Richard Corcoran and his dogs head out along the Iditarod Trail during this year’s 1,150-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Corcoran, formerly of North Kingstown, has a brother in Portsmouth. Below, Corcoran is greeted at the finish line.

Photos courtesy of Richard Corcoran

NORTH KINGSTOWN — The 1,150-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race was held last month in Alaska, and there was a piece of South County riding in the adventure.

Former North Kingstown resident Richard Corcoran, a rookie racer, completed the competition known as the Last Great Race on Earth.

When the race started on March 1 from Willow, Alaska, Corcoran — who has lived and worked in the 49th state for 21 years — had plenty of support from his family: his brothers Alan, of Portsmouth; Shawn, of Warwick; and their parents, Richard and Carole, now of Florida.

Richard and his 16-dog team spent the next 13 days, 2 hours and 14 minutes in the Alaskan tundra, sleeping a few hours at a time. Four of the dogs had to be left at checkpoints because of sore triceps and upper respiratory infections. But Corcoran and the rest mushed on, crossing an area equivalent to the distance between Providence and St. Louis.

Meanwhile, his family returned home but followed Richard’s progress via computer. When he arrived at checkpoints, the information was posted — but not soon enough for brother Alan.

“Where is he, where is he?” Alan asked himself each time he checked his computer.

Worried, tense, exhilarated — the family experienced so many emotions that Alan, a computer programmer, says he’s now feeling something of a letdown with the race over.

RICHARD WENT to the State University of New York at Syracuse and moved to Alaska in 1987 with a backpack and $30. He has since become manager of a fish hatchery, and he and his wife, Angela, operate Quick Foot Kennels in Valdez.

Sled dogs and the Iditarod first took hold of his interest in 1994 during a three-day camping trip with a friend who had dogs. They camped in minus-40-degree weather, with wolves roaming around. Corcoran recalls having “a wonderful time.”

“That set the seed.”

In 2002, he got his first dog. Angela had already bought him a sled, and slowly the number of dogs increased.

Soon, he was preparing to race.

“It’s pretty tough. All my vacation time goes to the dogs. And it’s not a cheap sport. I think I was caught off guard by the costs.”

He estimates that for him to seriously consider participating in the Iditarod, he had to spend $30,000, much of which went to feed the dogs.

Alan wanted to be a sponsor, but as Alan recalls, Richard said that for this first time out he wanted to do it on his own.

THE RACE WAS a sort of birthday gift from Richard to himself.

“I actually spent my 44th birthday traveling between Rainy Pass and Rohn in the Dalzell Gorge,” he notes, listing locations along the northern route of the race.

In an e-mail, he wrote: “It was an awesome adventure as I was thrown over my handle bow once when my brake found a hidden root under the snow, had a (dangerous) tangle at a river crossing, and almost took a swim in an open lead of the river at the bottom of the gorge. Quite an adrenaline rush. At one point I laughed and thought, ‘What an awesome birthday present.’ It was great!”

But it wasn’t the weather or the wilderness that brought him the greatest challenge, he said. The most difficult part was the lack of sleep.

“Not much,” was his unofficial amount. But when he arrived at checkpoints, he said, he would sleep an hour and a half or so, which created a few hallucinatory moments.

At one point, he thought he saw “a huge Native man staring at me, with his arms crossed. And he shook his head at me.”

When Corcoran told the story to another Native Alaskan who had raced, the man said that he, too, had seen the vision once.

“He described him perfectly,” said Corcoran.

The man suggested that the Native in the vision was shaking his head because “he wanted you to go faster.”

THE IDITAROD TRAIL began as a mail and supply route, and eventually served as a way to get medicine to diphtheria-threatened areas, all by dog sled. Short races were held in 1967 and 1969, and the first official race was in 1973 as an historical reminder that dog sleds had brought people and supplies into the area for generations.

“The Iditarod is like the World Series of dog mushing,” said Corcoran by telephone, occasionally breaking up his conversation with a quick “Hey boy” to one of his dogs.

Before he started the race, his mother gave him a Claddagh ring that he brought along for safety and good luck. His wife Angela sent him off with meals to cook over a stove — “gourmet meals,” he added.

“I couldn’t have done it without her. This whole winter was pretty tough on her,” he said. Angela not only cared for the dogs that stayed behind, but also cleared hundreds of inches of snow off their house and traveled close to 200 miles back and forth on weekends to be with him while he trained.

While his wife attended to those details, and his brothers helped him prepare for the race, once they returned home the brothers could only watch and worry.

“The things that happen to mushers, it can happen to the best of them,” said Alan, listing mishaps he has read about, such as racers getting lost and hurt. At one point, it was discovered that Richard did get hurt — he had sprained a wrist when the sled flipped.

But Richard said he wasn’t afraid of the injury or other possibilities, except one.

“The only thing I was afraid of,” said Corcoran, “was failing. That would have been a crushing blow.”

Corcoran finished 63rd out of 96 competitors. But in his brother’s eyes, Richard is number one.

“I just well up when I stop and think about what he accomplished,” says Alan.

Richard said the finish line, no matter the rank, was a major checkpoint met:

“I didn’t want to be 80 years old saying I should have done that.”

afleming@projo.com