[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 46 (Thursday, March 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1911-S1912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO PETER KAISER
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, it is that time of day on the Senate
floor when I get to recognize someone special from my State, someone we
refer to as the Alaskan of the Week, someone who makes our great State
of Alaska, in my opinion, the best and most unique State in the
country. I know it is the pages' favorite speech of the week as well. I
don't think you are going to be disappointed with this one, the young
men and women here working as pages.
Now, some may take issue with the claim of the most unique State in
the Union, but consider this: Right now we have teams of mushers and
their dogs that are barreling 900 miles across the State of Alaska
toward the city of Nome in some of the harshest conditions and some of
the most difficult and rugged terrain on the planet Earth. The
Iditarod--the ``Last Great Race on Earth''--is still under way in
Alaska. Right now, mushers, literally as we speak, are rolling in to
Nome today, tomorrow, and in the next few days.
We salute all of the mushers and their dogs, the athletes--these dogs
are great athletes--for their hard work. We are particularly proud this
year. For the first time in history, three women--Page Drobyn, Jessie
Royer, and Aliy Zirkle--are among the top ten finishers in the
Iditarod.
Like all races, there is a winner, and our Alaskan of the Week--we
see a great picture of him and his dogs here--is the winner. After 9
days, 12 hours, 39 minutes, and 6 seconds on the trail, at 3:39 a.m.,
yesterday morning, in Nome, AK, Bethel resident Peter Kaiser crossed
the finish line in Nome to win this year's Iditarod.
This win is also historic for a number of reasons. Pete is the first
person from Bethel, AK, to win the race. He is the fifth Alaska Native
to win and the first Alaskan of Yupik descent to take the title.
A crowd was there waiting for him. It seemed like half the town of
Bethel was there waiting for him. As he crossed the finish line, they
were chanting: Way to go, Pete. Way to go, Pete. Alaska Native dancers
performed. There were hugs and tears of joy all around. His wife
Bethany was there. Their two children, Ari Joseph and daughter Aylee,
were also there.
This is also exciting because of the race's historic roots. Before I
talk more about Pete, for a little bit, let me take you back to a
remarkable piece of history that happened in Nome, AK, in 1925, when
diphtheria serum was desperately needed in Nome for several very sick
children.
It was 1925, in Alaska, and the nearest batch of serum was 1,000
miles away in Anchorage. There weren't--and, unfortunately, there still
aren't--any
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roads between Nome and Anchorage. As a matter of fact, Alaska has
almost 200 communities that don't have any roads connecting them to
other places. There were no commercial airlines back then. The nearest
train station to Nome was roughly 700 miles away. So, in the winter,
people traveled mostly by dog sled.
On the night of January 27, 1925, musher ``Wild Bill'' Shannon tied a
20-pound package of serum wrapped in protective fur around his sled. He
and his nine dogs started the hundreds-of-miles journey--the ``Great
Race of Mercy'' it was called back then--across the frozen Alaska land.
The entire Nation was watching. This was reported in newspapers all
across America.
Wild Bill went for some time. Miles later, he met up with another
racer and another team of dogs, and this relay of dog mushers carrying
the serum for the sick kids in Nome continued until the lifesaving
serum reached Nome 5 days later--pretty remarkable.
The original race, as I mentioned, in 1925, began to be reenacted,
with some twists, in 1973. There were no relays and just one musher and
his dogs running the whole route. It continues today in honor of that
lifesaving mission that happened--and saved the kids, by the way--in
Nome almost a century ago.
What a race it is. The mushers face frostbite, howling winds, and
blizzards. They risk getting lost in the great Alaskan wilderness. In
fact, they risk their lives along the way.
Entering the race at all requires fierce determination, but winning
the race, like Peter Kaiser just did, requires even more than
determination. It requires years of grueling training, it requires
guts, and it requires an Alaskan-sized heart. That is what Pete Kaiser
has.
Let me tell you a little about Pete, our Alaskan of the Week and our
2019 Iditarod champ.
He is 31 years old. He was born and raised in Bethel, and he traces
his mushing roots back to his great-grandfather, who came into the
country as a gold miner and made extended trips with his dog team from
the interior part of the State to Bristol Bay. His great-grandfather
met and married a beautiful Yupik woman who had been raised in an
orphanage, and that was his great-grandmother.
He grew up with dogs. He and his sister loved mushing. When Pete was
in college, he decided he really wanted to know everything about dogs
that he could, and that passion turned into dog mushing full time in
the great State of Alaska. According to him, that mushing, that
determination, and that hard work gave his life focus and purpose.
Pete has won another race, Bethel's Kuskokwim 300, four times in a
row, and he has run every Iditarod since 2010, placing fifth three
different times. This year, he won it all. He took the gold.
This was not an easy year on the trail. In 2017, it was one of the
coldest Iditarods on record. Most of the trail most of the time out
there was 30, 40, or maybe even 50 below zero. It was very cold, very
dark. This year, interestingly, was one of the warmest. The lack of
snow in some areas presented challenges. One area of the trail--almost
80 miles, on what we call tussocks or rolling tundra--was in many areas
without snow. It was like mushing over bowling balls, said Pete after
he won.
But he kept his cool and ran a strategic, determined race, and,
importantly, he knew the area. While other mushers trained in the more
urban areas, he stuck with rural Alaska, where the trail really gets
rough, and he knew how to handle it.
He husbanded his strength and the power of his dogs to maneuver into
position on the Bering Sea coast toward the end of the race. It was
there, as other teams faltered, that he charged to victory, besting a
good friend of his by just minutes, one of the closest finishes in
Iditarod history.
Yesterday I got to call Pete to congratulate him. He said at the end,
dog-tired, that it was all a blur. They don't sleep much--for almost 9
days.
Speaking of dogs, he said that his champion dogs were eating a lot
right now and getting a well-deserved rest.
You can see some of those beautiful dogs, who by the way, love to
run. They love to run.
In Alaska, our Iditarod winners are like rock stars. They become very
famous overnight. Pete will be no different. He will be an inspiration
to so many, partly because of his hometown and his humble roots.
Myron Angstman, another longtime musher and Pete's hero, said that
most local mushers aren't sponsored. He said: ``They're not wealthy and
they don't have a family kennel already established.'' But Pete's
success will inspire others.
Pete agrees. When a reporter asked him what his victory means for his
community and for smaller towns in Alaska, he said that it ``shows that
somebody'' from out in the rural parts of the State ``can have a dream
and put it all together and work hard and things can happen like
this.'' Those are inspiring words, and I am sure we will see new
generations of mushers heeding Pete's call and jumping into the field
as a result of his example and his success.
Thank you, Pete, for reminding all of us that with enough hard work,
grit, guts, and determination, any kid from any small town or any
village can follow their dreams and make them a reality.
Congratulations, again, to you and your wonderful, hard-working dogs
on being the 2019 Iditarod champ, and congratulations for being our
Alaskan of the Week.
I yield the floor.
____________________