To his friends and neighbors, he was "River Mike." But to me, Mike Cranford was simply "Dad."
Alaska provided Mike with what he needed: the freedom to do things his own way. For years, he lived in a tent on the East Fork of the Chena River. His only connections to the "real world" were occasional messages received via radio. Even though it was all bluster, a sign leading to his tent read, "The dogs are born killers and I'm crazy." With his art and hobbies and the company of his (friendly) dog, Matty, he was content.
It was his love of dogs that prompted him to become an Iditarod handler, helping out mushers at their kennels. At first, it seemed like a dream job: working outside with dogs with no one breathing down his neck. But his misty-eyed hopes were dashed as, day after day, he saw dogs being abused at one kennel after another.
After only about two weeks on the job, he spotted a dog still chained to his doghouse, shot dead. Another racer had numerous pits full of dead dogs, from puppies to seniors _ some skinned for parka ruffs and mittens. At one kennel where he worked, the manager would walk through the yard with his pistol, shooting dogs for fun. Some were killed simply because their paw pads were the "wrong color." Some were clubbed to death with baseball bats.
Mike didn't hunt, trap or fish. He had many lonely hours to think about the dogs, their miserable living conditions, and how they were destroyed in racing. The injustice of what he saw ate at him. Mike was compelled to participate in the documentary Sled Dogs in order to share his chilling eyewitness accounts, and he started joining PETA at protests against the Iditarod and working to end the death race.
Thousands of dogs are bred to race every year. They're often kept chained for most of their lives, their world reduced to a 6-foot circumference of mud, urine and feces. Row upon row of dilapidated plastic crates are their only shelters, even in subzero temperatures. Some dogs have frozen to death, and others have died after eating rocks. Many more are shot, bludgeoned or abandoned to starve.
During the Iditarod, dogs are expected to run 1,000 miles through some of the worst weather on the planet. Race rules only require that they get 40 hours of rest over the entire 10 or so days of the race. Many dogs develop bleeding stomach ulcers and pull or strain muscles, and their feet often become bruised, cut or swollen. A total of 350 dogs were pulled out of the 2018 Iditarod _ likely because of exhaustion, illness or injury.
Mike left the Iditarod behind, but before he left, there was one last thing that he needed to do: He had promised a dog named Mike that he would rescue him. As he revealed in Sled Dogs, "I wanted Mike because they had told me how much they had beat him and how .... It's hard for me to talk about him. He had been totally broken. Mind and spirit, just, totally." He kept his promise and took the abused dog, who spent the rest of his life cared for, happy and loved.
When my dad knew he was at the end of his life, he asked just one thing of me: Keep fighting for the dogs.
