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Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
Gary Paulsen, 1994
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
272 pp.

In Brief
Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod—the 1,180 sled-dog race through the Alaskan wilderness—in dangerous ignorance and with a fierce determination. For 17 days, he and his team of 15 dogs endured blinding wind, snowstorms, frostbite, dogfights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, hallucinations—and the relentless push to go on.

They crossed the barren, moonlike landscape of the Alaskan interior and witnessed sunrises that cast a golden blaze over the vast waters of the Bering Sea. They crossed the finish line, but it wasn't enough: Paulsen was obsessed and wanted to race again. Though the dangers of the Iditarod were legion, more frightening still was the knowledge that he could not stop racing dogs of his own free will. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author

• Birth—May 17, 1939
• Where—Minnesota, USA
• Education—
• Awards—3-time Newbery Honor winner (for Hatchet,
   Dogsong, The Winter Room); Golden Spurs Award of
   Western Writers of America
• Currently—lives in La Luz, New Mexico


Gary Paulsen writes many young adult coming of age stories about the wilderness. He is the author of more than 200 books (many of which are out of print), 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for young adults.

Born in Minnesota in 1939, he was raised by his grandmother and aunts. Paulsen used his work as a magazine proofreader to learn the craft of writing. In 1966, his first book was published under the title The Special War . Using his varied life experiences, especially those of an outdoorsman (a hunter, trapper, and three-time competitor in the 1,150 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race), Paulsen writes about what he knows best.

Much of Paulsen's work features the outdoors and highlights the importance of nature. He often uses "coming of age" themes in his novels, where a character masters the art of survival in isolation as a rite of passage to manhood and maturity. He is critical of technology and has been called a Luddite.

Some of Paulsen's most well-known books are the Hatchet series, although he has published many other popular novels including Dogsong, Harris and Me, and The Winter Room, which won the Newbery Honor. Woodsong and Winterdance are among the most popular books about the Iditarod.

Paulsen competed in the 1983 and 1985 Iditarods. In 1990, due to heart problems, he gave up dog sledding, which he has described as the most difficult decision he has ever made. After more than a decade spent sailing all over the Pacific, Paulsen got back into dog sledding in 2003. In 2005, he was scheduled to compete in the 2005 Iditarod after a 20-year absence, but withdrew shortly before the start of the race. He participated in the 2006 Iditarod, but scratched after two days.

Paulsen lives in La Luz, New Mexico with his wife, Ruth Wright Paulsen, an artist who has illustrated several of his books. He also maintains a 40-acre spread north of Willow, Alaska where he breeds and trains sled dogs for the Iditarod. (From Wikipedia).

Also, see the author website.

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Critics Say. . .
Thhre are only a handful of indispensable dog books.... Winterdance belongs among [those] classics.... It's hard to find a page in this laconic book without an insight, hard to find a word that could be cut without loss.... Winterdance is beautiful and it is very funny and it is about men and dogs and their souls.
Donald McCaig - Washington Post


Winterdance will be around long after most outdoor adventure book shave been forgotten. What could have been an ordinry journal becomes instead a revelation.
Minneapolis/St. Paul Star-Tribune


A breathtaking, heart stopping, roller-coaster ride that depicts the brutal reality of the Iditarod, the magnificent beauty of Alaska, and the unique, if not surreal, relationship that develops between man and dog.
Nevada Weekly


Paulsen's survival adventure is in the tradition of Jack London: one man and his dog team together against the Arctic wilderness. With everything stripped down to the barest essentials, Paulsen finds elemental connection with a world beyond cities, family, and work. His prose is spare and physical; at its best, it has the fluid simplicity of Hemingway. On the other hand, there is too much reliance on the pattern of menace beneath the surface. Paulsen is always teetering on the edge of a precipice, waiting to be dragged, dropped, crashed, frozen, torn apart, and buried alive. Fortunately, however, he also has a sense of farce, and there's a lot of the Marx Brothers here. As Paulsen makes clear from the start, the Iditarod race is itself an absurd undertaking--to run with a dog team for 1,800 miles through unimaginable cold, "winds beyond belief, roaring waters and deadly dreams." What's most moving is his behavior at the end of the race: "I didn't want to go in," he says. Armchair travelers will understand. Hazel Rochman - Booklist


The Alaskan Iditarod is an annual 1180-mile dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome that generally takes two to three weeks to complete. Paulsen, a popular YA writer, ran the race in 1983 and 1985 and was again in training when a heart condition forced him to retire. This book is primarily an account of Paulsen's first Iditarod and its frequent life-threatening disasters, including wind so strong it blew his eyelids open and blinded his eyes with snow, cold so deep matches would not strike, and packages of lotions kept next to his skin that froze solid. However, the book is more than a tabulation of tribulations; it is a meditation on the extraordinary attraction this race holds for some men and women. In a style reminiscent of fellow nature writer Farley Mowat, Paulsen deftly examines careening on a precarious edge. Highly recommended for all libraries. — John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, N.J.
Library Journal


Readers Say . . .
(When books have been around for a while, there's a shortage of mainstream online reviews, so we try to include helpful ones from Amazon customers.)


This book packs quite a punch. Each chapter ended with this reader wincing for the author, who had just spent the night stumbling through a Minnesota swamp, his eyes almost swollen shut from mosquito bites, searching for his runaway dog team, or had been blown down an Alaskan mountainside with his team, in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. Not to mention the five-skunk night.

It takes a great deal of physical as well as mental toughness to train for the Iditarod, much less run a team of half-wild dogs in the actual race.

Winterdance reminds me of Algernon Blackwood's Wendigo: in both stories men are caught by the spirit of the Great Northern Wilderness, and perish or almost perish. I think the most telling moment in Paulsen's book comes when he runs his team to the end of his trapline—and then keeps on going in the dead of a Minnesota winter, just to see what lies beyond the next hill. His wife's intuition to call out a search team was correct, even though Paulsen eventually did turn back. The "Wendigo" or wanderlust had almost captured his soul.

It also reminds me of "Call of the Wild." Like Jack London, Paulsen has a laconic, fluid writing style, and both authors include the Wilderness itself as one of their major characters. I won't say that either man subscribed to Blackwood's weird brand of pantheistic mysticism, but read how Paulsen slowly bonds with his dogs--and other wild animals.

This book is also a grand dog story with more pratfalls than a "Three Stooges" movie. The author spent many a night on his backside, being dragged down a dirt road (or worse, through a second-growth forest) by his lusty team. Running the Iditarod takes a very special madness, and Paulsen endured moose attacks, blizzards, dog bites, and too many helpings of moose chili to draw us into his very beautiful and brutal world.
Reviewer - E.A. Lovitt "starmoth," Michigan 7/19/02




I haven't laughed so hard in years! : I made the grave mistake of trying to read this book while on a public bus. It wasn't long before I realized the folly in this, as I repeatedly had to stifle the wild guffaws that threatened to pour forth without my consent. The other passengers probably came to the conclusion that I was either very sick or slightly deranged as I rocked back and forth in my seat and tried to pretend that I was, in fact, merely coughing. Gary Paulsen has offered us one of the most hilarious accounts of running the Iditarod that I have ever come across.

Living in Minnesota, Paulsen had a small team of five dogs that he used to work his traplines. Over time he became more and more entranced with mushing, until he eventually realized that wanted to, needed to, run the Iditarod - the 1,100+ mile dogsled race stretching across the state of Alaska between Anchorage and Nome. The first half of the book deals with his preparation for the race—finding more dogs, training the dogs, getting the right equipment, etc. We soon see that he has quite a bit to learn. Over the course of this training period, Paulsen finds himself attacked by dogs, run away with by dogs, and often spending many miles being dragged along on the ground behind his sled by dogs. He manages to break his sled repeatedly, get separated from his team, and one night, get sprayed by five different skunks in rapid succession. He is, in short, one of the least qualified of all possible Iditarod candidates

The second half of the book takes us through the race itself. In the beginning, he makes every possible rookie mistake. He gets lost before even leaving the city of Anchorage, after putting the wrong animal in the lead-dog position....

Much of the first half of the race is a series of such uproarious follies. Unbeknownst to him at the time, the other mushers had voted Paulsen the least likely competitor to get out of Anchorage. But he eventually did, and he ultimately manages to muddle his way through the entire race. As the journey goes on, the book becomes a little more serious as we see Paulsen undergo a transformation. He learns about himself, about the dogs, and about life. He feels himself become one with the frozen world of the north, eventually feeling more at home there that he had with his wife and family in Minnesota.

There are sad parts, too. We see a beloved dog trampled to death by a moose before the first day is over. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurence. Moose do not yield the right-of-way to dog teams, and can be extremely dangerous when upset. We also see a maddened musher kill one of his own dogs in a fit of rage. Killing or abusing dogs during the race is strictly prohibited, and the man was duly disqualified, but I still found this the hardest part of the book to read.

Winterdance is a magnificent story of a man following his dream and gaining a wealth of knowledge about himself and the world. Paulsen's easy, self-deprecating humor and vivid verbal imagery bring the story to life. It is also a fast read - I finished the book in one day. I have rarely read anything that has made me laugh so hard, or that has moved me so much by the end. Growing up in Alaska, I always watched the Iditarod start in Anchorage. I've met some of the winning mushers. But Paulsen's story is entirely unique. He was not a race champion or mushing hero, but the rankest rookie out there. And yet he endears himself to our hearts. For any fan of dog mushing, wilderness survival stories, or both, I recommend this book without hesitation.
Reviewer - Monika "equestrienne 23," California, 3/10/04

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Book Club Discussion Questions

Sorry—the publisher has not made any questions available for this book.

But don't despair. Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

   • Generic Discussion Questions
   • Read-Think-Talk About a Book

Also, take a look at these discussion pointers to help get you started:

1. Given the inhuman conditions and hardships, what is behind Paulsen's obsessive drive to complete the Iditarod? In light of his inexperience, do you find his ambition admirable, selfish, mad ... or what?

2. What lessons does Paulsen's self-training episodes teach him? How well do those lessons work during the actual race?

3. To what extent is the race about the dogs, as Paulsen says, or about human skill in running them?

4. What knowledge does Paulsen gain during the race—about the race, the dogs, the Alaskan wilderness, and most of all about himself?

5. What about those who cheat...especially the one who has pizza delivered by a friend on a snowmobile?

6.The Iditarod has generated controversy regarding the some-times mal-treament of the sled dogs. Although no fingers are pointed at Paulsen, who clearly treats his dogs with love and respect, The Sled Dog Action Coaltition has raised disturbing issues about abuse in general. You might do a little research and decide for yourself where you stand.

(Questions by LiLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)