At 17 years old, Charlie Chingliak needed special permission to run this year’s Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race (K300). He raced alongside adults who run dogs full time or as part of sled tour businesses, and with two Iditarod champions. Most of these mushers are not from the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta.
But Chingliak is growing up just upriver from the start line. He’s a high school student from the village of Akiachak, and he fits this sport in around homework and basketball practice.
“I had a game at 7 [p.m.]. Missed out to come to the [K300] banquet,” Chingliak explained.
It was the teenager’s first ever 300-mile race, and it was grueling. There were a lot of new things to navigate – like how to actually sleep at checkpoints. By the time he left Tuluksak, Chingliak hadn’t slept in nearly three days.
“I had a seat, so I was just sitting on the seat. Like, I tied a rope around my hand so if I fall off, I can, they just drag me,” Chingliak recalled, laughing.
When some of his dogs began to pull toward home while passing outside of Akiachak, Chingliak also realized that local mushers can have a disadvantage.
He also encountered a local musher’s disadvantage when some of his dogs began to pull toward home while passing outside of Akiachak.
But he kept going. And as most of the mushers crossed the Bethel finish line, a lot of people tuned in online to track Chingliak’s progress through a GPS tracker on the K300 website. But about 13 miles from the finish line, that GPS tracker stopped moving.
Trouble on the trail
“Out of nowhere, behind Akiachak, one dog, just like, it was done,” Chingliak said. “I was tired also.”
On the Gweek River coming into Bethel, Chingliak and his dog hit a wall. He said that he called his family. He also called the K300's race manager on the phone and told him he was thinking of scratching.
“Told them, 'I think I'm done.' I was telling people this dog is done. I'm like, drained,” Chingliak said.
While he was stopped there trying to figure out what to do, Chingliak got a text from Bethel musher and 10-time K300 champion Pete Kaiser, who had crossed the finish line hours earlier, winning the race.
Kaiser asked him about the dog, then the veteran musher gave him some advice. He told Chingliak that when you can’t keep going and you don’t want to scratch – there’s a third option: you can take a break.
“They were telling me to take my time,” Chingliak remembered. “And so I was just sitting there for a while thinking, and I didn't come this far to give up.”
Chingliak said that he fed his dogs and decided to camp out on the trail. He huddled on the sled, curled up in his sleeping bag. Alone on the tundra in near-zero temps, the young musher got his first sleep of the race.
Chingliak's family was parked on the ice road not far from Akiachak, watching for him.
“We couldn't communicate [with] each other because he, I think he had no signal,” Jeff Chingliak, Charlie’s father, recalled. “So I just, once in a while I'd check his status on the tracker.”
Then, Jeff said, about four hours after Charlie’s tracker had stopped, he looked again.
“I checked — it was moving.”
Back in motion
The elder Chingliak said that he looked off into the distance and there was Charlie’s headlight, moving closer.
“My wife woke up, and she's like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘Look to your side,'” Jeff said. "'Oh, is that Charlie?'”
Letting the dogs rest had worked.
“That dog just got up and started moving around, started being himself, and that's when I knew it was ready to get up and finish,” Charlie said.
All of a sudden, Jeff said, the world came back into motion.
“My phone started going out, like my messenger ringing, ringing, getting messages. 'Is Charlie moving?’ ‘Yep, he's on his way to the finish line,’” Jeff recalled.
Jeff said that a line of cars appeared behind him, coming from Akiachak. Apparently other people from home had been staying up, watching the tracker.
It was 2:00 a.m. at the finish line, and yet a line of trucks were parked along the chute and a small crowd had formed. Among them were Charlie’s family. But he was also met by fellow Y-K Delta mushers, including Kaiser and Mike Williams Jr. of Akiak. Kwethluk mushers Raymond and Harry Alexie were also there. Charlie’s father said that it surprised even him — he thought everybody would be sleeping.
“Even Mike Jr. came to me, he’s like, ‘Oh, man, this is so exciting,’” Jeff recalled. “Very exciting just to see him finish. He's only 17, and his persistence and his patience, his care for his dogs. Didn't wanna hurt him, just rested him. He didn't, he didn't really care what time he finished. He's like, at least if I finish this I'll be good.”
Faintly at first, the blink of Charlie’s headlamp appeared out of the dark. Steadily, it grew closer and brighter.
“I was just trying not to cry,” Jeff said. “Then, you know, it was just happy, happy tears.”
Chingliak finished the race in 54 hours and 13 minutes. It was a moment almost bursting with glory. But for Chingliak, it was about his team.
“I'm very proud of those dogs. I was like, just happy to finish and pack the dogs up, and go home and sleep,” Chingliak said. He said that his goal going into the K300 was just to finish. He wanted to learn about longer distance races and said that he saw his 54 hours on the trail like a kind of school.
A new reality
Now, Chingliak goes back to actual school and daily teenage life. He said that he’s planning to train as a carpenter after graduation and might take some time away from the sport. But after finishing the K300, the Chingliak's say something has shifted.
“He can say, ‘I finished the K300 race,’ with these big, big names. Mike Williams [Jr.] out there, Iditarod mushers. He can say, ‘I finished it.’” Jeff said, beaming. “He beat me to it — that was my dream too.”
At this year’s K300 Mushers Banquet, a little girl asked the 17-year-old to sign a t- shirt.
“A lot of people [are] saying they look up to me,” Chingliak said. He said that his supporters — his family, fellow mushers, that text from Pete Kaiser — they’re what pushed him through the finish line.
“I wouldn't want to give up on them and scratch, so I just worked with it and I finished,” Chingliak said.
During the celebration of the race, Chingliak was named Rookie of the Year. He was also given the Red Lantern award. In sled dog race tradition, it’s presented to the last-place finisher in honor of the perseverance it takes to see a race through.
When his name was announced, Chingliak stepped onto the stage. The pride in the room — filled with fellow mushers, volunteers, and community members — was palpable. The applause was electric.
