Once there, Bond, 55, embarked on another flight, this one covering 200 miles and landing in Rohn, a flyspeck of a town in the Alaskan frontier.

Today Bond is scrubbing, polishing, cooking and organizing -- transforming, if you will -- a 280-square-foot desolate Rohn rest cabin into a surveillance camp for the 31st Annual Iditarod, the Super Bowl of sled dog races.

Ten others will squeeze into this tiny cabin.

The Iditarod begins March 2. That's also when Bond's real work begins.

He's known as a volunteer checker during the 1,100-mile race. But Bond will also assume the role of therapist, coffee brewer, chef, inquirer, cargo handler and vet assistant during the nine- to 17-day event. At times, he's gone 60 hours without sleep performing these roles.

For Iditarod volunteers, the maxim "no rest for the weary" rings true. Even if you're not a musher or husky.

"People probably don't understand taking a month off to do this and not getting paid," said Bond, a self-employed potter who incurs about $1,000 in expenses to volunteer. "But life is too short to worry about not getting paid all the time. This is an adventure."

Mayor of Rohn

This will be the 16th consecutive Iditarod that Bond has participated in or watched.

He is playfully known as the "Mayor of Rohn" at his checkpoint. His name and photo have appeared in several publications about the Iditarod.

You could say Bond, who has lived in Texas, Maine, Alabama and Alaska among other states, is cold-blooded.

Photos in his workshop, located near SummerLand, show Bond posing in a T-shirt with his parka-clad comrades in freezing temperatures.

"I enjoy winter," he said. "I don't like to sweat."

The Bond family moved to Eagle River, Alaska, when Jasper was in first grade. A photo was once snapped of him posing with a sled dog. He doesn't know where the photo is, but he remembers it being shot.

"It's like everyone wants to be a cowboy," Bond said. "I think I wanted to be around sled dogs."

Bond's father was a colonel in the Army and the family moved several times. Bond enrolled at Dakota State University in Madison, S.D., and, upon graduating, took a job as an art teacher in Jasper.

"Jasper taught in Jasper," he said.

Bond's passion for sled-dog racing perhaps swelled in Jasper. During his leisure time in the winter, Bond would take his Alaskan Malamute skijoring. Malamutes look like huskies and are often used in sled-dog races.

"Whenever I heard something about the Iditarod on the news," Bond says, "I'd tune in."

Family visit 

In 1974, Bond pursued his master's degree in ceramics history at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. He moved to Princeton in 1977 and taught ceramics courses at St. Cloud State University until 1987. About that time, his brother, John, who is 15 years younger, moved to Alaska to open a funeral home.

For Jasper, who moved to the St. Cloud area in 1990, this news was greeted with perverse excitement. Not only would he have a place to crash at if he watched the Iditarod, he would also have someone to pick him up at the airport and feed him.

"It's all his fault that I'm doing this," Jasper said.

In 1988, Bond witnessed his first Iditarod. As a spectator he could only see the sled-dog racers from a distance. The next year, he procured a press pass even though he wasn't a member of the media. This granted him full access to the racers.

"I was put in as a photographer," he said. "Now I could walk amongst my superstar dog-mushing heroes."

Bond talked with several of them and obtained autographs. But what really enraptured him was when John's friend offered to give the two an aerial tour of part of the course.

"After seeing that," Bond says, "I was hooked."

Jack of all trades

Bond became a volunteer in 1989. An Eagle Scout, Bond knows how to "rough it."

He packs a sleeping bag, aircraft radio, first aid kit, cooking pots, matches and cold weather gear when he heads to Rohn.

He chops firewood, cleans the cabin, and transports hundreds of pounds of food and drink around. He unloads single-engine planes that descend into Rohn and erects extra tents for the veterinarians and volunteer crews who arrive a few days before the Iditarod commences.

While the cabin premises bears medieval characteristics, Bond and his cohorts feast like kings. Everybody brings a delicacy from their hometowns to cook during their stay. Moose meat and salmon are favorites.

"You'll gain weight at my checkpoint," Bond said.

When mushers arrive, Bond records their time, counts their dogs and shows them where to dock their team.

Bond said the top mushers all possess the same characteristics: organized, efficient, driven and compulsive. They don't waste a nanosecond and will save the checkers a half-hour of work.

"A few of them live in a place where you can't drive a car to their house," Bond said. "They don't have a phone or TV. If they want a drink of water they go down to a lake and cut a hole in the ice."

Then there are those who simply want to finish the Iditarod. They'll ruminate on their adventures while slurping several cups of coffee with the volunteers. They'll relax longer at the checkpoint than what is required to be competitive. There are 25 checkpoints in all; mushers average a six-hour layover per stop.

The champions typically complete the race six or seven days ahead of the musher in last place.

The workers devour a dozen 3-pound cans of sponsored coffee in six days at the Rohn checkpoint. Eleven people operate inside the 14-by-20-foot cabin.

"It's so small that if you get up somebody else has to sit down," Bond said.

Highs and lows

Mushers devote years to prepare for the Iditarod. Bond witnesses a wave of emotions by these mushers during the race.

He warmly remembers congratulating fresh winners of the Iditarod and has a 4-foot wooden trail marker stake that 75 percent of the champions have autographed.

But Bond also has had to console mushers who experienced the death of one of their dogs.

Others are devastated when they are unable to finish the race. They think they have let the sponsors down, their family down and their dogs down.

The mushers who withdraw often weep about their failure. Some are monitored because of the fear that they might attempt suicide, Bond said.

A few years ago, Bond noticed that one fellow was struggling so hard with his inability to finish that he was willing to sell his sled-dog team on the spot for $20,000 -- a bargain price.

The man never did sell his team. Two years later, he completed the 1,100-mile mush.

"I got a big hug from him at the finish line," Bond said. "You really get to know these people when you're with them at their lowest point. I was tearful, too, just seeing how relieved he was to have finally finished the Iditarod."