Growing up in Kenmore and a graduate of Inglemoor High, Brennan Norden, 37, decided he needed to get away from it all.
“I just wanted get away from the city,” he said. “I just grabbed my truck and my one yellow Lab and moved up here.”
“Here” is Kasilof, Alaska, where Norden was speaking via phone from the spot he has called home since 2001.
There apparently are a few things Norden didn’t know about Kasilof when he first arrived there, including one that ended up having a big effect on him.
“I was surrounded by some of the best (dog) mushers in the world,” he said of dog-sled drivers. “I didn’t know that at first, but I was.”
Norden added he “just kind of adopted the musher lifestyle.” He ran his first dog-sled race in 2003, the Clamshell Classic. Since then, he has run Alaskan distance races with names such as the Sheep Mountain, the Gin Gin and the Klondike. On March 5, he’ll take on the biggest race of them all, the famed 1,150-mile Iditarod.
As far as he knows, Norden is the first person from the Seattle area to qualify for and run the legendary race.
From Anchorage in south central Alaska to Nome on the Bering Sea Coast, the Iditarod takes from 12 to 17 days to finish.
If you finish at all, Norden added.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” said John Norden, Brennan’s dad, who still lives in this area, but hopes to meet his son at the Nome finish line of the upcoming Iditarod. Brennan Norden’s mother, Margaret Wood, and some cousins will see him off at the start of the race.
John Norden said race planners keep pretty good tabs on the mushers, requiring them to pass through regular check points. But he still admitted to a little nervousness about his son running the race.
“There’s a little anxiousness there,” Norden said.
If Brennan Norden is anxious about the race, he doesn’t reveal any nerves during his comments. He talks with what seems like great respect, almost a reverence, for the race and for dog sledding in general. He mentioned snow and minus-60-degree cold. But those obstacles seemed almost secondary.
“You’re out there by yourself looking up at the Northern Lights… It’s kind of a mystical experience,” Norden said.
John Norden noted his son has put a lot of time, money and passion into breeding his race dogs. And it’s clear from Brennan Norden’s comments that in his opinion having the right dog team and being able to control them is the obvious key to any dog race. Norden said he has spent about eight years as a dog breeder. He has 35 or 40 animals, mostly Alaskan Huskies, in his kennels right now. A total of 16 will run the Iditarod with him.
In picking dogs for any race, Norden said a musher looks at the age, attitude and appetite of the individual animals. Norden said in controlling the dogs, the key is to get them to trot at a steady pace, not run flat out, which is what the animals naturally want to do.
“It’s hard to get into dog breeding,” Norden added. He said that, generally, no serious musher is going to sell his or her best dogs. If they do, those animals might be worth up to $10,000.
Norden spends most of the year as a fishing guide. With the help of a partner in the Lower 48, he also sells his own dog food. Food might be the biggest expense related to breeding race dogs, with each animal going through a pound a day.
During races, mushers must, of course, carry with them everything they and their dogs might need. Besides food, mandatory items include a minus-40-degree sleeping bag and various bits of emergency equipment. Norden noted he’ll take a straight blade knife, one he can get to and use in a hurry if he starts falling through ice. He also mentioned hand warmers.
“I go through lots and lots of hand warmers,” Norden said.
As an in-joke between him and some of his friends, Norden also added he will be carrying ice cream. He said the dessert actually can come in handy for quick fat calories. Norden said he’s seen mushers eat whole sticks of butter just for the fat.
While not everyone who starts the Iditarod finishes, Norden seems confident.
“I think I’m going to have a good clean run,” he said.
