that she was starting to have feelings for me soon after because I was showing her something beautiful and trying to tell her that I loved her. Anyway, after showing her the lights I told her that it would be a guide and a symbol for those who needed to find their way when all lights went out. They turned out to be quite useful when we needed to find our way back to Nome with the life saving medicine.

What were your thoughts when you first heard about the outbreak of diphtheria in the town?

Well I was in town one night asking Jenna if she would like to catch up with me and I saw her looking through the window of the town hospital; where her owner Rosie was being examined by the doctor. She had a really horrible cough and high fever; and the doctor said that it was diphtheria, which was an extremely deadly epidemic that takes the life of children. The doctor was out of antitoxin and he requested more from the town of Anchorage in southern Alaska; but weather conditions were so fierce that they couldn’t ship it across sea because the Bering Straits were frozen over, and planes could not handle the strong winds in the air. The train that carried the antitoxin could only go to Nenana because there wasn’t a rail line that ran to Nome; and as a matter of fact there isn’t even a road that leads into Nome. Therefore they ordered the fastest sled dogs to carry the antitoxin from Nenana to Nome. Now at this time I was really starting to feel scared for the stricken children; especially little Rosie because she was the owner of the dog who I was in love with and she was one of the only ones who believed in me. I didn’t want to see someone so young; let alone many so young; die in a horrible and unfair way. The old saying, “too young to die” fits the situation perfectly. The young must be able to live to see a fair age before they pass on, and this was definitely one of the worst ways to die. I then thought that if they are sending a sled team to collect the antitoxin and they are holding a race to determine who would be on that team; this could be my opportunity to prove myself to everyone. If I could be apart of the sled team that ran the serum to the stricken town to save innocent lives, others might start looking up to me and not treat me like an outcast any more. I really wanted to be apart of a sled team all my life because I have a passion for racing; and mainly because it runs through the other side of my family: My father; Alosaka. In short, it was a chance to live my dream, make my parents proud, and prove my true side to others.

You won the race that determined who would be on the sled team and then Steele hurt you and caused you to bear your teeth to then cause the musher to mistaken it for a snap. He then couldn’t trust you and left you out of the team. How did you feel after that?

I started hating Steele more than ever. He did a really cruel and mean thing to once again turn the others against me when I was only trying to help. I really wanted to rip him to shreds, but again everyone would hate me even more for what I would have done. There was nothing I could do. I sat on my boat that night and reluctantly watched the team leave without me, and I really started to loose faith.

I feared that my chance had slipped away and there was nothing else for me to do except endure more pain and suffering for days; months; even years to come. I felt like I was at the end of my tether.

You decided to go for the sled team when you found out that they were lost. How were you able to find them?

Well first of all, Nome couldn’t send another team to find them because the weather was too severe and it would have been too dangerous. Second, there was no other dog in town as fast as the others on the team or who could track well enough. I took these factors into consideration and found that the wolf in me enabled me to pick up the scent of others by smell. I could track others down from miles away. Therefore I had to go after the team. I was the only one who was capable of finding the team and guiding them back. Just to be sure that I knew the way back and we wouldn’t loose our way again I scratched the bark off the tree trunks to mark the trail to Nome.

I just kept onto the scent of the path that they took to get to Nenana, which was mainly along the Yukon River, and found them in the mountain, which was some miles north off their scheduled route. At this point they were around 300 to 350 miles away from Nome.

Along the way you, Jenna, Boris and Muk and Luk encountered a fight with a grizzly bear, which eventually got you trapped under ice. How did that feel?

First of all, I could only hold my breath for a very short period of time before it would finally leave me before drowning. The water just kept rushing to my lungs and I couldn’t keep my eyes open before passing out. Second, the water temperature was absolutely unbearable. I was certain that the blood would rush back to my heart too quickly and cause my heart to fail because the temperature had to have been below negative degrees Fahrenheit or worse. If it was not the lack of air that killed me first, it would have definitely been cardiac arrest.

Even when Muk and Luk got me out of there I was still shivering like mad. It took me a few minutes at least and Jenna’s body temperature to warm me up and stop me from shivering.

Let me just say that dying under ice is really not a pleasant way to go. I would rather die fighting than by disease or in a frozen lake. It was really scary and I am still amazed to have lived to tell the tale.

Before you left to continue searching for the team and left the others to go back to Nome on their own, Boris mentioned to you that although a dog could not make the journey alone, a wolf probably could. What was he trying to say?

He was saying to me that there were some things that I was capable of doing that some dogs could not. It was the very wolf characteristics within my blood that could help me get through this journey. Although it was painful being an outcast because of my wolf heritage, there were some positive things about it at the same time. No matter how hard I tried to deny the wolf in me, it would always remain within my blood for the rest of my life. Therefore if I just used it the right way, I would be able to get through the most difficult of situations. As it turned out, I did. I recovered from trouble along the journey, avoided danger, and survived against the odds. So I have my wolf heritage to thank for saving my life.

When you took over as lead dog and you were leading the team through the woods, all the other trees had been scratched in their trunks and made it hard to find the correct trail. We know that Steele was responsible for attempting to sabotage the mission. Why would he have done that?

He was just in a state of jealous rage. He always had been with me. From the start he hated me for who I was and he was afraid that I was trying to steal his thunder. He was always thinking about himself and his pride, and I knew that he would rather see the entire town suffer than have his job and his fame taken away from him. He just couldn’t control his pride within himself. I knew that there was no way he was going to let a hybrid like me ruin his life. It was all just jealous rage, really.

Were you afraid of loosing your way again?

Pretty much at the time. The blizzard was still severe as ever and we had no idea where we were going. Steele had managed to scratch all the trees in the forest; there was not a single tree he wouldn’t touch.

We just kept going around in circles and got terribly close to the edge of a cliff; which I managed to fall through with the crate carrying the medicine. I now knew that there was no way to get out since the trail was completely messed up and the storm was too severe. But when I saw that the crate hadn’t broken, I remembered what Boris told me; how the wolf in me enabled me to do things that other dogs could not do. I even got some guidance from the “White Wolf”, or my mother Aniu, as I realized now. That got my hopes up immediately. I knew that the wolf in me gave me strength, endurance in running, withstanding freezing conditions and a strong sense of smell; and because of that I didn’t need to mark trails to find my way around. I could sense the scent of others including my own. I then howled along with her to tell her that I received her calling and guidance then grabbed the crate and climbed back up the cliff face, eventually making it back to the top.

It wasn’t easy at all, but I still managed to make it. As we continued along the wilderness the blizzard was still very strong, but I still managed to pick up both Steele’s and my own scent along the way. I didn’t need to worry about the trees now. As long as the scent was still there, we would make it back.

Finding the right way was only half the challenge of the battle, and you went through several other challenges throughout the mountain trail, which could have been the end of you all. What did you face that put you in such great danger?

The first challenge was crossing a very narrow and unstable ice bridge over a very steep abyss.

It started collapsing as we walked across it and we had to run to avoid falling in, but the bridge gave way just as we got to the other side and the sled, carrying our musher Gunnar Kaasen, started to fall down the cliff, taking us with it. Luckily there was a strong tree root