10 YEARS AGO

March 6, 2000 — What you don’t want to do, said Ron Pegelow as he sat in the rumbling cab of a front-end loader last week, is hit a fire hydrant.

Hanging off the end of Pegelow’s machine was an 8-ton snowblower, its spinning steel blades capable of slicing up a frozen snow berm and filling a 20-cubic-yard dump truck in less than 30 seconds.

Though Pegelow — a senior member of the city’s snow-clearing crew — sat eight feet off the ground, the blower blocked his immediate view of the berm running along 18th Avenue. He relied on faith and 23 years experience to avoid obstacles such as hydrants long buried in the snow.

“As soon as you hit it, that thing is jerking off the ground,” he said, nodding toward the idling blower. “All you can do is slam it in reverse as fast as you can.”

With water dripping off eaves and the sun’s bright rays sending temperatures soaring, city residents could be excused for thinking the city’s snow clearers have closed shop for the year.

The opposite is true. The city is still scrambling to dig out streets buried in the mid-January dump, and with breakup’s floods around the corner, the push is all the more urgent. Steam trucks can’t thaw storm drains buried under three feet of ice and snow, and those in charge of public works are already bracing for a challenging spring.

25 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1985 — Race Marshal Donna Gentry put the Iditarod Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome on hold Tuesday night, saying a winter storm over the Alaska Range had made it unsafe to continue. The storm has been brewing in the mountains since Sunday, keeping airplanes from delivering needed food and supplies to checkpoints along the trail on the other side of the range.

“I’ve declared a mandatory freeze, at least until 9 a.m. tomorrow,” Gentry said. “At this time, we cannot support the race on the other side because of weather conditions but we can support it on this side.”

Race officials in Anchorage said today the race would remain on hold at least until noon.

The nearest food is at McGrath, nearly 200 miles to the west.

Earlier Tuesday, Gentry had given mushers a choice of staying or leaving. She overruled their choice to leave with her 7:30 p.m. suspension of the race.

The 59 mushers, given a choice between holing up another day here or pushing over the Alaska Range, had dumped the idea of delaying the race, and instead made it every man for himself.

But by this evening, all the mushers were still at this crowded camp in the Alaska Range. The mushers are crammed into one cabin. The dogs are strung out on a nearby hill. Many of the mushers and their dogs are hurting from spills during the twisting trek from Finger Lake to Rainy Pass.

50 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1960 — The initial impetus of a first-day win and a final edge of 4 1/2 minutes made Fairbanksan Libby Wescott the Women’s North American sled dog racing champion.

Her total elapsed time for the 34-mile, three-day run was 130:05. Her winnings were a trophy and $512.50. Her joy was unbounded. Libby, long a racer and currently the first woman president of the Alaska Dog Mushers Association, was low-minute woman for two of the three days of the race.

Just behind her and carrying a total elapsed time of 134:37 was Anchorage musher Kit MacInnes. She too, picked up a cup and made $375 for her work.

New Hampshire’s Jean Byar, a noted Eastern racer who flew here with her husband last week for the North American, was third. Her time was 136:54 and her check $312.50.

Effie Kokrine, the only triple winner of the mushing crown, was fourth with 139:15 and picked up $175. She won the women’s classic in 1952, 1953 and 1954.

Natalie Norris, 140:58, of Anchorage won $100 and fifth place; sixth was Betty Brewer, who this year took the preliminary cup in Fairbanks. Her North American time was 141:18 for $25.

Seventh was Jerry Best in 141:37, eighth was Elanor Michel in 148:15 and Adele Becker was ninth with a 196:16.

Jean Pearson, Ann Weston and Grace Hughes all were disqualified. Pearson competed the first two days of the runs, the others left after the first heat.

75 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1935 — John “Paddy” Sheehan, well-known trapper and prospector of this district, died as a result of a crushed skull, which it is alleged he suffered in a fight with Wallace Sawyer, 23 years old, who came to town Monday night from a point 85 miles above the Salcha bridge on the Salcha River.

Sawyer walked into the office of District Attorney Ralph J. Rivers yesterday, told his story, and gave himself up to the authorities. The young man came to Fairbanks from the States last June and during that month left for the upper Salcha with Mr. Sheehan. During the summer Sheehan and Sawyer built a cabin and have been trapping this winter.

100 YEARS AGO

March 6, 1910 — Dan MacFarlane is proceeding quite rapidly with his work in raising the Lotta Talbot. Two divers, clad in full dress and proper regalia, surveyed the hull most thoroughly under water after a neat groove had been sawed all around the boat through the ice. A ladder was placed in the bottom of the river, an electric light provided for use beneath the rapid current and a telephone, with all necessary appliances, was placed in the divers’ headgear as a trouble carrier. All worked to perfection, and the men so employed found a 16-foot hole broken through one end of the boat and almost as large as a hole in the other end of the ill-fated craft.

These holes are to be patched today with canvas and boards. Then the centrifugal pump will be placed in the boat in an endeavor to pump out the water and sand with which she is filled. The smaller holes will be stopped up as rapidly as possible, and it is hoped to raise her within a short time.

It is intended to make the dock where the Talbot lies submerged at present the home of the steamer Minneapolis this summer, and the public will need a flying machine to get across the bridge when they are late for their trains.

For more Looking Back, see http://bit.ly/Lookback