Music. It's the event that i created and it's something that i'm proud of my family's proud of it but it was a lot of work i mean you don't people don't realize we're four to five weeks in advance getting everything organized getting the sponsors lined up getting everything we want to go and then all of a sudden we get down there we got a snowstorm we plowed it out a week before we got a snowstorm so we're all blown in again we got to
go plowing out again which is not an easy challenge and you We try to do it the best we can with the sponsor money and the parking money, but that's what pays for the event. So the parking money and the police camp is totally separate than the race. We had sponsors and the entry fee for the race went to that pot. We have two accounts, an operating account and a racing account. So whether people showed up or not, we could still have the race.
It would bite our tail because we had a lot of money getting plowed up and there to go. you know, but everything's worked out fine. I mean, for 33 years, we didn't have a check that bounced. Everybody got paid and we walked away, hopefully with enough to have money to start for next year. Oh yeah. Everybody said, oh, Howard must've made a million dollars this year. If I didn't make a million dollars the first year, you think I'd have come back?
That was Howard Theis. He's the founder of Arctic Man, a winter race that combines snow machines, skiers, and snowboarders. It takes place at Summit Lake, in Paxon, Alaska, and it pairs a snow machiner and a skier, or a snow machiner and a snowboarder. It's one of the fastest and most unique races in the world. Skiers and snowboarders start at 5,800 feet and descend to the bottom of a canyon.
There, they link up with their snow machine partner, who passes them a tow rope and hauls them uphill for over two miles. Once they're at the top, skiers and snowboarders separate from their snow machiner and point it 1,200 feet to the finish line. The fastest competitors have reached speeds of up to 90 miles per hour. The idea for Arctic Man came from a bar bet between Howard and two other guys. He wagered he could beat them to the bottom of the mountain.
So they all gave the bartender $100 and agreed the winner would take all. Howard won that bet, and soon created what would become Arctic Man. The first one was in 1986. Ten teams competed that year. The next year, there were 25 teams. And then, in the 90s, there were 65 teams. It kept growing, becoming more and more popular among racers, families, and partiers. For the racers, it was an opportunity for glory and cash. For families and party people, it was spring break.
Over the years, it's become a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And Howard's been there the whole time, organizing and keeping the peace. He's 75 now, and he's amazed at what Arctic Man turned into. But he's unsure of how much longer it will continue. This year, maybe next year, maybe even the year after that. It's just so much work, and he's getting older, and can't do everything he once did. Setting the course, for example, by putting up fences, flags, and gates.
Even the idea of passing it on is funny to him. He laughs and says, first of all, nobody's that stupid. So here he is, Howard Theis. Welcome to Chatter Marks. A podcast of the Anchorage Museum. Dedicated to exploring Alaska and the Circumpolar North. through the creative and critical thinking of ideas, past, present, and future. My name is Cody Liska, and I'll be your host. Do you prefer Howard or Howie? Howie's better. Everybody knows me as Howie.
Everybody knows you as Howie. Okay, well, I will call you Howie then.
Or you can call me a lot of them call me asshole or the skiers call me, as you know I'll give you a neat little idea kind of a neat part well the last race we had I told the guys on top of the release point up there I said guys you're going to be real happy I just did my will, and if I die they're going to sprinkle my ashes on the top of the mountain called the tit and you guys can kick the shit out of me the rest of my life and I can't talk back I said we're in, I love it So...
Something I've seen you say before is that Arctic Man, with its 15,000 attendees, becomes Alaska's third largest city. How does that feel that you created that? Well, Cody, it's kind of interesting because, as you know, this race started as a bar bet, you know. And I used to ski when I was a kid, and I had a bet with two of the guys that I could beat them to the bottom of the course. In the process, we all put $100 into the bartender's pocket.
It wasn't the pocket. It was a little different than that. But anyway, I'm not going to say that online. Anyway, so the idea was that we go race. Well, we had a little party that length a little bit. So we didn't get going until about 2 o'clock or 3 in the afternoon. It was long, sunny days those days. Mass start off the top of the tit. The other two guys that raced me are no longer alive, but they can't talk about it. And the guy beat me to the hookup area, as you're well aware of.
But the guy went the wrong canyon. and my partner went to Wright Canyon. Okay. So I finished up at the finish line, told the guys I just won 300 bucks, and I'm going to go to a friend of mine who owns the Alpine Ski Team, and we're going to start an event called the Iron Dog, Iron Man at that point. It was called the Iron Man, and we're going to make this happen. In 1986, we showed up with 10 teams, and it went from there. I had no vision in my mind, Cody, that this thing would do what it did.
I had no idea what it would turn into. I mean, it just was crazy what I thought it was going to do. And it did the opposite of what I thought it was going to do. It went insane. I mean, it went from 10 racers in 86 to 25 in 87 to the 90s was 65. Wow. I mean, it went nuts. Yeah. You know, and in them days it was bring what you brought for a snow machine. We didn't really have a qualification what you could bring.
And those were mostly all skiers. Then it got opened up that we want to go to snowboarding, so we went to snowboarding. I forget the exact year we went to snowboarding. It was the Ironman, and we got cited because of the triathlon. Oh, okay. Okay. So we got told that we couldn't do that. And after two years of legal funds and letters coming from legals out of New York, I said, okay, fine, we'll go to the Arctic, man. And you wimps from Hawaii, come and see if you can make this happen.
That was it after we told the letter. So, you know, it went from, like I said, from snowboarders to skiers to snowboarders to, then the women said, why can't we get involved? I said, okay, you can. So the next time we had women. So, you know, probably in the meat of the thing when there was the locals running it, it was more of a fun thing. Cody, you know, everybody had a good time. It was a good weekend. And then their money got involved. We've got big money, big sponsors.
I mean, I've had Marco Sullivan, the U.S. Olympic skier, win it four or five times. I've had Nate Holland, Olympic snowboarder. I've had Levi LaValle and I forget his skier he pulled. I'll think of it down the road. He's a national skier. So, I mean, all those things got to the point where it was going crazy. The first year that Nate pulled his skier, and I wish I could think of his name. I will. He was an Olympic skier from Tahoe. They blew up their snow machine.
And the next year, we didn't have the event because it snowed out. They came back the following year. Nate LaValle. Oh, not Nate LaValle. I'll think of his name. I just can't think of it. But, I mean, it's crazy what it's done. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, I went to Goldenview Middle School and had Eric Heil. Eric Heil. Yeah. As one of my teachers. Eric is like the hero of Arctic Man, like the local hero, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. He's, you know, Eric was very committed and involved.
And we applauded what Eric did. Did you know he would come here every year? And we've had the Olympic skier come from Jamaica. It was Olympic skier, Jamaican Olympic skier. He's raced it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, you know, guys like Heil and his crew were pretty technically savvy. You know, they use computers to collect data about their practice runs. Do you remember when racers started doing that at Arctic Man rather than just, you know, going up there and then pointing it?
Well, I would say probably when it got into the more money, more technical. I mean, Eric was always involved in skiing and he always had the wax thing, you know. But then they got some hired waxers. I mean, the guy who runs Aliasca, I forget his name now, but he came there and they hired him to do waxing. He waxed for the Olympics. And so those guys all got to the point where he was doing it. Some of those guys were spending $1,000 in wax, for an ounce of wax.
I mean, it got to the point where they said, hey, you know, if we're going to win this thing. And, of course, the whole race was if you don't, what's it say, you drill and rush, go faster, go home. If you don't go fast, you go home. You go home with no money. I mean, I remember we had a one scare, Brian Soppy. Remember Brian Soppy? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Brian Soppy came to me and says, hey, this is too much of a wimp. Let's put a bump off first aid just about probably 100 yards down that first aid.
Brian, I'm going to kill you. No, let's do it. This will make the boys be the boys. So in practice run, Brian went off the top of that thing. He flew about probably 100 yards in the flying area. Okay. And what happened? He fell. Okay. He was black and blue from one end to the other. And he said, that was a dumb idea. Whose idea was that? It's yours. So, yeah, I mean, there's things that's happened. I mean, you know,
we put a lot of work into grooming that thing. And we were almost two days getting it groomed up for him so they could race it. And I've seen Eric Heil up there with a snow shovel walking down the face of that tip to get it so it's in great shape. Eric Heil put a lot of work into this thing. In fact, he called me about three or four years ago after we stopped the thing. He was, Howard, your name should be in record.
What you've done to take that event from where it was at a bar vet to where it was 33 years later is phenomenal. And you've got Peter Kakas coming from Czechoslovakia. He's an Olympic speed skier, and he was also just a speed skier. That's when the speed suits started showing up. Okay, okay. You know, and then they said speed suits. And so I'll never forget that Warren Miller did it, and I forget what year Warren Miller was there, but they brought a skier from France.
No, he wasn't from France. He was an Olympic skier, but they got a speed suit from France. And so they made a movie. They put him on a boat, like a submarine, and he owes his money to get to Alaska. He came there to race. He came up to me. Can you tell me about this event? I said, it's fast. He goes, yeah, they got a speed suit coming for me. On practice day, he wore that speed suit. He fell. He slid probably 800 yards. Oh, my gosh.
He told the people one miller i'm not doing this no we paid you you're doing this and he he scared the crap out of him you know so so he skied he didn't want to but he skied and he did okay you know he got to the finish sign he was happy to get that point but you go look at the speed ski and the speed suits weren't the fastest times i mean the fastest times i know about the speed but The fastest time is set by Marcos Sullivan on a pair of 223 downhill skis. Okay. Three minutes, 52 seconds.
Insane. And 12 100s. So they just went five and a half miles, Cody, in three minutes and 52 seconds in 12 100s. It's insanity. It is, yeah. Absolutely insanity. You've been in the event, correct? I have, yeah. I've been once or twice, I think possibly twice, but it is, man, it's a thrill. I only went as a, not as a racer, but, you know, just to kind of check the vibes and man, it was a blast.
So, you know, what happened, COVID kind of hurt us bad because we did 19 without skiers because we wanted to see what was going to happen, okay? Then 2021-22, we canceled just because we just didn't have the fortitude to put it all back together through COVID, and people were concerned about COVID.
Then in 23, we decided we'd bring it back, okay? We brought it back, just a snow machine racing that people just to hang out for the April event and then talk about skiing and snowboarders but the cost and the expense anymore cody to go all the way to the tit as we call it and bring back it's just logistic is just not there anymore okay and the day we live today insurance and cost of everything it's crazy so 24 we tried to get it back but we had a problem with
the permit with dnr we got that fixed so we have it back for 2025 okay the event is going to happen uh we're working on right now it's really it's doing really really well. Sponsors have come back, and we're getting it to where we want to get it. We decided, if you've seen the race, we're not planning for a ski and snowboard race a little different than in the past. You will hook onto your partner at the finish line, toe in hand.
We'll drop the flag. You'll pull them up either top of first aid or around the backside. We're not sure yet. You'll go down to the pole out of the canyon. You'll make a corner. You come over and drop of your skier like you did during the old Arctic Man, and they'll finish at the finish line. Start and finish will be at the finish line. Okay. Different idea, shorter, probably only about two and a half, three miles at the most. We're going to try to get three miles out of it if we can.
But now you can sit at the finish line and watch the whole thing. Okay, yeah. So you don't need to get a ride up to the tent. Yeah. Okay. So your partner will hook onto you right at the finish line, pull you straight up the mountain, probably on the left of first stage where we'll go, go around to the canyon where you're coming out, make a turn, come back, and pull them back over. So it's got more pulling in this operation than it was in the old one.
But then the skier will drop off first lady like he did before and come to the finish line. Okay. Okay. What our goal is this year is to try to make that happen. We might just do a kind of a test on it see how it works i got five or six guys interested in just showing us how it works then if it matures to the point we think it is then we'll go forward okay you know over the years have any team or teams really surprised you because of their speed because of their outfits or maybe something else?
Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to think of some skiers. So the Olympic skier from Alaska, what was his name? The Olympic skier. Yeah, he lived in Alaska. His brother lives here still. He was a big Olympic skier. He won a lot of golds. Moyer. Oh, Tommy Moe? Tommy Moe. There we go. Tommy Moe's brother came and skied it and got second one year, got third one year. But he didn't have the equipment or anything else everybody had. So I said, if I work Tommy, will Tommy come? Tommy will never beat me.
And he was really good. He was really a good skier. He knew what he was doing. He had some drinking problems, some other problems, and he just couldn't keep his fortitude up in the whole event. Okay. Tommy Moe would have been a great one to come to the event.
But yeah i guess i've had marco sullivan olympic downhill skier i've had other olympic downhill i'm trying to look at the list i've got of all the old old um names and i got it and i wish i put it together but i've been busy all day yeah you know it seems like marco sullivan, and him coming to Arctic Man and competing. Was a very pivotal moment for Arctic Man. Well, it wasn't just him. Okay. It was Nate Holland. There was an Olympic skiers came before him. Okay.
So there's others that have come that brought the thing. But then they also got a big sponsor. They got global, sponsored them a lot. And so when they did that, that helped the whole operation. Mm-hmm. Like I said, I wish I'd have pulled that out. I've got a list of all the times and everything. It's just I've been so busy going on with that going on. Let's see. Let's see. What's I got here? I've got files.
You've got Nate, excuse me, you've got Marco, who's been pulled by Tyler Acklestead, who's won the Iron Dog. You've got Tyson Johnson, who's pulled Scott Montalvo. Scott Montalvo was an Olympic skier from Seattle. Okay. So there's another name. I'm looking online now. I'm trying to find some of these old names, and I'll think of the guy that won it in 16. But yeah, so I mean, it's crazy what the event has done. Darren Rawls. Darren Rawls. You remember that name? I don't think so, no.
Darren Rawls was an Olympic skier. Okay. From Squabble. He knows Nate really well. Okay. So Scott McCartney and all those guys were buddies. Darren Rawls was an Olympic skier from Sugar Bowl. Levi LaVallee was a snow machine partner from Minnesota. He works for them. He's kind of one of their agents. They came and won $63,000. Wow. In a three-minute race. Do you think the social aspect of the event has changed at all over the years? Well, it has. I mean, years ago, it was kind of a party thing.
I mean, when you were there, that's what it was all about. You know, the racers don't party until it's over. But, you know, you look at the bottom line, it's a spring break for a lot of people to go ride. Some of the best snowman's riding have in the state, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable what you got. And so a lot of them just come as cabin fever, just kind of do what they want to do and enjoy themselves. You know, someone says we had 15,000 people. I didn't count them, Cody.
I mean, I know one year we parked 1,017 motorhomes. Okay. Think about that. Yeah. 1,017 motorhomes. Some of those motorhomes had five people. Some of them had 10. Some of them probably had 20. Plus all the people that camped on the road and the thing else. So in those days, we parked along the road as well. Then we got more pads, so we didn't park on the road because it's hard to get in and out of there with all the traffic on there.
But, you know, the years we had that, I don't know. I mean, we've flown over with a helicopter. They're just everywhere and everywhere and everywhere. You know, you get in a helicopter and go take a ride, riders are everywhere they want to look. So is it $15,000? I don't know. It sounded good. And if we're the third largest city, I'll live with that word. So I didn't make, I didn't make that quote. Somebody else did. And I kind of shook my head. It's kind of like the last Bud
Light. Yeah. I got one more Bud Light left. I mean, but you know, uh, it's been a challenge. It's been hard. I mean, I'm 75 years old, Cody, and I'm still thinking about this thing. So when you look at, when you look at that time, that amount of time that you have spent just, you know, embroiled with an Arctic man, how much...
Of your life has it taken up i mean does it does it take up a lot of your memories does it take up a lot of um maybe even beyond memories like you know the way that you feel it's an event that i created and it's something that i'm proud of my family's proud of it but it was a lot of work i mean you don't people don't realize we're four to five weeks in advance getting everything organized, getting the sponsors lined up, getting everything we want to go.
And then all of a sudden we get down there, we got a snowstorm. We plowed it out a week before we got a snowstorm. So we're all plowed in again. We got to go plow it out again, which is not an easy challenge. And, you know, we try to do it the best we can with the sponsor money and the parking money, but that's what pays for the event. So the parking money and the police people's camp is totally separate than the race. We had sponsors and the entry fee for the race went to that pot.
We have two accounts, an operating account and a racing account. So whether people showed up or not, we could still have the race. It would bite our tail because we had a lot of money getting that plowed up and there to go. But everything's worked out fine. I mean, for 33 years, we didn't have a check that bounced. Everybody got paid, and we walked away, hopefully with enough to have money to start for next year. Oh, yeah, everybody said, oh, Howard must have made a million dollars this year.
If I'd have made a million dollars the first year, you think I'd have come back? I mean, yeah, I mean, it's a process. And there's a lot of equipment we had to buy and get invested into. We did a lot of that equipment we bought for the Fairbanks Alpine Ski Team, and they let us use it. A lot of the PA system that we had, we used for other events. We just didn't use it for that. But, yeah, I mean, bamboo poles and fencing and everything else.
I mean, we had probably, we still probably got about $3,000 or $4,000 of it. But I've donated it to clubs and donated it to other organizations. We don't need it anymore if we're not going to have a ski race. We kept enough to do the one we're talking about this year. But timing gear, I got almost $40,000 invested in timing gear. You want to buy it? I got a trailer that's full of nothing but stuff from Arctic Man. Have you thought about passing Arctic Man on?
Well, first of all, nobody is that stupid. And, you know, I got a son. Have you met my son? But he's 37. He's helping me. And I got a guy out of Anchorage that's helping me. We're trying to get it maintained so that we put the event on. We hold the parking area. Then we got the snow machine clubs. That's what we're trying to do this year. Come in. They run the events. We don't run them. Because they can't find any help or staff. So none of our people are paid. They're all volunteers.
And so what we're going to try to do this year is we're trying to get other snow machine clubs within the state to come run these events. And it looks like it's working. But we're a nonprofit corporation within the state of Alaska. And we have a board of directors. We have everybody involved in it. We do like we do to keep it with the state. But as you know, corporations get to the point of these nonprofits. You got five that work and 20 that bitch. Okay. Okay.
So, you know, we're going to try to make it so we have an event. And how long it's going to go on after I'm gone, I don't know. I mean, that's my son and his other kids, if they want to continue it. We also come up with the idea, you know, we do it every other year instead of every year. There's all kinds of things in the box, Cody, but I don't know where we're going to end up.
I've talked to my dad about King of the Hill. And he said that a big reason he decided not to continue doing it was because people were starting to get hurt, like seriously hurt. And he didn't want that on his conscience or have to deal with the legal ramifications. How does that stuff sit with you? People getting hurt at Arctic Man? In the 33 years, okay, and I can quote this, we packed four racers off the hill.
So it wasn't racing people that were getting hurt it was idiots being idiots out on the snow machine had nothing to do with the event in fact one year we stopped the event because some guy got caught in an avalanche on the left side of the mountain behind the tent we went over with our rescue crew and got him out okay 10 30 in the morning before we started the race, been an hour getting him out of the thing he turned around at four o'clock 100
feet over and killed himself. Oh, my gosh. Okay. An avalanche. We'd had only four people in the race hurt major hurts. You know, we hurt ankles and that type of stuff. But, I mean, as far as people that have had cast and put away or had problems, only four in 33 years. Four people we've all won off, two off in helicopters and transported the rest in ambulances. So I've had minor injuries. You have knee injuries, hip injuries, that type of stuff, but nothing that was major.
No one died in the arctic man any race we had they died riding snow machines in the mountains being stupid but not us mm-hmm. There used to be a wet t-shirt contest in the beer tent. Knew nothing about it. You knew nothing about it? Knew nothing about it. Someone must have quoted you and they don't know what they're talking about. There was some out in the parking lot, but I don't think there was everyone inside the tent that I know of.
And I got a short memory and I'm 75. I may not remember back that far, but I'm not sure what you're talking about.
So these ones these wet t-shirt contests that were out in the parking lot nothing to do with nothing to do with you guys okay and so that that would be uh the benefit of it being out in the parking lot is that it is among the attendees rather than you know the people putting it on we my wife and i walked out of the tent one day and uh we saw that there was going on we walked over there and the guy was with me from anchored she said i'll be damn it that's my daughter my niece
on top of there get out of there so i mean yeah there's things that happen i mean i got stories that'll just blow your mind it's just it's just crazy could you tell me a few of those stories i'll give you a couple a couple of them i'll never forget there there is i'm at the start and i i see this guy coming up the mountain and he comes right through the start gate with a ski One ski on the left and one ski on the right.
And I'm holding his ski. And I said, where are you going? Trying to get to the top. You can't go up to the course. You just screwed up the whole race. What race? I thought it was over. I thought it was yesterday. No. He was a little intoxicated, to say the least. So I said, you better jump off that sled. Why? Because I'm going to let go of it. What? What's your name? He told me. What parking spot you in? So I let go of his sled.
It rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled. I can't believe you did that I said I can't believe you showed up here you need to go to your motorhome and park that snow machine because you've been drinking, and I just called the trooper and said I got a guy that's got a little intoxicated driving a snow machine up here you might not go find him I don't know if they ever caught him or they did I said have a nice day and I walked away and he went down picked up his machine and left.
We had another gal that had parked her snow machine, the finish line, and we lined up all the trailers and loaded up everything. And she's sitting right in the way of my big snow machine to get everything down the mountain. And I said, will you start that up? She says, no, I can't. My husband took the key. He took the key. He told me not to leave until he got back. And so I can't start it. I said, well, I can. I lifted the hood, unpulled the plug, started it.
And her husband comes over and hits me right in the face, knocks my helmet off, my glasses off. I'm laying on the ground. Oh, my gosh. He's on top of me. My son, which was John, was 15, 16, then jumps on top of him. What are you doing? She says, it's a kid, honey. You're going to go to jail. He looked up. I had probably nine people have him stuffed in the ground, all my friends. And he said, what are you doing? Oh, I thought he was trying to steal my wife's sewing machine. No, he's not.
Get out of here. So he left and left her there. He got in his car, went home, and she got a ride back with her friends. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Of course, I knew his name. And I told him, I said, when you get a chance to call me back, and apologize. I might give you a spot. He called him back next year. I said, I'm thinking about it. I'll get back to you about a week before the event. I called him back and said, okay, you walk in front of me at the event and you
come apologize in front of your friends. He says, I will, Howard. I apologize. I'm really sorry. So it was a good policy problem. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, that's pretty big of you to understand that this event is so important to some people that you're willing to forgive certain mistakes and alcohol will get involved sometimes sure yeah it's it's inevitable and so so anyway it's been an interesting event cody and you know i i said i it's it went way beyond my imaginations uh nobody thought it would do what it's done it's it's done well it's i mean everybody you can talk to eric kyle eric kyle
thinks it's one of the best events in the state you know he loves what it goes on adrenaline's huge and there again it's it's what you put into any event you put in, what you get out of it. And I put my heart and soul in this thing for about 33 years to make it go what it's doing. And arguing with the state, arguing with DNR, arguing with BLM. I mean, BLM one year said, hey, you can't race here because you don't have a permit.
What are you talking about? We've been here for 13 years and where have you been, BLM? They said, well, we just found out about it. What are you talking about? And you got to get a permit from BLM. Why? Because it was a portion of the races on BLM. So I went to Don Young when Don Young was alive. What happened, they designated a bunch of property to BLM for the pipeline, okay? And there was a section of the course. It was not much of it.
It's from halfway off the first start to about the mid of the canyon was BLM property. So we had to get a permit for that. So I fought it and fought it and fought it. We finally worked out. Then I went to Don Young before he left, before he died, excuse me. And he said, all right, I'll fix it. He took that property and took it away from BLM and gave it back to the state of Alaska. Really? Okay. Don Young did that. Don Young did that, yeah. Wow, okay.
So that got us just in the state dealing with the state, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad. We've had our problems with them. They kept trying to raise the rate. Now we've got a five-year contract that makes sense. Because whenever they raise the rate to me, Cody, I got to charge the people who come park there. So if the price goes up for that and the price goes up for fuel, for plowing, then it's going to cost you more to come here.
So we just tried to make it so everybody could have a good time. Yeah, we charge $225 per person. If I get 600 people, that's about $120,000. The fuel for the event is almost $20,000. The equipment we rented, if it depends how much we get, could be anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000. Then you got the insurance. You got liability. You got medics. You got dumpsters. I got outhouses. Add it up, Cody. It goes really fast.
Yeah. Yeah, my dad did a summer camp up at Alieska for years, you know, snowboarding and skateboarding in Girdwood, skateboarding in Girdwood, snowboarding up at the mountain. And, you know, I was young, but I was still conscious enough to know that all of that money that, you know, my dad got from the attendees of Borderline Camp just went straight back into insurance, straight back into paying the park crew, straight back into paying the diggers, straight back into paying for the lunches,
you know, that all of the campers ate. And, you know, it goes fast. Well, we just figured it out with DNR, but we used to pay about $1,300, and some of DNR went to $6,000 for the property. And we fought it, but we lost. But in 2024, they came to me and said, well, now it's going to go to $100,000. Hmm. And I said, why? Well, because we have rules. I said, no. So I met with the director, the deputy director in Anchorage, had it all figured out that we would come back to reasonable terms. We did.
And then somebody that used to work at DNR, I'm mentioning names, filed a protest, an appeal, to them to go back to the $100,000. I fought it. We fought it and argued with them. And we finally, in September, we got a ruling that, no, it's not going back. He was out of line. And here's your event for five years. And here's your price. Okay. So the commissioner of DNR and the deputy commissioner and director did a good
job to fix the problem. But, you know, anybody in Alaska can file a protest with any organization. And they got to go through and view it and get it done. And they did. They did their job. It took longer than I thought. But anyway, we got it done. If you look at my website right now, I thank Mr. Boyles and the director and the deputy director for what they did to turn this event back to an Alaskan event and keep it going for a few years. Music.
The show Alaska State Troopers came to Arctic Man one year. Did you have to remind me of that? What did you think? Oh, okay. So you don't remember when they came up? I said, did you have to remind me of that? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. That's what you said. Well, you know, I kind of wanted to pick your brain about it a little bit. You know, what did you think about how they portrayed it?
Well, when they first came, we kind of approved it. We weren't really happy with it, but they came and did a pretty good job. Okay. Then it got to the point it became, they caused trouble, okay? They invigorated people to get mad or do stuff. And it got to the point it was out of hand. And when they went away, it was time for them to go away. And General Walker told me, what can I do to help you? And he helped me say, you know, whatever it takes to do, we'll try to make it work.
And I haven't been back since. I don't know if he did anything or what he did. But I talked to some troopers the other day. They said, no, it's not in our budget anymore. And I said, that's good. So we had some goods and bads from being there. We had more bads than goods. And so they were there. We lived with it. We put up with it. And they did help some of the problems. And they arrested a bunch of people that were out on parole and shouldn't belong there and some other stuff, too.
Okay. We were kind of a gate for them to find people. But most of the stuff that happened there, if you got a DUI, it usually got off with reckless driving or reckless. I don't know all the situations. But it was tough. It was hard. And it kind of put a damper in us, too, because, you know, people didn't want to come. They're afraid to get arrested. So the last two times we've had it, we had no troopers there.
We had no problems. And if we have a problem, we call them and they're there to help us if we need them. So the last two times that Arctic man has gone on, you haven't had any state troopers? No, they weren't there. And I don't think they were there in 17. They weren't there in 18 or 19. They weren't there in 23. Okay. And do you feel like it's better when they're not there? Do you feel like you guys are able to self-regulate?
Yes, I think it's better. I think they just drive through there to let them know their presence is there, but not stay there. Okay. And there have been up to 15 officers, I read. Oh, they've been up to 30. There's been up to 30. Okay. Wow. Okay. And they just periodically drive through. Now they're just a couple drive-thrus throughout the event. But I mean, these guys, they set up a tent and they had headquarters and they had cameras monitoring and everything.
So, yeah, it was a really big deal. It was a lot of money. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you also hired, at one point, your own security for the event. Do you- I hire our own security every year. You do? Okay. And there not to be so much security, there's just to wander around, make sure we don't have problems. And then whoever runs the bar has their own security for the bar. We don't have that part of it. Okay. And do you remember the first year that you did hire your own security?
It was probably 99 or 2000. Do you remember why? We just felt that it was a way to kind of watch what was going on out in the parking lot. You know, if someone's trying to be stupid, we aren't going to do anything. We're just going to get their names or numbers and call the cops. We're not going to be, we're not going to put back guns and do stuff like that. We're just going to monitor what's going on.
Can you tell me about when Tesoro pulled out as a sponsor after having sponsored Arctic Man for 10 years? Because that seemed pretty significant. Well, I don't know why they left. I mean, that's a good point. I think a lot of the rest because the people that were involved that were helping us were involved in Tesoro and they left and they changed their whole management style. They've changed their company style. And so the process, they went away.
And I've had GCI, I have ACS. I've had, we've had some huge sponsors. Gene's Auto now from Fairbanks is a major one and they're with us to stay. And so, yeah, we've had some big sponsors. We've had goods and bads. You know, they felt it was a drunken party. And I said, well, you know what? I appreciate that, but you're not sponsoring the party. You're sponsoring the event, the race event. So that's where your money's going. So I don't know.
I don't know why they left and never told me. It's like any sponsorship, you know, they don't budget it that year. It goes away. Then you try to find another one. Yeah. How often were you and are you trying to introduce Arctic man to the rest of the world? Well, we just did a movie. It's a 33-year history of the event, DVDs. We've sold probably half of them. They're not selling as big as I thought they would because a lot of people don't know what it is.
So it's a marketing tool. And we're a pretty low-key operation. We don't spend a lot on marketing and everything. It's expensive, Cody, in today's world. So, you know, we're out there and we have it. So we kind of keep it to ourselves. They're on eBay. They're all over the Internet. If they buy them, they buy them. I sell probably $30, $40, $50 a year, you know. Online. And we sell a bunch down there. So, you know, training sponsors is, is a project to say the least.
And now we don't need to be as big towards the sponsors because we're not doing the races and all that sponsor money went to the races. Was there a point in Arctic man where, you know, you are really working your ass off, you know, in those early years and then Arctic man became established and it became this thing that people just came to you know this is what they're doing during spring break and it kind of uh kind of etched out a little area for itself in the lives of people in alaska.
Yeah i think we had a lot of people i've had some people have been there for almost the 30 years we've been there they're still there still coming back but yeah is it hard so if you've been the event you know every parking spot is staked with a state correct you know they parked their motor You want to pack it in there. So I hired a bunch of guys or volunteers. Once I had to hire them, volunteers did it. And they did it so bad, Cody, I had to go redo it. Really? Okay.
So for the last nine years, those stakes are personally put in by me. I walked that entire thing. In fact, one year, my phone alerted me on a Sunday after the event with an alert. And I thought, well, what's this alert? He said, we just want to let you know in the last week you've walked 103 miles. I go, what the hell is that? Because your phone's on you all the time. It monitors your track, you know? Yeah. And so I'll never forget one time a guy walks up to me and he says,
hey, if you know where Howard's at, I said, I haven't seen him. Sorry. He goes, well, I need to get one more space. I said, well, he'll be back at the tent later this afternoon. Come back there. We'll see what we can do. One of my buddies said, hey, Howard, you got any more steaks? I said, you dumb shit.
So yeah i mean it's a project and i'm down there probably eight to ten days before the event getting everything organized getting the tent set up getting the parking set up you know getting people into the spots well i want that spot it's too small i said you want it smaller what's that mean it's 65 feet by average 12 to 15 feet you want it 10 feet i can make it 10 feet no no i'm fine i'll make this work you know i mean we're doing the best we come in the situation we got Yeah.
And if they're not happy with it, we'll try to move you someplace else. But, you know, it's easy to it's easy to bitch until you have to do the work. Sure. Yeah. Do you feel like Arctic Man became at a certain point so established that you were able to slow down a little bit on your end? Well, especially now that the skiing's gone. You know, 19 was a great year because I didn't have to do anything except set the parking lot up.
And, you know, I got a chance to go out and look at some of the events and got to get in a helicopter and go for a ride. So, yeah. And, you know, the least I have to do as far as setting that course up, there again, I had set that course every year from the tip to the finish line. Put all the fences up with all the volunteers. Put all the flagging up. Put all the gates up.
Put all the flags on the gates up. put all the safety guff up so that was about a three-day four-day project none of it snowed on us we're screwed we go back and start over yeah we had one year we canceled the race so i went up there on a sunday morning about nine o'clock by myself drove up to the hookup area and we're snowing so bad cody i couldn't find the canyon going into the tit i went to the other canyon oh man okay and blinded so my snow machine starts to go uphill and about to fall off,
And I look over to my left and I see grizzly tracks. Really? Okay. Yeah, I'm going, this is not good. Yeah. So I wanted to actually find my way back. So I had some chalk. So I chalked my way back to the hookup area so I could find the trail on the way back because it was blue chalk. Got back to the top of the release point up on top where we drew the radar up on top there. There was three and a half foot of snow in the fence. Oh, man. Okay.
So I said, guys, it's not going to happen. It's continuing. By 10 o'clock, it opened up. We had the best snow machine ride we had in years because we had three and a half foot of fresh snow. Okay. But the race didn't happen, but it took us two days to get everything off the mountain. That's the only thing. We put it on the mountain. We got to take it off. Yeah, yeah. So you put three days putting it up. You hope you can get it off there in a half a day. Mm-hmm.
So, I mean, people don't realize how much work and effort it puts into that thing. And I feel it. Like I said, I don't think I'll be able to do as much as I've done in the past, not the age I'm at. But, again, like I said, what you get out of it is what you put into it, Cody.
You know, something I keep thinking about is if you think the snow machiners and the racers who came from outside of Alaska, do you think that they pushed the Alaskan riders, you know, snow machiners and snowboarders, skiers, to be better, to go faster? Oh, of course they did. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they wanted to do the fast they could go. But you look at it, there wasn't no snowmachiners from Lurie 48, one that's the event except for Nate LaValle from Minnesota.
All the rest of them are local snowmachine guys. And the thing is, it's really interesting, and you might have been around skiers and snowboarders. Skiers and snowboarders do not spend money.
Snowmachiners do. i never had any snowboard or ski sponsor help us out it's always been snow machine sponsors okay, i've went to all of them they're not interested not interested i've had snow machine gear but no ski type have helped us okay which is crazy but you go put a group of snow machiners together and snowboards together and a group of snow machiners who's going to spend the money the snow machiners, Skiers and snowboarders are as cheap as they come. And I told this to their face.
For example, we own the golf course in Fairbanks, Alaska. And I sold it. But we have a ski event out there that they ski for free. And about a year ago, I'm at the golf course. A guy gets on skiing, snowboarders, cross-country skiing. Comes into the restaurant. We have a restaurant there. Hey, can I get some hot water for my own tea? I said, no. You can't be serious. We just gave you an hour of skiing on trails that we maintain, and you want water for your free tea? Have a nice day.
Well, I guess that's why they call them ski bums, right? Yeah, I guess. That's exactly right. Do you think you could have done Arctic Man in a different part of the country, or did it have to happen in Alaska? No, there's nowhere I can think in the U.S. that would ever think about it. We talked about doing it in Squall Valley and Sugar Bowl. Okay. And in Oregon, and we couldn't get through all the perimeters. Yeah. There was no way they'd let us bring snow machines on their mountain,
on their ski mountain. It wasn't going to happen. And then, of course, I worried about the liability. It was, yeah. I went to Oregon. I went to Mount Hood. I went to Sugar Bowl. I went to a couple other courses in California. It wasn't going to happen. Which is good. Let it happen in the frontier state of Alaska. Yeah. What do you think was the most significant year in Arctic Man?
I can't really say that i mean i think having darren lavales and nate la valley which is olympic skier and olympic snowboard machiner you know cross-country snow machiner was great for the whole event and and nate still talks about it although this is a great story i'm down there in uh sugar bowl skiing with nate la valley i mean i would name it with uh darren rolls, and i got a guy gave me a uh lynx hat complete lynx hat it's got the paws it's got the eyeballs it's
got the ears it's got everything and so like a dumb shit i am i go to california with a link to have to ski i'm walking off the chair and it's well that's totally disgusting that's what me or the hat she goes the hat i can't believe you did that and i skied off and darren says stay away from her man stay away from her so we get done we walk off the ski lift again at the bottom where we get off and she
walks up to me again she goes you're still here i said ma'am you're gonna make me cry. Why is that? My dad, when he was a trapper, trapped a baby lynx. I felt really guilty about it. So it was my pet. It was my pet for six, seven years. It passed away and I couldn't bury it. I made a hat out of it to remember it. Oh, she says, you're such a nice guy. I sucked that California in my back hip and she still probably remembers that story.
Darren Rawls said, Howard, that was quick. I can't believe you came up that fast with that story well that's hilarious so yeah it's an event that i love it's in my heart but it's getting to the point where i know it's going to have to go away everything's got to go away and not go away someone else has got to be stupid enough to sit here and spend all the hours a guy doing it my accountant says to me because we're a non-profit corporation and i'm the president i can't get paid i can
get reimbursed for the pot i put into it okay but i can't get on the payroll. You can't do it in the state of Alaska. And so he says, you know, the money you put into this thing, even when you're reimbursed, he says, you lose so much money every year. I said, yeah, I know, but you know, I'm going to walk up one day when God lets me in heaven and said, you did a great job, you young man, we're going to reward you. So I said, you know, that's kind of, I guess that's where I'm at.
You grew up in Fairbanks, right? Yep. Yep. What was that like?
Interesting i mean the town's come a long way since i grew up i mean where my house is right now we used to hunt rabbit um you know i mean it's completely changed you know you look at it when i grew up here gas was like 12 cents candy bar was five cents you know now gas is three dollars and fifty cents candy bar is three dollars that's what that tell you yeah yeah it's changed a lot My family, my mom and dad, we lived here all their life.
My dad came from Oregon. My grandpa came from Oregon. But my son's been here all his life. My brother lived here all his life. He's still here. My sister now is in Washington. But yeah, we had about, there was a family with my in-laws and out-laws. There was about probably 80 of us to get together for a Christmas party. And are they outdoors people, your family? Some of them are, some of them aren't. Okay. You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives. That's true.
Do any of them or have any of them come to Arctic Man? Yeah, my brother's helped me in the event before. My sister's been there. She brought two of her friends from Washington to come. She came twice now. They had a ball. They were snow machine freaks, and they came up and rode. So they all liked Arctic Man. The people that have gone all appreciated it. Oh, yeah. They said, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have big supporters. Another story I'll tell you.
You ever been there when we plot out the runway for people to park? You know where the runway was? Yeah. So I'm standing in a bunch of guys, and this guy walks up to me and says, man, I really appreciate what you're doing to kind of control idiots from being idiots, driving snow machines. I said, yeah, you need to help us. If you see somebody, let me know so we can fix it. And I have a bamboo pole in my hand, I think, a stake or something.
And he goes down gets on a snow machine comes running back by me Cody at speeds of 90 miles an hour on a snow machine I go, The guy, was that the idiot I just talked to? Yeah, I was. You got to be kidding me. That's not the one that just asked me to do it. Then he did it. So he came by and I took that stick and I broke that windshield off of his snow machine. Really? What did you do that for? You just told me you want people to slow down. Well, yeah, but it doesn't matter here.
Anywhere is going to hurt somebody. Oh, it's not my problem. It's not my snow machine. It's my buddy's. Have a nice day in New Orleans.
So the next day i walk into the tent and these guys with the magic markers took a t-shirt that says because these guys jumped on his case and they're all standing around this guy going for slow it down buddy so he they did their job too they gave me a t-shirt that says don't miss with how he's parking lot or his motorhome park because he will get to you it seems like so often you had to be the marshal approach yeah be the marshal combat or approach these kind of hard-headed,
individuals with you know this equally or maybe even more so in some situations you know to outdo them hard-headedness or you know to really make a point well you know you come to arctic man the 10 favorite best questions okay and it starts at the bottom number one what kind of beer you got How's the ski and how's the snow machine? What's going on? You have outhouses for all the places. And the final question is, where's Howard? I want to see him. Really? Okay.
I want to meet him. I want to meet him. And so, you know, that's just one of those things. I was the marshal, the president, the mayor, the school board. I was everything. I was the guy that kind of said, no, you can't do that. Why not? Because I said, I said, you know, you just can't do stuff like that, guys. You're going to hurt somebody. Yeah. Do you remember any of those encounters or how many of those encounters do you remember when people are like, I want to see Howard?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's many times, hey, I need to talk to you because I want to do this. I said, you can't do that. I had a gal. This is a really great story. We're watching outhouses because we got somebody trying to tip him over. And I'm standing and I see this kid trying to tip over an outhouse with a gal inside of it. He's about 15, 16 years old. And I let him do his thing. And I reached over and grabbed a hold of him. What are you doing?
Oh, that'd be cool. Tip it over. she's in there. I said, hold on one second. So she got out and I took his head and I stuck it down in the commode. And it was pretty close to the top. I don't think I got him into it, but I got close. He screamed at me, oh, mom, mom, mom. So his mom finally shows up. She goes, what are you doing to my son? He tried to tip that out hose over with that lady inside of it. And he's your son. You admit that?
You need to take him back and lock him up somewhere. If I see him causing more trouble, I'm calling the cops. Well, he's a minor. They can't do that to him, ma'am, controlling right now. He walked away, flipped me the finger, and that was the end of the conversation. I bet he still remembers that. Oh, I'm sure he does. I don't know who the kid was every morning I saw him again. For a long time, you've made a point to make Arctic Man a family event. Do you think you've succeeded in that?
Yes, I do. I think now we have this year, We're going to have the end of the year for the juniors, uh, snow cross event. Uh, you know, we used to have a ski race in the back. I don't know if you were around then. We had skiers being young kids being pulled. We had a little mountain we put up. They skied down and they pulled them around on the flats, just pull them around on snow machine. And I did awards and trophies and gave it out to them, all those kids. And they loved it, you know? Yeah.
How do you think Arctic Man is different from something like Burning Man? Well, Burning Man is a big, dope pot, smoking, drug-dealing. I mean, it's just a big, big drunken party. Ours are athletes, trying to be athletes. And sure, you're going to have some drunk problems go around. It's just the name of the world. You live in Fairbanks, you've got the same thing. You've got the good people and the bad people. But I think we've solely sorted out the bad people that they don't come there
and do their stuff. I hope. It probably goes out in the background. I don't want to know about it. I don't need to know about it. But I think more it's becoming an event to come have a good time and bring your kids and enjoy yourself. And if we see we've got a problem that we can focus on, we try to take care of it. If not, just let it go away. It's usually an overnight situation where he wears up going, what did I do?
I had a guy one time, the troopers arrested this guy because he was being an asshole. He did a brody right in front of the cell machine, in front of the troopers on a motorcycle. Been drinking. And they arrested him. They put him in the tent. They said, do you know the guys? No, but I know his friends. Let me work with him. So as we walk out of the tent, I forget I had a bag. No, I had a garbage can in my hand. I don't know why I had it there, but I did.
The guy said, I'm going to puke on all you guys. I stuck his head in that garbage can. He puked inside of it. His face is inside of it. I said, you want to take this home with you, son? Why don't you do that for us? Because you're going to puke on us. And the trooper said, good job, Howard. You saved us. So I took him over to the place he was camped. And they threw him out of the camp. They made him get a ride back to Anchorage. And they came back to me and said, hey, Howard, we'll apologize.
This guy's kind of an asshole. He'll never be back. And I don't know if he ever came back or not because I never saw him. Yeah. What do you think of Tailgate Alaska? I don't know enough about it. I've kind of helped the guy put it together, but Tailgate Alaska is a little different money. I mean, that's a business adventure, you know. They go in there, you know, to try to make money, and we go in there to try to make everybody happy and hope that we can pay the bills.
So I don't think they're a nonprofit corporation. I know they're not. It's a business. In fact, he sold to someone else. Now they're still under a business format.
The hill climb down is a good idea because that's the Anchorage Valley ski hill time do that they do their job there that's a good thing and theirs is a week after ours we don't make sure we don't bang on the same door, thinking about all these years, of Arctic Man you know you creating it you participating in it you keeping the peace um how do you think and i know it's probably difficult or possibly even impossible but
if you were to try to kind of encapsulate uh the feeling of arctic man and what it means to you what would that sound like. You know, I'm going to relate this to interesting. So yesterday I had an MRI. You ever had an MRI of your brain? I have, yeah. Well, I couldn't make it through it, Cody. I was in there 18 minutes and I pushed the button. You had to get me out of here. I was going claustrophobic. I mean, I was contained to the point where I tried to make it happen.
I had about 21 minutes to go and I couldn't do it. So I think Arctic Man, if I close my eyes and when I was in there yesterday, I'm trying to think of good things versus that thing noisy in my head and all the noise going on, the stereo going on. I was trying to think, so I look at Arctic Man, if I had to put it in a capsule and hold it inside itself until I knew what it did, it probably wouldn't be able to happen.
I wouldn't be able to put all the organization into one thing and make it become reality. Just because there's so many fingers off of everything that happened, same thing was yesterday in there, I thought I could make sure that MRI was going to work and I had to bail out. I had to get out of there.
So i think putting it all together into a format that i could, capsulize everything i think would be tough you know it'd be a project to say the least but there's just so many things have happened in the 33 years i mean it's just insane, i mean i've had we've had escorts and hookers in the bar trying to get people picked up one guy came to me one year in my room and said howard you got any condoms they ran out i said get the hell out of You know what I mean?
There's years where we were 32 below with the Arctic Man at the old lodge, and no one's cars could start but mine because I had an auto start on mine. So we were running there trying to get everybody's cars started. I mean, we had a guy from Anchorage. He raced, I think, the second or third year. He had a Yamaha Polaris. He took a Yamaha. No, he took a Polaris and stuck a Yamaha engine in it so he could win. Okay. Loaded up in the first mile and a half of the course. I mean, yeah.
There's just things that have happened that that you just don't realize i mean i i tried i had a guy write me a book we were in the 17th chapter he was a freelancer i found him just online, he was one of those guys he's kind of his own little thing when he got it done he was gonna give it to me there was no cost so he got it done and he worked out of atlanta georgia and he was in a car accident with his motorhome and everything he had was in his motorhome and burnt up. So he lost everything.
And I've always been looking for somebody that wants to sit down with me because I can talk about it, Cody, but I can't write it down. If I had someone that knew how to write and knew how to put something on thing, this book would be crazy. Yeah. Well, maybe we try to figure something out. Okay, Howie. Those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank you for your time and for everything you've done with Arctic Man.
Thanks for your time, and I'm hoping I answered the questions you had needed to make this become reality. For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org, This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum. With additional help from Julie Decker. Chattermark's music is produced by Keys Open Doors. Thank you. Music.