Mary Shields

Martin and Dana (my advisor and his wife, pictured below with their daughter Sonja) won a bid at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center auction that was, well, a weekend at a remote cabin. They invited Inari and me to join them. All we had to do was ski 12 miles to this cabin located near Fairbanks, and everything else was provided. All of the supplies we needed were taken by dog team.


The owner of the cabin was Mary Shields, a long-time Fairbanks resident and dog musher extraordinaire. And an exceptionally generous person. For example, after being at the cabin for all of five minutes and having just met Mary, I remarked that I'd love to have a place like this to spend my weekends. She immediately responded by saying that I'm welcome anytime, and that the key is always hanging near the door.


She is quite the musher, too. She's raced in the Iditarod and Yukon Quest dog sled races many times - in fact she was the first woman to complete the Iditarod, although I didn't find that out until I got back into Fairbanks. Nowadays she works every day in the summer doing dog sled demonstrations for tourists. In winter she mushes, and each winter culminates with a month long trip somewhere in Alaska. She epitomizes Alaska (especially interior Alaska) as much as anybody I've met, and is a great example of why Fairbanks can be a great place to live.