[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

[[Page S1912]]

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.

                          ____________________