ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Jim Davis is back on his beloved Iditarod trail this week, seven months after his death.
Mansfield native Matthew Failor took some of his old friend’s ashes with him when the 1,128-mile race began Monday, from Fairbanks to Nome.
Davis, 75, is a resident of Fishhook, Alaska. He died Aug. 2, 2024 from a sudden cardiac event. Davis was a former Iditarod racer and finisher and later a race judge.
“Jim is a personal friend who I met through my connection with (four-time Iditarod champion) Martin Buser and his wife, Kathy Chapoton,” Failor said before the race began.
“They helped us out with dog mushing and Jim has always given me advice. When (Jim and Nancy) were getting out of dog mushing, they gave us some of their dog houses, some of their ganglines, as well as their training sleds,” Failor said.
“They are just good people,” the 42-year-old St. Peter’s High School graduate said.
During a celebration-of-life event after Davis was cremated, Failor had an idea and approached Nancy Davis with it.
“I told her if she wanted him to go on the Iditarod trail one last time, I would be happy to offer,” Failor said.
“I figured it was fitting.”
Nancy Davis provided some of her husband’s ashes inside two of the dog booties Jim Davis used when he raced in the 1992 Iditarod.
Failor and Nancy Davis talked about where Jim Davis would like his ashes to be spread on some of his favorite locations along the trail.
One of those sites will be in the Blueberry Hills, a series of hills between Unalakleet and Shaktoolik. The trail passes behind Blueberry Point and climbs to a summit of 1,000 feet.
“It’s just a beautiful place. One of our other friend’s (ashes) have been spread up there, so they will be together,” Failor said.
But there are also others, including the Tolovana Roadhouse between the Nenana and Manley Hot Springs checkpoints and Tanana River, a tributary to the Yukon River.
Those are the places Failor has already scattered ashes this week.
“I have got plenty more to put up and down this trail,” Failor said from the Tanana checkpoint Wednesday during an interview with Iditarod.com Insider, which provides start-to-finish coverage of the event.
“Nancy was joking with me that if I’m going a little too slow to just go ahead and dump some of him off the side of the sled to lighten the load.
“But I won’t do that,” Failor said.
“Jim Davis is just a Class A individual … just a very good guy … calm demeanor … sound advice. He was a race judge here at Iditarod for many years. Just a really good dude,” Failor said during his 24-hour stop after battling through a “snow blizzard” on the trail.
Failor may have been thinking about his friend on the 85-mile run from Manley to Tanana, including a period of nearly an hour when he was lost in the snow blizzard that reduced visibility and flattened trail markers on a trail that was glare ice in places.
That grueling slog left Failor (at least temporarily) near the back of the 33-team pack, taking the day-long mandatory stop far sooner than expected.
Failor said Davis, working as a race judge, helped him at a checkpoint during a previous Iditarod.
“I had mishandled my pocket knife and had stabbed by right thigh above my knee,” he said before the race.
“Jim was the race judge there and he gave really sound (knife-handling) advice. I thought I was going to be withdrawn from the race. He said, ‘No, I am not going to withdraw you. That’s your choice. You can continue on if you want to.’
“It’s always nice to have a friend on the trail, especially when you’re in low moments. Jim has definitely been that for me during the Iditarod,” Failor said.
“It was nice that he was there, that he was my friend. I trusted him,” he said.
That advice must have echoed inside his head at Tanana.
“I finished that year because of him … or one of the reasons why … I just went checkpoint to checkpoint. He just said. ‘Take it easy, go one run at a time. You don’t need to just end your race right now,'” Failor said.
“Us mushers, we don’t have too many friends that we hang out with on a regular basis, because we’re always hanging out with our dogs.
“But when I did hang out with Jim, he always gave sound advice. Just a calming sense, very even keeled. I always just think of a real calm ship out on the sea, not faltering back and forth.”
