, such as those used in runners. A good portion of the wood in Keith's sleds comes from the Lower 48 and Canada, especially the ash, which doesn't grow in Alaska. Even some of the birch is imported. Although Alaska is full of fine old birch trees, they aren't the best for pieces that need to be bent because they are so slow growing in our cold climate that the wood is too fine-grained to bend easily.

Later on his shop will have sleds in every stage of completion, and probably a few veterans of the trail waiting to be fixed. He doesn't mind fixing sleds built by others and can fabricate a stanchion or a handlebar or a basket slat to order. He always has a rush of sleds to be be put in top running order just before the big races, and especially before the Iditarod. He's also been asked to restore some fine old sleds dating back to the 1930s, and has sent them home looking like new.

However, all good things must come to an end, and Keith is retiring next May and moving to Oregon. He's taking his shop with him and will still build sleds, but at his own pace. He says he'll probably do most of his business via mail order. He will be sorely missed in Alaska. There are other sled builders, of course, but there's only one Keith.

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