Adventure Author, Former Iditarod Racer Gary Paulsen Passes Away

Author Gary Paulsen, who wrote young adult adventure novels, was an outdoorsman and once competed in the Iditarod in Alaska, has passed away at 82.

Here’s more from the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

“Oh, I’ve seen a lot of winter,” said Paulsen, who ran 15 sled dogs when he lived in Becida, north of Bemidji. “Like Brian, I’ve hunted with a bow, been attacked by moose, dealt with cold so severe the trees exploded. Because I write about real things, people sense truth in my work. I just tell the story. i don’t try to put in hidden meanings or crank it up with messages. … A lot of young-adult books talk down to kids. I go to schools and meet with kids. I’ve found they’re smarter than lots of adults, and they’re honest.”…

…Using an old sled and four borrowed dogs, Paulsen began running a 20-mile trap line. “I’d be out on seven-day runs, sleeping on the sled,” he recalled in a 1992 Pioneer Press interview. “I became less and less enamored of trapping and killing. My dogs had lives, and so did the animals I trapped. I quit, but I told everybody I was still trapping.”

Paulsen and his dogs twice ran the grueling, 1,100-mile Iditarod race across Alaska. During the second race, he and his team were caught on the Bering Sea in winds so strong the dogs were blown right into the air. A plane had to lift them off the ice, and they didn’t finish the course.

Rest in peace and condolences to his loved ones.