2007 Yukon Quest

DAWSON CITY, Yukon — The Yukon Quest had just started, and Two Rivers musher Greg Parvin was famished.

Hardly renowned for his organizational skills, the attorney had forgotten to pack food for the race start.

Then Parvin remembered the chocolates he’d stashed, planning to present them to girlfriend Leslie Dickson on Valentine’s Day.

Parvin agonized awhile, then couldn’t resist.

“He held out for a couple hours, and then he finally said ‘Screw it, I haven’t eaten in 14 hours,’” said Dickson, who met Parvin while vacationing in Nome during the finish of the 2006 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Parvin recently moved to Two Rivers from Nome.

Though guilt-ridden, Parvin devoured all the chocolate.

Parvin then found some heart-shaped Snickers chocolates that Dickson had hidden in his mitts before the start of the race.

He ate those, too.

Parvin made up for the transgression on Wednesday when Dickson received a card (in a Ziploc bag) that Parvin gave to photographer Carston Thies at Stepping Stone. Thies relayed it to one of Parvin’s handlers, who finally delivered it to Dickson.

“I got it at breakfast,” said Dickson, a former Fairbanksan who now commutes to the Interior regularly from Anchorage. “I was totally touched. It’s so sweet, with all the chaos, that he was thinking about Valentine’s Day at all.”

Inauspicious first meeting

With a couple of red roses, some chocolates and a card at her side, Michelle Reakoff waited patiently in the Dawson City checkpoint on Wednesday.

It was Valentine’s Day, and her boyfriend of 5 1/2 years, Fairbanks’ Mike Jayne, was en route to the halfway point of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.

Six hours later, Jayne arrived in 10th place and was presented with the gifts before Reakoff, also Jayne’s handler, began helping take care of his dog team at a camping spot across the Yukon River.

“We’re not going to do much, but Mike is going to sleep a lot today (at a hotel),” said Reakoff, who grew up in Wiseman and first met Jayne, the son of Bush veterinarian Eric Jayne, by visiting their homestead on Chandalar Lake. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll go have dinner.”

Originally Jayne planned to spend Wednesday away from a checkpoint, and Reakoff thought about hanging a sign for him along the trail somewhere. She was thankful he arrived in Dawson instead for a 36-hour break and even went hunting for construction paper to decorate the campground tent with hearts.

“Everyone’s out (of paper), so he’ll have to settle for flowers when he pulls in,” said Reakoff.

Reakoff was 14 and Jayne 16 when she flew to Chandalar with her father.

“I thought he was a jerk,” said Reakoff, because Jayne spent much of the time picking on his brother.

A couple of years later, they crossed paths at the Tanana Valley Fair, and began dating shortly thereafter while Jayne worked in Coldfoot.

Her first impression didn’t last, and now Reakoff is addicted to dogs as well. The couple owns 47 in all, mostly huskies except for a pair of pit bulls.

“I actually was afraid of dogs when I met Mike,” she said. “Now you can’t keep me away from dogs, I just love them.”

Contact staff writer Matias Saari at msaari@newsminer.com.