Ruby

by Kevin Wells Friday, March 12, 2010 RUBY, Alaska -- The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has moved ahead to the mighty Yukon River, as mushers checked in to Ruby early Friday morning. How does this dinner menu sound: grilled halibut, lemon sorbet, beef tenderloin and blackberry jubilee? That's only a sampler platter of what Jeff King had a chance to savor for his leading position in Iditarod 38. The town of Ruby is celebrating its centennial in 2010, and on Friday the first Yukon River checkpoint welcomed one of the greatest mushers of the past 100 years.

A woman was killed in a head-on collision near Fairbanks Tuesday night, according to state troopers. Troopers responded at about 8 p.m. to Milepost 353 of the Parks Highway, where a Chevrolet Cavalier headed south had hit a Chevrolet Suburban headed north. A passenger in the Cavalier, 28-year-old Andrea Ruby of Dillingham, was killed in the crash. Both the Cavalier’s driver, 24-year-old Jerry Hunt of Dillingham, and the woman driving the Suburban were taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in critical condition.

State troopers say power and phone service was knocked out for several hours this morning after a small plane crashed into a power pole in North Pole. According to troopers the experimental plane had engine problems and lost power. The plane went down near the Dennis and Holmes roads. Troopers say 45-year-old Ruby Shorey was piloting the plane and tried to make it to an airstrip but fell shy, clipping the power pole with her landing gear. The plane flipped over and landed on its tail.

The 2013 Iron Dog snowmachine race's leading team opened up its lead to more than an hour of trail time Friday afternoon en route to Tanana, with apparent mechanical problems slowing its nearest competitors. Race standings as of 5:15 p.m. Friday say that Team 17's Marc McKenna and Dusty VanMeter lead Team 23 racers Brian Dick and Eric Quam by 64 minutes -- versus what Iron Dog volunteer Chris Graeber called a seven-minute lead as of 11:30 a.m. McKenna and VanMeter reached Tanana at 2:13 p.m., with Dick and Quam arriving at 3:17 p.m. One of Team 23's snowmachines was towing the other one into the checkpoint.

George Albert looked up over thick-rimmed glasses to study the threading pattern William McCarty IV was using to create the webbing of a traditional Athabascan snowshoe. "Yeah, he's doing good," Albert said. "Yesterday he didn't hardly know nothing about this. Today I don't really have to instruct him at all. " Albert, of Ruby, along with master artists Trimble Gilbert, of Arctic Village and George "Butch" Yaska Sr., of Huslia, gave a three-day master artists' workshop on snowshoe buliding hosted by the Anchorage Museum May 3-6. McCarty, 18, of Ruby, Daniel Tritt, 26, of Anchorage, and Al Yatlin Sr., 60, of Huslia, served as apprentices under the master crafsmen, carrying on a proud tradition producing one of Alaska's most vitally important survival tools.

Iditarod musher Dallas Seavey has claimed en route to Shaktoolik from Aaron Burmeister Sunday afternoon. Burmeister was the first musher out of Unalakleet at 12:35 p.m., followed by Seavey at 12:41 p.m. and Aliy Zirkle at 1:01 p.m. Seavey arrived in Shaktoolik at 6:35 p.m.,  27 minutes before Burmeister.  Seavey left on the 50-mile stretch to Koyuk at 6:38 p.m., followed by Zirkle at 9:15 p.m.  As of the posting of this story, Burmeister is...

Day 2 of the Iron Dog snowmachine race had Day 1's leaders scratch, and unknowns join the front pack. The trail out of Poorman had three leading teams stuck for a while. Team 7, Cory and Scott Davis; Team 11, Todd Palin and Eric Quam, and Team 2, Ryan Sottosanti and Andrew Zwink were slowed down quite a bit. Updates from the trail said that at one point, six sleds were stuck at the same time and that the teams were helping each other get through the trail. Teamwork between teams also came through on the end of the trail.

(12:41 p.m.) I spoke too soon -- phones have rang three times in the last five minutes or so. Team 25 - Watson/Price is through Unalakleet. (12:39 p.m.) Team 20 - Swenson/Peterson is laying over in Galena. (12:37 p.m.) Slow times here at HQ. Trail class Teams 54/51/52 are through Koyuk. (11:59) One of the organizers here says Marc McKenna lost some time this morning when he blew a belt on the Yukon. He was in the lead by a couple minutes and ended up coming in a few minutes behind Palin/Quam.

Iditarod mushers cover long distances across some of the most beautiful terrain imaginable. But even great beauty can become monotonous when you are riding or pushing at the back of a column of dogs for a thousand miles. To overcome the burden of distance, each musher has a favorite form of entertainment. Something to take their mind off the miles, something to carry them across a few of those thousand miles blissfully unaware. For veteran musher Jeff King, it's partly in these lyrics.

by Channel 2 News staff Saturday, July 3, 2010 ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Two Anchorage homeless deaths in less than two weeks are drawing concern from the community. Friday's death at a homeless camp is being treated as a homicide. An Alaska Native man was found dead in the wooded area near 3rd and Eagle Streets. His name has not yet been released. Nine days ago Betsy Chuitt, a Native woman, was found dead in a homeless camp. There is no word yet on her cause of death, but those deaths bring the tally of outdoor and homeless deaths to 23 over the last year and a half.