HUMAN

Name: Bruce Nwadike

Age: 53
Residence: Southern Maryland
Occupation: Board-certified veterinary surgeon

Years involved with Iditarod: Since 2011

Iditarod Role: Voluntary trail veterinarian
Current Location: Cripple, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 12, 2020
Temperature: 0F/Outdoors

What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?

I got involved with Iditarod as a dream that I had for finally getting out to Alaska. I begged my way onto the trail actually by contacting Stu, the head vet, through Joanne, his assistant at the time. And I had no trail experience with dogs at all, and I told them that if they took a chance with me that they wouldn’t regret it, and I’ve been invited back ever since then, so I’m happy.

What is your Why?..Why are you here today and involved in Iditarod?

I am here today and involved with Iditarod because in these remote locations, especially here in Cripple, Eagle Island, I’ve had some of the best experiences working with the other volunteers intimately. One of the reasons I keep coming back every year is those long-lasting relationships that I’ve built over the years, especially with Tyrell Seavey and his group because they really took me under their wing my first year at Eagle Island, and right now we’re very close friends. I consider him one of my closer friends, too. So I certainly keep coming back for those relationships and certainly the solitude and the desolation that’s out here sort of tests me to see who, what sort of person I can really be. Totally different from my day-to-day life of where there’s just a lot of control every day, so this is nice to let that go.

Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences?

One of my most memorable Iditarod experiences was landing at Eagle Island my first year as a rookie vet. And I was expressly told that rookie vets are never left alone by themselves to run any checkpoint. And as I landed and crawled up the hill at Eagle in the cold on the Yukon, I met the other vet who was a five or six year veteran at the time. He shook my hand and said, “Tag, you’re it,” and I was the only vet at Eagle thereafter with 20 teams on their way in. And I was panicked as ever but managed to get through with the help of everybody else there. But that was truly one of the most memorable experiences ever.

What do you know for sure?:

What I know for sure in life is, even though we would like to tell ourselves that we can get through life solo, not with anybody else’s help, it’s a complete lie. We really need each other and we need to spend time figuring out what things get us closer to each other; what things we share in common rather than looking at things that separate us and keep us different. We need each other to get through this experience in life.