Stalled Sled
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 58 of 100.
Sulukna checkpoint, on the banks of the Yukon River, Alaska, 4:10 am. Minus 38 degrees. The team of Kaija Lund, favorite in the thousand-mile sled dog race, won't get up from the straw.
The fourteen dogs breathe slowly and don't respond when called. At 2:40 am Kaija put the meat broth on the cooker and went to warm up in the cabin. At 3:20 am she came back, fed the team and lay down. By 4:00 am, the dogs would no longer wake up.
The dogs will recover, but Kaija's race is over. No one has arrived at or left the checkpoint since midnight. Three people were awake near the dog line.
The checkpoint's log cabin, the wood stove crackling, boots and gloves drying on the line.
Suspects
Brody KesslerRival musher, 38
Maren TolliverRace veterinarian, 44
Amos NicolaiCheckpoint volunteer, 67
The real case
The doped dogs of the 2017 Iditarod
Alaska, United States, 2017
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
The Iditarod is a sled dog race of nearly a thousand miles across Alaska. In 2017, four dogs on the team of Dallas Seavey, a four-time champion and that year's runner-up, tested positive at the finish for tramadol, a painkiller.
Seavey denied doping the animals and raised the possibility of sabotage by someone with access to the dogs at a checkpoint, amid friction with the race organizers. The race was unable to prove intent and, in 2018, dropped the accusation and changed its doping rules. No one was held responsible.
The game borrows almost the entire setting: the race, the favorite team doped with a veterinary drug and the suspicion of sabotage at a checkpoint. Characters, perpetrator and outcome are fiction.
Sources
Case glossary
Words from this case you might not know.
- musher
- The driver of a dog sled, who steers and commands the team in a race.
- dog line
- A long cable staked in the snow to which sled dogs are tied side by side while resting.