Yukon Alone: The World's Toughest Adventure Race

Enthusiastically communicating his love of Alaska's captivating landscape and his attachment to the rugged eccentrics who make it home, Balzar introduces readers to the rigors of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. The Quest, as it's natively called, is colder and more dangerous than the more renowned Iditarod. Covering 1023 miles and taking more than two weeks to complete, the Quest offers Balzar a vehicle for exploring the varied richness of Alaskan culture. Along the way, as he profiles trappers, bush pilots and others who come to test their mettle in the race, he returns to the question of what makes these people mush. He hitches along not only for the adventure of a lifetime but for a taste of an earlier, primordial state of being. Between profiles of the racers and others associated with the Quest, Balzar muses on what it means to pursue a wild life at the end of the 20th century. ""The trapper and the vegan,"" he writes in a passage about fur trapping, ""both live in constant awareness of animals and their suffering. The rest of us worry about getting rain spots on our suede jackets and complain because the people who package hamburger meat these days are always trying to make you buy a little more than you need."" Throughout, Balzar remains somewhat of a detached observer. He enjoys the company of the mushers he meets, but he is always somewhat apart from them, too much a part of the civilized world even as he celebrates the ways people can, at least briefly, separate themselves from civilization and follow their own demons wherever they may lead. (Nov.)