Waiting for Martin Buser in Unalakleet: Old friends, and muktuk

Mushers who have been competing in the Iditarod a long time have relationships and traditions they revisit each time they run the race.

When Martin Buser gets to Unalakleet, that means a bag of muktuk.

“I love eating the local food, and for about 15 years, a little girl would come and meet me, no matter what time of my arrival, her mom would drag her down,” Buser said. “Now, of course, the girl is grown up and out of Unalakleet.”

That tradition is being held up by someone new, who stood patiently by Buser’s dog team before handing him a zip-lock bag of whale skin and blubber.

“This little boy has come and brought me muktuk, local boy Wasook Jones, brings me muktuk every time I show up, inconveniencing himself and his family to make sure I have some of the most delicious muktuk around,” Buser said. “It’s just always heart-warming when he shows up and brings me that. I always gobble it down right away.”

As Buser watered his dogs, he chatted with Clarence Towarak, who has come down to say hello to the musher each year since the 1980s.

As Buser attended to his dogs, Towarak explained that when mushers are at the front of the pack, they don’t have much time or energy for talking with folks.

“At least he’s got a sense of humor at this point in time,” Towarak said. “Those guys in the top five to 10, they’re all business.”

It’s not been a great race for Buser.

His dogs have been persistently sick, which, at one point, made him doubt he’d be able to finish. That’s never occurred.

In nearly four decades of mushing, Buser hasn’t scratched in an Iditarod.

But the worst seems to be over, and he said the dogs finally looked ready to run.

“All we need to do is get it done,” Buser said. “Just get to Nome, get this over with, that’s all I need. Get another one under the books and regroup.”

This will be Buser’s 34th full Iditarod if he finishes.

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