Alaska Man Monday - Great Kids, Our New Congressman Kicking Some and Taking Some, and the Iron Dog

The lower 48 are freezing over again this morning, but up here, it’s just another day. Speaking of which: A very Alaska thing is the Native Youth Olympics. This is a cute story.

Peyton Lott patiently sat on a mat in the Dzántik’i Héeni Middle School’s gym on Saturday morning, waiting for her next competitor in the Inuit stick pull event.
“I love doing these because it shows what strength [was] within the people who did them,” she said.
The game involves two students facing each other and holding a wooden stick — one with an inside grip and the other with an outside grip with no gaps between their hands. Then, they grip and pull against one another until someone breaks free with the stick in hand, winning the match.
Last weekend, Lott and nearly 100 other elementary-age athletes competed in that event and others as a part of the Native Youth Olympics 2025 Junior Celebration.

Getting kids outdoors and exercising is always a good thing. And I’m not just saying that because I have a strapping, 6-2 grandson who is 14 and already getting offered college basketball scholarships.

Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets. What a bunch of adorable kids!

As for our new (Republican) Congressman, Nick Begich III (R-AK), he’s making us proud.

The Democrats who are attempting to make the House Natural Resources Committee their battleground did not come prepared for the likes of Congressman Nick Begich, newly elected from Alaska.
As a Harvard-educated former oil executive who represents a nonprofit dedicated to stopping drilling in the Atlantic Ocean took the microphone to testify against offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic outer continental shelf, she came up against the buzzsaw logic of Begich, who eventually accused her of using a “duplicitous level of doublespeak.”

See for yourselves:

Look, I’m sure Mary Peltola is a very nice person. Unlike some Congressional creatures I could name, she seems personable, and I have it on good authority that people around Bethel, where she’s from, like her. But I’m glad to have Nick Begich III representing Alaska in the House of Representatives. We really traded up.

Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets again! Way to go, Congressman.

Finally: A famous event up here is the Iditarod, but some folks don’t know that there is a motorized version, the Iron Dog, a snow-machine race. The teams are assembled now!

Fans of the world’s longest, toughest snowmachine competition got their first glimpse of this year’s race lineup on Wednesday in Wasilla.
The 2025 Iron Dog race pool, consisting of 30 teams, met inside the Menard Center, where racers saw their machines undergo tech inspections and learned their official order at this year’s starting line.
Of the 30 teams competing this year, six racers on five teams return as former champions:
Mike Morgan (Team 6)
Tyler Aklestad (Team 7)
Tyson Johnson (Team 8)
Bradley George & Robby Schachle (Team 20)
Cory Davis (Team 21)

The Iron Dog bills itself as the world’s “longest, toughest snowmobile race” and there’s little reason to doubt that. It begins down in Big Lake, and the “pro route” proceeds for over 2,500 miles, through Kotzebue, Nome, and back to Big Lake, while the “Ambassador & Expedition” routes run from Big Lake to Nome. If you’re not familiar with that route, that’s a lot of wild, untamed country – in an Alaskan winter. The problem, as I saw the other day in a video that I unfortunately do not have permission to reproduce, is that parts of the route have so little snow that it’s difficult to get the iron dogs through.

You can track the Iron Dog's progress here.

Alaska Man score: 5 moose nuggets for the trifecta – safe running, Iron Doggers!

Now then – let’s talk about upcoming events, beards, and rocks. Yes, really.