Читать книгу Racing Toward Recovery. The Extraordinary Story of Alaska Musher Mike Williams Sr. онлайн

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Snowmachines started showing up in the 1970s and that’s when our life changed. Everybody in Akiak had dogs then, but after the snowmachine arrived they got rid of a lot of them. There are probably four families in Akiak now that still have dogs. We have a kennel of about fifty or sixty dogs. We have always, consistently, had dogs. My family has had dogs as far back as I can remember. Now it is me and Mike Jr.

Another chore that I had as a kid was to haul water. It came from the Kuskokwim River. My dad made a kind of well and we’d pump out the well. We also got blocks of ice from the river and melted them.

When I was a kid sprint mushing was a big thing in the Alaska villages. Everyone had races and it was the biggest thing to do in the winter, the best entertainment. There were a lot of winter carnivals—there are still some—and the featured event was always the dog races. They included kids, so when I was a little boy my first races were with three or five dogs in the villages. Akiak held them, but there were races all over the area in Bethel, Tuluksak, Kwethluk, everywhere. They took turns each winter.