Each year, at the Iditarod Sled Dog Race finish line in Nome, Alaska, a red lantern award is given to the last musher in. Their name is added to the trophy via an engraved brass tag. Rookie, Jeff Reid, won it in 2024.
Just to finish this grueling race is worthy of praise, as so many have tried and come up short. Getting lost, encounters with enraged moose, wolves, scrapes and bruises, including broken bones and delirium are remnants of past events.
I’ve never entered the Iditarod nor do I have plans to at 70, although much older men did and were successful. The late Colonel Norman Vaughan comes to mind. He participated 13 times and was 84 when he raced for the last time. I’d still attempt to make the journey on snowmachine as long as I had a couple of my pals along for the ride.
Although I’ll never be privileged to have my name added to that red lantern, I do have an Iditarod lamp of my own, an original one. It’s a kerosene version that sat either in a cabin or business in Iditarod at one time when the town was alive. The place is now a ghost town.
This lamp was buried under tundra and I came upon it by chance. The base was broken off from the kerosene reservoir, resulting in two pieces when there should’ve been one. Ample amounts of J-B Weld epoxy helped bind them back together.
Fragile glass chimney and decorative shade were shattered into pieces and there was no restoring them. Chrome plating is somewhat dull with tinges of rust where it peeled loose. This is well-earned-patina having survived a good amount of time lying under that damp grassy tundra.
On a portion of the wick mechanism is marked: IMPROVED BRISTOL – MADE IN USA – B.B. & C. CO. – MADE IN USA. This was known as the Bristol Brass & Clock Company. I’d estimate the date of manufacture was circa 1900 or before. This company started business in 1850.
The fuel reservoir was slightly dented but otherwise in useable shape. One of the hardest things for me to find was an original glass shade. It took close to 20 years of searching before coming across an identical lamp on eBay. I merely swapped shades from this one to mine. Lavender colored flowers adorn the majority of the globe with a peach hued top. Overall, it’s very elegant.
I can envision this sitting on a desk or table in Iditarod, during cold winter nights, with just a wisp of smoke coming through the cylindrical chimney. A resident or business person sitting in front of it, would’ve used the light to write a letter or perhaps read the local newspaper.
There were two newspapers during the town’s heyday before one quickly folded. An old printing press still remains, rusting away in wet swampy ground. It’s beyond restoration. Another larger press was taken to Anchorage, where it too was destroyed in a hotel fire.
I’ve yet to light the lamp not wanting to stain delicate glass. Perhaps someday I will, as there are fuels now available that are said to be clean burning. This old lamp doesn’t have a name attached to the base like the Iditarod red lantern, yet tucked underneath it, out of sight, is my name on a sheet of paper along with this story. For that reason alone, it’ll always be remembered as an as Iditarod survivor.
Undoubtedly, this is one of the only surviving sources of artificial light from a once bright and populous—Alaska gold rush town.
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