A Strange Sight

Last night, I was sitting in the living room and I heard something that sounded like a plane. Now, planes are not uncommon, and we've had plenty of them lately. The Iditarod Air Force (bush pilots that volunteer their planes and their time to shuttling supplies, people, and dogs to different destinations during the Iditarod) has been flying in and out and around the area for the few days. The sound didn't fade away, though, as planes do. I looked out our living room window and this is what I saw:


A helicopter landed out on the ice. My first thought was, "Iditarod Air Force." I had seen a helicopter fly over a couple of times from my classroom window on Tuesday, although I hadn't remembered it being such an ugly brown-ish/green-ish/gray-ish color. I knew that a couple of teams had scratched (dropped out of the race) in Elim, and maybe a helicopter has more room to haul out dogs and sleds. Of course, I wondered why it was parked out on the ice so far away from the village, airstrip, and/or checkpoint, but whatever. I saw a handful of people climb out and go across the ice towards the village. The helicopter just sat there. After about an hour, I saw two more people climb out and head towards the village.

I called the only other teacher that I knew hadn't taken off for spring break - he always knows what's going on. He told me that it was a National Guard helicopter. One of the mushers is a member of the National Guard. They recruited him to run the Iditarod; he's like their poster boy. The National Guard people were taking pictures and video of him at each checkpoint. That definitely explained the ugly color of the chopper. After about 3 hours, I saw the people come back, load up, start the chopper and turn themselves around:


They headed west. . .


And disappeared around the edge of the cape towards White Mountain, the next checkpoint. . .


See the tiny black dot in the middle of the picture? That's the helicopter as it went for the corner and disappeared. Keep in mind that the beautiful sunset in these pictures is happening after 9:00 at night.