<\/a>Iditarod musher Anna Berrington tends to her dogs outside a structure on the grounds of Tolovana Roadhouse, 30 miles from Manley Hot Springs. (Photo by Ned Rozell)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
The Tolovana Roadhouse has burned to the ground a few times. This version — canary yellow and 80 feet long — was built in 1924. That was just in time to provide shelter for a musher on the first leg of relaying a diphtheria antidote from Nenana to Nome. The event came to be known as the Serum Run of 1925. One century later, the dogs returned to Tolovana Roadhouse.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
At 1:30 a.m. on March 4, 2025, Mary Knight, a Fairbanks nurse and dog musher, stood out on the snow-covered ice in front of the roadhouse. She had purchased the structure and the land five months before.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
She paced in her heavy winter boots, waiting for the first of 33 dog teams. Tolovana Roadhouse was not an official Iditarod checkpoint. Officials called it a “hospitality stop.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
A breeze from the north carried sweet, heavy spruce smoke down to the river. It was the product of five cast-iron wood stoves on the property — three in the expansive main lodge; one from a barn and another from a sauna that held two 50-gallon barrels of river water from a hole chopped in the ice. The water was a service provided to all of the mushers; they would warm it in cookers fired by bottles of Heet and feed their dogs stews of kibble, beaver meat and other high-fat items.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Across the river — beyond where Knight shifted from foot to foot — two great horned owls hooted nonstop.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Redington’s headlight grew brighter until he stepped on his brake as he reached Knight, jabbing points into the snow between his sled runners.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Welcome to Tolovana Roadhouse,” Knight told him. “Take your dogs up the bank and people will help you park your team if you are staying.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I am,” Redington said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Great,” Knight said. “There’s water in the sauna, and lots of food inside and a bunk for you when you finish your chores. Outhouse is the large building behind the roadhouse.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t