HUMAN

Name: John Jemewouk

Age: 70

Residence: Elim, Alaska

Occupation: Retired

Iditarod Roles: Volunteer for the Iditarod checkpoint. I’ve been a checker, help clean up, haul hay, getting water, and keeping the place clean. Anything that comes up, because there’s all kinds of… A lot that goes into the checkpoint. The volunteers for checkers and cleaning up and making sure you got water.

Current Location: Elim, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 14, 2022

Temperature: 16F Outdoors and Sunny

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

I got involved with the Iditarod when the first started. Got organized and they were looking for volunteers to make sure when the races started coming in, that they would be taken care of and then sent on their way to… When that first started getting organized… When the race first started, they would put a list of all the mushers coming in. Sometimes there’d be about 60 mushers listed in a great big poster board or whatever, down at the store. So we would sign up for different mushers, and as they came in, made sure that they get their food bag and they had place to… If they wanted to stay they would stay at the different people’s homes.
But a few years ago it changed. So they had to be corralled. So they all come here to the checkpoint and the mushers are basically on their own where they have access to all the facilities. And that’s how it changed. So mushers come in. The people here in the village meet them and make sure that everything’s running smoothly.
Being a volunteer, you meet all kinds of people from all over the world. They come in, and the veterinarians are volunteers from across the country,` and friendships are developed over that. For instance, I had a veterinarian from Mound, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, St. Paul there. And one year we were driving back… I have a sister in Ohio. We were driving through there, and we stopped and visit them and met their family. And man, we had a good time. So there’s a lot of friendships that are developed over volunteering.

What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?

I’m here today…. Knowing Carl and his volunteers are getting everything organized, I just came by to see if they needed anything else. And I brought some food. Some local food. Like for instance, this time of the year, all the locals are getting crab through Norton Sound. Red king crab through the ice, and that’s unique. Because this time of the year, the crab are so delicious. They’re fat and then they have all the flavor you want in a crab. So that’s always a treat for people. I just made sure that everybody had a taste and I tried to… When the…
One of the first people I ever met was in comms. Communication. And that’s how I knew that they had to have good communication here. And I was kind of concerned yesterday that they had no internet, and Carl, I think, offered his phone and just keep in contact with the race committee. Just different things like that, where they need help. It’s so early in the race. But when they start coming through the hay really starts piling up so you got to take care of it. We get snow machines or four-wheelers and haul it off. Keep it clean. Making sure that…
One of the things that… When you’re at this point of the race, the mushers are groggy. They’re tired and hallucinating, but they’re still going. And sometimes a real bad storm will come through. And this was the case that one year. And it was Carl’s dad that was the checker. And he used to do it out of his house before they had this. And one of the mushers was overdue between Koyuk and here, so Marlin told us he was going up. And he took off, but it was really windy. Had this howling wind blowing snow. And about 20 miles from here Marlin was going, and he seen something out of the corner of his eye. We went and checked and here a musher had stopped and then crawled into his sled bag. And Marlin went up, he said, “You got to get out of here. Get out of the storm.” And convinced him to get up and get moving. And it’s pretty dangerous about it, that wind can be… The wind and the blowing snow. We give a lot of credit to Marlin for saving the guy.

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

And it’s instances like that. There’s a couple more that you really remember. You remember things like that. Even 20 years… Happened 20 years ago. You know exactly what’s going on. That’s part of volunteers. Making sure mushers are safe.

What in life do you know for sure?

What I know for sure in life is, being a good steward. Because you live out here… You know the world situation now. The supply chain problems they’re having. Sometimes you end up with nothing. When I was young, we had nothing anyway. So we knew how to live off the land. So we took care of it and it supplied us with all the food and crab and moose or whatever. Sea mammals. Anything that you could use to feed the family. And one of the best phrases I ever heard is when you get [inaudible 00:09:49], it starts off in March or April. And it’s just like a string of pearls. The animal, just like a string of pearls. You use different parts of it to make dried meat. And you put away some of the food from the [inaudible 00:10:13]. And the blubber you turn into oil, which you use to preserve food. Like in springtime when the leaves start growing, you get the greens and you store the greens in oil. And just exactly like what that person said. It’s just like a string of pearls that keeps you alive all year.