HUMAN

Name: Pat Hahn

Age: 62

Residence: Nome, Alaska – Born and raised here in Nome, and have been here for the whole, all of Iditarod.

Occupation: I’m a builder, anything from bird houses to bridges. And a few houses in between.

Years involved with the Iditarod: I was involved with the first Iditarod. I watched Dick cross the line.

Iditarod Role: They recruited us junior high kids to try to have some resemblance to crowd control. It didn’t work, but there was an effort. And I’ve been involved as host, really very little volunteering for the trail committee, but host families. We’ve been involved in dozens of mushers. There have been years we’ve hosted 10% of the entire field.

Current Location: Nome, Alaska

Date of Photo: March 15, 2022

Temperature: 30F Outdoors & 68F Indoors at Iditarod Headquarters

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

I first became involved with Iditarod when I was in junior high school. The first running of the race, some of us kids were recruited to try to resemble crowd control. It didn’t work, but that was the first involvement. And I also have some pictures of Dick crossing the finish line as a very amateur photographer, which I developed myself. Real involvement came years later as an adult when we started to host families, and we’ve hosted as many as, well, 10% of some of the fields. And to this day, we have our favorite mushers, and we still host. This year, we’ve got, well, three or four dependent if you count if they’re sleeping over at our place or not.

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

I’m here today, involved with the Iditarod, because our house is directly across the street. Our house has been there for, what, 30-ish years. And Sue and I were sitting there one day during Iditarod looking at the mess, not being able to park, not being able to work, not being able to do anything. And we just decided, well, there is no in between here. We either have to be completely absorbed in Iditarod, or we go to Hawaii for the month. And joked about it a little bit, and we decided we wanted to be involved, completely involved in Iditarod. And the rest is history.

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

One of my most memorable experiences, it was two mushers that had gotten out of White Mountain before they stopped the rest of the pack. And it blowing in the blow hole. Now, I’ve spent 20 years with Nome Search and Rescue. So I know the area. And I know what the wind does out there, and I know how to gauge it. Well, Mike Williams was out there, and Mike was used to the wind. And so Martin and I, Martin Buser, we hopped on a couple of my snow machines and went out to make sure they were okay. This was before tractors. We knew they were in the middle of the worst of the blow. And when I was out there, I can tell from the height of the spin drift that it was about 35 miles an hour. You stand on the back of your seat and it should be eye level. And that’s exactly what it was. And Mike William knows that too. And he… Well, anyway, the Iditarod banquet came around. Oh, the two mushers were a mile apart, and obviously the same wind. And at the banquet, they couldn’t see each other. The second musher got up and said he was in a 70 mile an hour wind in the blow hole. I was there when he was in the blow hole. It was 35. No question about it. And then Mike got up after him to speak. He was next in line. And he said, “Well, it was just blowing 35. I must have missed the worst of it.” So ever since then, I’ve got this thing about rookie mushers or mushers who have never run in the race. Whatever they say, cut it in half.

What in life do you know for sure?

What I know for sure in life is that your kids will keep you poor, and your friends will keep you honest.