Mushers in the 2004 Kobuk 440 dog sled race cross frozen Kobuk Lake between Kotzebue and Noorvik. Thomas Pungalik of Noorvik takes a break from caribou hunting to watch the race. I've got to tell about something funny that happened here. My parka has a front pouch for warming hands. It's huge and I stash all sorts of stuff in it, such gloves, headgear, and camera lenses. It works great, but at high speeds on a snow machine, stuff can get blown out. On this particular day I was in a big hurry to get ahead of the mushers and stake out a good spot to shoot photos. Riding across the lake I put my head down and squeezed the throttle. Soon I was going 110 mph. You can really fly on the lake. I stopped when I got to a good place to shoot pictures. The first musher to pass tossed me a glove. "This must be yours!" he shouted. The next guy had a neck scarf, which he handed off to me. The third musher had the other glove. I hadn't even noticed the stuff was missing. Then came the next guy. He had my new sunglasses, which I'd just paid $3 for in Kotzeubue. He'd forgotten his and asked if he could borrow them. I said "sure!" In Noorvik, the first village where the race stopped, he handed me back the sunglasses. "These are terrible!" "Hey, they cost me three bucks!"