Queen of the Tundra: The Story of Kimarie Hanson
Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt embroidered with the words "Shell Oil" on the front, 23-year-old Kimarie Hanson curls up with her dog at her home just outside of New Orleans. She recently returned from the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico where she spends two weeks each month working as a facility and reliability engineer for Shell Oil. Located 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana, the 200-foot by 50-foot rig is one of Shell's many petroleum-drilling platforms. As an engineer, Hanson identities and solves problems on the rig, a job she used to find boring from her desk in Shell's New Orleans office. "Life on the rig is much more hands on, and I learn faster," says Hanson, who operated a crane and helped take apart a turbine engine this past week. After all, even living on an oil rig is tame when you have slept outdoors in subzero temperatures with a gun tucked in your coat to protect yourself from moose.At the age of 18, Hanson, a native Alaskan, became the youngest woman to complete the Iditarod, the 1,150-mile dog sled race that has taken place in Alaska each March since 1973. Participants in the "Last Great Race," as it is known, begin in Anchorage, and travel across jagged mountain ranges, dense forests and deserted tundra with teams of 12 to 16 dogs pulling a sled loaded with gear. They encounter blinding wind, brutally cold temperatures, treacherous snow and ice, and the danger of Alaskan wildlife before they arrive at the finish in Nome, Alaska.
Hanson's parents taught her and her three siblings to appreciate the beauty of the Alaskan landscape. She grew up in Anchorage (pop. 300,000), Alaska's largest city, spending her summers and part of her winters in the family's rural cabin, 70 miles outside the city. The cabin, which had no electricity, running water, or telephone service, was only accessible by plane. During the summer, Hanson and her brother and sisters explored the varied terrain on motorcycles and four-wheelers, and played in the woods. During the winter, Hanson raced snowmobiles with her older brother.
From an early age, Hanson had a reputation of being a daredevil. "I crashed a lot," laughs Hanson. "Sometimes I'd get hurt, sometimes I wouldn't," she says, with a wicked grin and a shrug of her shoulders. These antics earned Hanson her childhood nicknames of "Kimakaze" and "Evil Knieval." Says Hanson, "My parents told me I wouldn't live past 16."
The sport of dog mushing naturally fit with Hanson's love of outdoor sports and her obsession with dogs. Her father, Bert Hanson, had been a volunteer Iditarod pilot since 1984. Kimarie first became interested in the sport while helping him to prepare for his first Iditarod when she was nine. She decided then that someday, she too would run the Iditarod. By age 11, Hanson received her first mushing sled for Christmas. From that point forward, as with everything else, she attacked the sport with fearless passion, always getting back on the sled each time she lost control.
When Hanson turned 14, she became eligible to compete in the Jr. Iditarod, a 150-mile dog sled race that allows young mushers to get a taste of distance racing. Participants typically complete the race within 17 hours, and must sleep outside on the trail. The first year Hanson ran the Jr. Iditarod, she remembers, the temperature during the night was 23 degrees below zero.
Aside from a little frostbite on her cheeks, Hanson finished the Jr. Iditarod without incident in all four years that she competed. She always completed the course in a respectable time, usually ranking in the middle of the pack. As her 18th birthday approached, Hanson knew it was her year to enter the Last Great Race. "I wanted to be remembered," she says. "No other woman my age had done it. That was the selling point."
In the final weeks leading up to the 1998 Iditarod, reporters often asked Hanson's parents if they were comfortable sending their young daughter into the Alaskan wilderness. "This is Kimarie," Hanson's mother would reply, matter-of-factly. "She can handle herself. It's just what she does."
Hanson handled the situation just fine. Out of the 63 mushers who began the race in Anchorage in 1998, only 50 made it through the grueling course. Hanson finished 45th, in 12 days, 10 hours and 55 minutes, fulfilling her goal of coming in under 13 days. With that, she became the youngest woman to ever lead her dogs from Anchorage to Nome. And despite the long hours of training, the responsibility of caring for 16 dogs, and the month of school she missed for the race, Hanson still managed to graduate as valedictorian of her high school that spring.
Hanson's stubborn insistence on being self-sufficient has been present from the very beginning, when she uttered "No!" as her first word. "I didn't want help ever, growing up," says Hanson, as she brushes her long brown hair out of her face. "I shoved away anyone who tried to help me."
She continued to take charge long after she crossed the finish line in Nome. In the fall of 1998, Hanson entered Tulane University in New Orleans, after she received a scholarship. Hanson was a member of the rowing team for all four years of her collegiate experience at Tulane, holding multiple offices and often driving the 40-foot trailer loaded with racing shells. She was president of the team for her last two years, responsible for running its daily operations. Her teammate and close friend, Josh Salvo, recalled Hanson's frustration at team members who didn't do their share of chores to maintain equipment. "As a general rule," Salvo said, "when there's something that needs to be done, stay the [expletive] out of Kim's way."
Salvo, along with Hanson's other close friends, agree that she is unlike anyone else they have ever met. "She's a pretty tough cookie," said Kelly McPherson, who completed Tulane's challenging chemical engineering curriculum alongside Hanson. McPherson describes Hanson as a "super good friend, really trustworthy." Salvo said that Hanson was "just one of the guys." Robert Gaden, a former captain of the Tulane Rowing team, said, "Kim's one of the most capable women I know."
This capable woman has continued to achieve remarkable feats, including getting her pilot's license at the age of 22. McPherson remembers laughingly the time when Hanson asked her to go up in a plane with her. "I have to admit, I got a little worried. She's crashed everything she's even driven." In the end, McPherson kept her feet on the ground.
In the past few weeks, "Kimakaze" has been busy preparing for yet another wild ride. Recently, Hanson's boyfriend Dennis, a native Louisianan who loves the outdoors, proposed marriage. Although she will soon be settling down, Hanson swears that her mushing days are not over. "I'd love to do [the Iditarod] again. Only this time, it'll be to win it," she says in all seriousness. Some things just never change.
