It’s that time again, and we have a mixed bag from the Great Land today. Starting things off right, we have the results of that great Alaskan tradition, the Iditarod, where musher Dallas Seavey won a historic sixth first-place finish. He is now the most successful Iditarod musher in the event’s history and an Alaskan hero.

Talkeetna's Seavey won his latest Iditarod title Tuesday in Nome, breaking a record he shared with race icon Rick Swenson.

Seavey crossed under the famous Burled Arch on Nome’s Front Street at 5:16 p.m. Tuesday to win the 52nd edition of the Last Great Race with 10 dogs in harness, and now stands alone with the most wins in Iditarod history.

He clocked in with a race-winning time of 9 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes, and 8 seconds.

“This one was supposed to be hard,” Seavey told Iditarod announcer Greg Heister shortly after crossing the finish line. “It had to be special, it had to be more than a normal Iditarod — and it was.”

This win comes even after Mr. Seavey was penalized two hours for improperly field-dressing a moose he was forced to kill after it tangled with his dog team, which we reported on earlier. So congratulations to Dallas Seavey, and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

Alaska Man score: 4.5 of 5 moose nuggets. Points for being our champion, but I’m still docking half a point for being sloppy with that moose carcass.

Next, this is a mixed bag with our friends in Arizona, when a North Pole police officer (yes, there really is an Alaskan town called North Pole, because why wouldn’t there be) made a routine traffic stop and discovered the guy in the car wasn’t who he claimed to be and who was, instead, a real zero.

In December of 2023, a North Pole Police officer conducted a routine traffic stop, checked the driver’s ID, and then sent him on his way. The ID was an Arizona license and belonged to Barry Ashcraft. The ID showed every sign of legitimacy, and calls to the Arizona Police Department confirmed Barry Ashcraft was a real person.

However, after a closer look, red flags began to go up. On February 29 the man was arrested under his true name, Michael Oakman.

Oakman, a 55-year-old man from Arizona, was considered a fugitive from justice with felony warrants issued by Navajo County in Arizona. His warrants were from cases in 2012 and 2014 and included Dangerous Drugs and Felony Trespass charges.

Alaska State Trooper (AST) Trevor Norris, who is part of the Fairbanks Criminal Suppression Unit, said it is unknown how long Oakman lived in Fairbanks as a fugitive under the radar. It could have been close to a decade. During that time he tallied up six other traffic stops in the Fairbanks area, successfully passing himself off as Barry Ashcraft each time.

The prize in this event goes not to the fugitive but to Officer Norris, who discovered the Arizona malefactor hiding amongst the populace of Fairbanks. This was a good piece of interstate sleuthing, and Michael Oakman will now be on his way back to Arizona to face the music.

Alaska Man score: 3.25 out of 5 moose nuggets. Points for finding this guy out; demerit for it taking ten years.

Next: The Kenai Peninsula is out there a way. In summer, it’s a big tourist destination, having some of the best fishing and most beautiful scenery in a state that is famed worldwide for great fishing and beautiful scenery. But the year-round population isn’t that large, so when Ethan Hansen decided to start his taxi service, he wisely kept it to a one-man, one-car operation.

E.T.'s Taxi has serviced the peninsula since January, providing rides for about 100 people so far. Owner Ethan Hansen, nicknamed E.T. by his older sister, is a former driver for Alaska Cab and says he would have to pay $130 each day to lease a vehicle from the company.

“I was staring out the windshield every night and asking myself, ‘Why am I paying these guys to drive a taxi?’ So I went and bought a business license and that’s what started the ball rolling. I own my own car so I don’t have to pay a lease and started doing it for myself,” he said.

This, folks, is how it’s done. When you’re in an employment situation that makes you doubt the smarts of the whole thing, you come up with a way to do it better yourself. Not only is he making a better living, but he does a lot of his driving on Friday and Saturday evenings, getting folks home safely from the local bars. Good for him!

Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets. No demerits for Ethan Hansen. He’s the man.

Finally, a quick one: In Anchorage, last Wednesday, police were summoned to a suburban neighborhood where a suspect (what he is suspected of remains unclear) was barricaded in a house; the Anchorage PD and the suspect proceeded to shout at each other until the suspect came out and surrendered. One wonders why this is even news, but even Los Anchorage has its slow news days.

Alaska Man score: Nobody gets any nuggets for this deal. Sorry.

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Check back next week for more Alaska Man adventures!