MCCABE CREEK, Yukon — The Yukon Quest was just an infant when Jerry Kruse’s telephone rang.
“They’re gonna be there in an hour,” said a Yukon Quest official in 1985, referring to the pending arrival of mushers at Kruse’s house.
“We had all the mushers in the world in the living room. Most of them, even the leaders, stayed four or five hours,” Kruse recalled on Monday. “They were wall to wall. As soon as the bread would come out of the oven, it would be devoured.”
A Yukon Quest custom was born.
The call surprised Kruse because initially the Quest had declined his invitation for a rest stop at his place. Now there’s no question: McCabe Creek, halfway between Carmacks and Pelly Crossing, is a designated dog drop. On Monday and Tuesday, 45 Yukon Quest and Quest 300 teams stopped on the Kruse’s property — now an active farm — to get their dogs examined if necessary, to rest, to socialize and to enjoy some home cooking.
Turner into McCabe’s
After the inaugural house party, the Kruses hosted the stop for a few years at the Midway Lodge they then owned, and moved the drop to the farm in 1989. On Monday, the atmosphere was festive inside the newly cleaned carpenter’s shop serving as event headquarters.
“It’s like second nature,” said family member Jeri Kruse, who spent four days preparing cinnamon buns and moose and barley stew and who was 13 years old when the Quest first rolled through. “We’ve been doing it so long it wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t.”
Several of Jerry and Kathy Kruse’s 10 children now do most of the work preparing for the onslaught of Quest mushers, while Jerry, white-haired and portly, mostly prefers to stay put in his octagonal-ceilinged living room. But old-time mushers such as Frank Turner and John Schandelmeier still pop over.
“Now they come here to get hot water, say hello,” said Jerry, 62, who headed north from Minnesota in 1973, opting to settle in the “more scenic” Yukon instead of Alaska.
Jerry never mushed competitively but formerly ran a trapline using dogs, a practice becoming obsolete today with the popularization of snowmachines. Now he’s semi-retired, raising hogs, chicken and cattle on a small scale.
As their dogs rested, longtime mushers William Kleedehn, Hans Gatt and Gerry Willomitzer told stories and swapped lies in the plywood woodshop in the wee hours Monday.
“They had their storytelling festival at the table. They like to keep us entertained,” said Jeri, now of Atlin, British Columbia.
Jerry has seen the Quest evolve over the decades, saying it used to be tougher and less competition-oriented.
Rest time
Turner, one of the few who’s participated in as many Quests as Jerry, briefly visited him on Monday.
What Jerry told the Whitehorse musher: “Frank, it’s probably in our blood as much as it is yours. We call it a family tradition.”
Contact staff writer Matias Saari at msaari@newsminer.com.
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