Blind Dog Sledder on Her Way

Blind Dog Sledder on Her Way

The Braille Monitor
March
2005
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Blind Dog Sledder on
Her Way
From the Editor: For
a couple of years now everyone in the blindness field has been cheering on Rachael
Scdoris, a young woman with perhaps a unique dream for a blind person. She has
wanted to enter the Iditarod dogsled race between Anchorage and Nome, Alaska.
This year, on March 5, she, her dog team, and her lead sled will enter this
grueling race of over eleven hundred miles. This is her third attempt to qualify,
so she has already won a significant victory before she even crosses the starting
line. Here are two stories that describe this remarkable young woman who would
not take no for an answer:
Blindness No Barrier
for Nineteen‑Year‑Old
by
Bruce Ely
This article appeared
Thursday, January 13, 2005, published by the Newhouse News Service.
The frost that settled
overnight softens in the golden sunlight. As the surface melts, the twenty-five‑mile
training trail will get easier on the dogs' feet. The health of their pads,
of course, is the lifeblood to a musher such as Scdoris, who tunes in to their
paws as a sailor lives for the wind.
In
two months Scdoris will begin an adventure on the frozen tundra--the Alaskan
bush variety. The high‑school graduate, nineteen, will fulfill a lifelong
dream by taking part in the 1,049‑mile Iditarod Trail International Sled
Dog Race, among the most grueling sporting events. And she will do so despite
being blind. As much as her story inspires, as much attention as her two‑year
quest to enter the "Last Great Race" attracted, the essential chapter
unfolds in the dusty dog yard.
Scdoris
has congenital achromatopsia, a deficit of rods and cones in her retinas that
affects depth perception, light sensitivity, and color recognition. She can
see vague shapes out to her lead dogs. She compares it to gazing through glasses
coated with a heavy layer of Vaseline.
Her
dogs see her energy, strength, and tenderness. This morning she tours the kennel
like a politician at a party fundraiser. "Hi, Gary," Scdoris says
to a seventeen‑year‑old retired Alaskan husky. "I still love
you even if you are senile." "Seth, you're such a cuddler," she
says as a dog paws the air for a hug. Romeo, a tan eleven‑year‑old,
flexes on top of his house. "Romeo is the biggest jerk we've got,"
Scdoris says with a laugh. "All the other dogs hate him except Robert."
Next door crazy Robert barks at his beloved Romeo.
In
the yard the dogs howl a chorus as she prepares them for the morning run. Eighteen
dogs will pull an all‑terrain vehicle on a twenty-five‑mile loop
through the volcanic badlands that loom around their home. Claude plays with
a chunk of ice in his water bowl. Big Boy turns his dish into a Frisbee. Brothers
Gus and Rascal howl a duet. Halfway down the dog yard, a quiet, black husky
with white stocking feet waits patiently.
Duchess
is Scdoris' bellwether, a seven‑year‑old lead dog that snaps to
every "gee" or "haw" command Rachael utters. The forty‑pound
dog has run in every race Scdoris has entered since she was fourteen. "Duchess
is Rachael's soul dog," says Jerry Scdoris, who passed on his passion for
sled dogs to his daughter. "Duchess is really strong in the head and an
amazing athlete," Rachael says. "And smart, too--sometimes too smart
for her own good."
The
tethered dogs reach a frenzy as Scdoris selects those who will pull the red
Suzuki ATV. It seems improbable that this line of eighteen leggy canines will
haul the 600‑pound vehicle, but when Rachael hollers "Mush!"
the ATV leaps forward.
The
dogs have always loved Rachael Scdoris. They became her refuge during a childhood
marked by the cruelty of her peers. "They still are," she said. "The
dogs never expected anything but hugs and food and harness."
Her
parents split when she was three, but they maintained a good relationship and
taught their daughter to focus on what she could do, not what she couldn't.
At twelve Scdoris began competing in novice four‑dog races. There was
resistance from some race organizers who said she didn't belong. But she never
believed that; neither did the dogs.
Scdoris
showed grit in the snow. She once entered a six‑dog, two‑day race
in Chemult, Oregon, and dumped the sled on the first corner, 100 yards out.
The dogs dragged her 200 yards, but she hung on until she could stop them. She
lost her hat. Wet snow packed inside her boots and clothing. Ten miles later
she began to shake from the cold. She crossed the finish line on her knees,
being dragged behind the sled. She had frostbite on her toes and a finger. Her
ears were worse. A doctor disqualified her from competing the next day. Her
ears turned black. A few days later she wore a headband to cover her ears when
she sang the national anthem at a festival.
In
2001 she entered the International Pedigree Stage‑Stop Sled‑Dog
Race in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Race promoters were happy to have her. A friend
rode ahead on a snowmobile to instruct her by radio about hazards on the trail.
She was determined to finish as a tribute to her father, who was forced to withdraw
from the 1997 edition. Scdoris celebrated her sixteenth birthday on the trail
and became the youngest musher to finish a 500‑mile race.
Her
dream has been the Iditarod since John Patten, a friend of her father's, told
her Jack London‑like stories about his experiences in the race. The day
after she graduated from high school in 2003, she talked to the Iditarod board
through a conference call. The members were concerned that approving her request
to be led by a "visual interpreter" on a snowmobile would ruin the
spirit of an event that prizes independence above all. The board denied her
request.
The
next year she met with the board in person. She traveled alone to Alaska and
fielded questions. The board suggested a compromise: she could run with a second
sled dog team that would lead her on the long trail.
On
March 5 Scdoris will line up with the other mushers for the grand pageant of
the start in Anchorage. "Nobody wins this race the first time," she
said. "I just want to finish with my dogs."
On
the trail Scdoris's job is to encourage the team to be happy in its work. She
does it with hugs and praise, and the dogs respond. She will need all of their
exuberance come March when she crosses the Alaska Range at Rainy Pass, braves
frozen Norton Sound and the cold, windy coast coming home to the Burled Arch
and the finish line in Nome. Paul Ellering, a former professional wrestler,
will drive a team ahead of her and be her visual interpreter.
Her
goal is simple: Go the distance. With the help of four‑legged friends,
Scdoris always has.
Blind Dogsledder Races
Toward Victory
by
Bob Dotson
On Wednesday, January
19, 2005, Bob Dotson, NBC Correspondent, filed the following story:
A teenager refuses to let
disability keep her from the Super Bowl of sled dog racing. That's why Jerry
Scdoris is driving 2,500 miles to the top of the globe from Bend, Oregon, in
the dead of winter--to help a daughter chase a dream she cannot see.
Rachael
Scdoris, nineteen, was born nearly blind but has earned a slot in the Super
Bowl of sled dog racing--also known as mushing. She will compete against sighted
men on the Iditarod, a daunting trail down mountains and ice floes, where temperatures
can drop to forty below. The 1,100 mile race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska,
winds through a wilderness so vast it could stretch from Florida to Maine.
"I
function the same way as a sighted person would. I just walk into a lot more
stuff," said Scdoris. But not out on the trail. Two‑way radios alert
Scdoris to obstacles in her path, and she is the first Iditarod musher to be
allowed a visual aide.
The
whole operation is costly. Scdoris and her dad must pack for two teams instead
of one, as her spotter must also be a participant in the race. "We do sled
dog tours for a living. And we stay broke racing," said Jerry Scdoris.
Scdoris
grew up listening to her dad's sled dogs sing lullabies. "He used to take
me on runs when I was a baby to put me down for a nap," said Scdoris. At
some point she started dreaming of driving her own team.
She
even camped outside for an entire year to get to know each of her dogs better.
"This boy's always been a challenge to keep weight on," she said pointing
to one of the race dogs. "Hopefully I can get him to gain a few pounds
before the race."
She
will need to; the dogs burn at least 10,000 calories a day, and Scdoris and
her father have to pack three tons of dog food to stash along the Iditarod route.
"There's only one way to do this--one bag at a time," said Jerry as
he filled the bags with feed.
Race
rules insist that Scdoris be able to do everything else herself--including changing
the dog's protective booties, sixty-four of them every day. "It's basically
who can take care--the best care--of their dogs the fastest," said Scdoris.
At
first some of the other mushers worried about the safety of Scdoris's dogs over
the 1,100 miles, so the race committee turned her down. Scdoris didn't complain.
She set out to qualify, mushing nearly 800 miles over mountain passes with hairpin
turns, competing in two of the toughest races around and finishing sixth in
a field of twenty-eight.
"The
guys have to give you a little respect if you've beaten them at the race,"
she said laughing. Fellow dog racer Libby Riddles should know. She's run the
Iditarod six times and was the first woman to win in 1985.
The
Iditarod begins March 5, but Scdoris and her dad are already driving--nonstop
to the starting line. "I think Rachael's victory is the starting line.
And then, every inch along the way will be a bonus for her," said Scdoris's
father.
"Just being there
will be like, Yes!" said Scdoris. It's a big victory for a woman who sees
only possibilities.
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