A review by jennsbooklife
Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen

4.0

This is a really cool insight to dog sledding and distance sports. While I'm not a dog person, there were small things I could relate to from my own experiences of horseback endurance racing - the way animals change when you bring them into a routine and real fitness, the kind of obsession and hypnotism that repetitive motion brings, how everything you do begins to center around the animal - but there were many parts that shocked me and convinced me that dog sledders must be some of the craziest athletes in the world, because while an overtly fit horse might be difficult to handle and a challenge to manage, I've never feared that one would eat me or another riders horse and I've rarely felt truly out of control (even in unforeseeable circumstances, horses tend to defer to a riders judgement before acting alone). The dogs on the other hand were running loose and unstoppable for more than half of the novel and this seemed to be a very normal occurrence, which begs the question, if mushers can't stop their dogs then how are they checking feet and applying boots or ointment every 30 minutes? It seems almost irresponsibly dangerous, but the narrator makes it abundantly clear that he was ignorant and bumbling throughout the experience so maybe that isn't the norm at all. (And I do acknowledge that they're working at 15 to 1 while my experiences are all 1 to 1. That said, I'm not about to hook up 15 fit horses without any means of controlling them but my voice either.)
Overall the book was really interesting, well written, and funny. My only complaint is how heartbreaking that final chapter is. I wasn't at all prepared, and maybe that's the point, to try to convey exactly how it felt for the narrator, but damn dude. I hope he was able to still find happiness.