HUMAN
Name: Sheldon Katchatag
Age: 77
Residence: Unalakleet, the first checkpoint on the Bering.
Occupation: Retired housing director, former dog musher, former Elim Airport Manager. And Elim Iditarod Checker.
Years involved with the Iditarod: Since ’75 or so when I got back from the military.
Iditarod Roles: Mostly watching at first, but like I said, I was checker in ’88 in Elim. I’ve really enjoyed people like Lance Mackey, my buddy Brent Sass finally figured it out. So I’m having a blast.
Current Location: Unalakleet, Alaska
Date of Photo: March 13, 2022
Temperature: 68F Indoors/ 9F Outdoors & Windy
What, who or how and when did you first get involved with the Iditarod?
I first became involved with Iditarod after I got back from the service. At first, I was a spectator in Anchorage and I’m originally from Unalakleet. So, I volunteered as checker before to when the regular checker gets too tired or it’s long hours. Like I said, I talked to different mushers before they won and the last time I think was when Rick Swenson won. He had just pulled into Elim and was at his host place, and Martin Buser was just going around the corner and he looked at him and he asked me: “Sheldon, what do you think?” I said, “Rick, when it’s blowing like this down here…” We were having a kind of a ground blow, I said, “When it’s blowing like this down here, it’s 30 feet high up on top McKinley. You’d be better off resting your dogs and feeding them good.” Come to find out we were right, because he woke Martin Buser up on top of McKinley. Martin lost a trail in the blizzard and had to spend the night inside his sled bag because it was blizzard so bad and the wind was so strong it rolled him over a couple times. And he woke up because his dog started barking when Rick Swenson was going by. So that was a good one. The other one that tickled me was Joe Runyan in ’89. He stayed at Cathy’s in Elim and when he was getting ready to go, I was getting ready to check him out and he would get all his dogs all hooked up to his tow line and then he’d say, “All right!” And they’d move and he’d step on the brake after five feet, and they’d all step off to the side of the trail and pee. So that was cool.
What is your Why? Why are you here TODAY and involved with the Iditarod?
Well like I said, I am here today because I wanted to cheer my buddy Brent Sass on. He’s finally figured out… He put a new word in the Iditarod vocabulary. It’s to “Sass the Iditarod”. You pull a Lance Mackey by winning the quest first and then leading the Iditarod. And he also pulled a Dean Osmar. Dean Osmar left all the competitors behind in ’84 and they never saw him until the finish line. And he’s doing that. He checked in and out of Shaktoolik a little while ago. So I’m tickled with my buddy, Brent. I met him at the 2011 Kobuk 440 in Kotzebue. We stayed at the same house for a week.
Tell me about just one of your most memorable Iditarod experiences.
My most memorable experiences in Iditarod was when my buddy, Terry and I took a geo photographer from here in Unalakleet on snow machines trying to chase down the leaders. My snow machine broke down on the climb out of Koyuk, so I ended up sitting on my Go-Devil from there all the way to White Mountain in the rain in… We were right in the middle of real rainy, wet weather and that was real memorable because I knocked on my Mom and Dad’s good friend’s James’ door in White Mountain and he answered the door, “Uh, um, uh who, who is this?” I said, “It’s Sheldon.” He said, “Sh-s-s-s-s,” He stuttered real bad. He said: “Sh-s-s-s-Sheldon who?” And I said, “Sheldon Katchatag. “He said, “Oh-oh-oh-oh, just a minute! I’ll open the door.” And he got up, got his fire going in his woods. I was soaked. I had my Alaskan down gear on and the snow from the snow machine would hit me, and the rain would hit me. Anyway, he dried out all my stuff. While we slept, he let me sleep in his down bed. And while we were sleeping, his wife got up and made us a big sourdough breakfast. And we slept three hours. All my stuff was dried out. Fed us, and we took off for Nome on the Iditarod trail. There was no planes flying. They didn’t know where the mushers were. And there was nobody else on the trail besides Terry, Hans, the geo photographer and myself. And we’d come over Top Kok Hill, and we started going down the Top Kok Hill and there was camp stoves, bunny boots, sleeping bags, down gear, extra grub, everything on the side of the trail both sides as we were going down. And about a mile from the bottom of Top Kok we could see Susan Butcher in her red suit. Then about a mile and a half ahead of her you could see three dots, come to find out they were Roger Nordlum, “Cowboy” Smith and Jerry Austin. And then way out about a mile in front of him, we could see one more dot and then come to find out that was Rick Swenson. So, we caught up with Susan Butcher and slowed down long enough to take pictures for geo photographer. Caught up to the next group of three. Took pictures of them. Caught up with Rick Swenson and took more pictures. Then when the photographer said he had enough pictures, we took off for Safety. We pulled into Safety and bellied-up to the bar and ordered a couple of nice cold buds. I asked Terry, “You want to tell them where…” Cause everybody was buzzing about. “I wonder where them racers are. I sure wonder where they are.” They were all buzzing in the safety bar. I asked Terry, “You want to tell him or you want me to?” He said, “Go ahead, and Katchatag.” So I said, “Hey, excuse me everybody.” And everybody looked at me and I said, “If you want to see the mushers coming, you can step out around the corner right now and Rick Swenson should be coming.” Sure enough, here he comes. Boy, that bar emptied out in a hurry.
What in life do you know for sure?
What I know for sure in life, about dog mushing is when you raise dogs, it’s best to raise them from pups. And every generation of pups that you got, that you raise correctly, will speed your overall team up. When I was growing up, my mom helped me to do that. I ended up with 16 dogs when I was 14 years old. So I know what I’m talking about.