An Iditarod sled dog has been found safe after disappearing from a race checkpoint three months ago and traveling nearly 150 miles, the Iditarod Trail committee said on Saturday.
Musher Sebastian Dos Santos Borges of France took Leon and returned with him to France, according to a statement from the Committee on Traces.
Leon disappeared in March after his trail committee said he had “escaped” from the Ruby checkpoint. In May, residents of the Alaska city of McGrath, more than 120 miles south of the checkpoint, told race director Mark Nordman that they had often seen Leon near a booth.
The cabin dweller and another cashier left food for Leon, hoping to catch him, according to the trail committee. He was captured early Saturday morning and was safe, alert and “understandably weak but seemingly healthy,” said Iditarod spokeswoman Shannon Markley.
Leon was expected to see a veterinarian in the coming days and needed a health certificate before he could fly back to France, Markley said.
Nearly 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) of the race through Alaska began on March 6 north of Anchorage. The route took visitors through the untamed and relentless desert of Alaska, including two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and the ice of the Bering Sea off the west coast of the state. Brent Sass won the race on March 15, when he passed under the famous finish line with a curved arch in Nome.
On March 12, a dozen dogs arrived with Dos Santos Borges in Ruby, a checkpoint just under 500 miles from the start of the race.
Dos Santos Borges left Ruby on March 13 with 11 dogs and scratched himself nine days later with nine dogs at the White Mountain checkpoint just under 900 miles (1,448 kilometers) in the race.
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Gonzalez reported from Phoenix.
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