Home
Happy Birthday - 150 Miles and Nine Dogs Later
By Craig Pinley
SETTLER'S BAY, AK (March 14, 2002) - Some teens celebrate their birthday by inviting a few friends to a party.
Ellie Claus of Chitina, Alaska, celebrated her 16th birthday racing across some 150 miles of Alaskan winterscape with nine dogs. Not bad for a 10th grade student who has already attained recognition as an outstanding dogsled racer in her age group.
She celebrated the day by competing in the Junior Iditarod. She and her nine-dog sled team finished eighth overall, finishing the race in 26 hours, 34 minutes and 13 seconds. That was just three hours behind the winner, Cali King, of Denali Park.
Claus, who has worked with sled dogs since she was nine years old, began racing two years ago. She won her second Junior Yukon Quest in early February, just prior to racing her third Junior Iditarod for competitors 14-17 years of age. As a result of her efforts in the competition, she received a Humanitarian Award and the Sportsmanship Award.
She already has set her sights on the 2004 Iditarod, which will come just after her 18th birthday, and hopes to compete in the internationally known competition as soon as she is eligible.
Claus - no relation to the man in the red suit of Christmas fame - doesn't live at the North Pole, but to outsiders it might be difficult to tell the difference. Her home is in a fairly isolated area - only 30 miles from the Canadian border and a 50-mile ride by bush aircraft from her nearest neighbors.
Ellie is home schooled by her parents, Paul and Donna Claus. Her parents, along with grandparents John and Eleanor (former member of the Evangelical Covenant Church Executive Board) own and operate Ultima Thule, a wilderness fly-in lodge located in the heart of the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park, the largest national park in the United States. The family is affiliated with First Covenant Church in Anchorage.
Although her access to other teens might be more limited than most, Claus doesn't think she has missed much, especially with respect to her educational background. She is quick to point out that her education includes constant reminders of God's beautiful creation, something she highly values.
"When you say remote, you truly have no idea of the meaning until you've seen this world with your own eyes," said Claus in an interview last fall with Covenant Companion features editor Bob Smietana. "It is beyond the end of the road," Ellie says. "My skyscrapers are the towering mountains. My highways are the footpaths of bears, moose and bison. The busy crowded sidewalks consist of frenzied salmon fighting their way up the river.
"The wild is my home," she continued. "We make our own power with a small generator. We have to fly in fuel to keep it running. My parents and grandparents built the 20-plus buildings that are the lodge, making their own lumber with our sawmill. Everything, and I do mean everything, has been flown in."
Any teen that dogsleds 150 miles for kicks has at least some sense of adventure, and Claus is no exception. She has killed an eight-foot grizzly bear, she serves as a raft guide and dog sled guide and she enjoys many other sports as well.
Claus took another risk last summer, heading to Ethiopia with the internationally recognized organization Teen Missions. She headed for Florida last June and spent three weeks preparing for the trip at Teen Missions headquarters before heading to Africa with 31 others to build a church
building in Gambella. The group later traveled to Addis Ababa, a city with a population similar to that of Chicago. Claus and her teammates had to deal with some illness, but she said that the experience "touched my soul and opened my heart to so many new things."
For more information about Ellie Claus and her recent racing success, visit the 2002 Junior Yukon Quest website link at www.yukonquest.com or the 2002 Junior Iditarod website link at www.iditarod.com. The results from the 2002 Iditarod will also be found on that website.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
