Stu Nelson/Iditarod
Body of Iditarod chief vet found near Idaho home
Update: This story has been edited to include a report Stu Nelson’s body was found Friday and that the Bonner County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed the death of an “Iditarod veterinarian” is being investigated.
Iditarod chief veterinarian Stuart “Stu” Nelson Jr. has apparentley died while on a run near his home in Northern Idaho.
Longtime friend Joanne Potts, an Iditarod mainstay, said hunters found his body earlier this week not far from his rural residence near Bonner’s Ferry.
A heart attack is suspected, but not confirmed. Neither the Bonner’s Ferry Police Department, which operates on limited hours, nor the Boundary County Sheriff’s Office could provide any details Thursday.
The Sheriff’s Office would provide no further information today but did confirm they are investigating the death of an Iditarod veterinarian. Nelson is the only one living in the Bonner’s Ferry area.
Nelson, Potts said, “would have been 72 in December, (but) he was fit as a fiddle.”
A former Iditarod veterinarian who kas known Nelson for years, was Thurday able to confirm that he had died of a suspected heart attack but had no other information.
How accurate Pott’s account is unknown. An obviously distraught, Isabel List, who identified herself as Nelson’s stepdaughter, on Thursday night said the family doesn’t know where or when he died. But she did confirm he was dead.
She’d sent an earlier Facebook message saying Potts “must have misinterpreted the information we gave her about Stu’s death. He was found the evening of his death on Friday and was not laying there for an extensive amount of time,” a statement that appears to be contradicted by the Sheriff’s press statement.
Nelson lived in a remote area of Idaho, and Potts said it is unlcear when he left his house. Potts said he was found where he had been “running uphill behind his house. He ran up that hill every day.”
When discovered, she added, he was carrying no identification, and the hunters “didn’t know who he was when they found him.”
She went on to say an examination of his dental work was needed to confirm his identity. Inquires as to Nelson’s whereabouts had begun after he missed an appointment in Anchorage this week.
“There’s no one who can fill Stu’s shoes,'” said Potts.
Nelson had worked under contract to the Iditarod since 1996. In the years that followed, he participated in a long list of research studies on canine health aimed at bettering and prolonging the lives of dogs.
Friend Morrie Craig, who once ran the Iditarod’s anti-doping program, echoed Potts’ observation that Nelson will be hard to replace, particularly given that he was willing to take on the role of chief veterinarian as a part-time job.
Given a passion for wilderness adventures, Nelson liked the flexibility the job provided, and the opportunity it gave him to spend time in Alaska. He liked as well, the remoteness of his Idaho home and worried that it was being threatened with growth.
“Of course, there will always be members of our community who will have excuses for why we ‘need’ to promote more growth and development. Granted, if we continue this pattern, some locals will become wealthy, i.e. realtors and developers, but at what cost to those who live here because of what it is and not because of the potential to make a quick buck?”
Some Alaskans could identify. Nelson loved the wildness that remained around his home until the end.
Talked to him once at a GCI event. Said I thought the Iditarod allowed dogs with too little hair to run the race. He arrogantly poo-pooed me. The next few years saw the start of mushers putting jackets on their dogs so they would stay warm. Wasn’t impressed, as his arrogance, obstinance and ego likely caused thin-coat dogs to suffer on cold stretches of the trail.
May stu rest in peace . may god bless his relatives and family .
ethics :
whether the true story should be told or if the dead should rest in peace .
Those that know the truth are happy stu no longer has his fingers in the rings of power .
Stu has destroyed many peoples lives unjustly .mis Interpreting rules as he saw fit because he wanted them written different .
He allowed and enabled a culture of doping and coverups . complicity.
He made certain no other quality vets could get close to his podium of power dismissing at the first sign of competency . Especially Alaskan vets . He stood aside and allowed the seaveys to push Iditarod until the head drug tester was fired . Stu undermined common decency and transparency by keeping hot tests private and picking and choosing who would be punished based on his own whim or musher popularity .
May the next head vet steer the sinking ship with an ethical compass.
One should generally not speak unkindly of the dead, but it is clear there are grains of trut to some of what you say. It would be interesting to see what Mr. Nelson’s legacy would look like if the true history of Iditarod dog doping was ever to emerge.
The least that can be said is that he was never fully open and honest about the doping of Iditarod sled dogs, and it is possible things went beyond that.
As for the misinterpretation of the rules, not to mention the many differing interpretations and the favoritism shown some mushers that has long plagued the race, I don’t think anyone can put the fully on Stu Nelson and certainly not largely on Stu Nelson.
In my experiences with him, I never saw any indication that he was doing what anything other than what his bosses wanted done right down to the firing of his friend, Morrie Craig, the head of the Iditarod doping program.
Good Riddance!
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
Don’t know why the comment I posted this morning immediately appeared in the comments section, but now has disappeared.
Apparently operator error. It should be back. It’s an insightful comment. Stu did like wilderness adventures, and Iditarod has lost a lot of that.
I enjoyed a warm, private, insiders visit with Stu at last summer’s Iditarod picnic. He was not the type to raise controversy and risk internal disharmony, so had never raised a point of contention with Iditarod powers. However, unequivocally, 100 %, Stu emphatically agreed with everything I had to say–which BTW meshes with what I am confident are the contentions of my co-Iditarod originals Seavey and Mackey–of the destructive evidences of numerous babies of incredible value thrown out with the bathwater by the race’s corralling rule. Stu and I discussed examples of the ruin, and the various ways that what the rule remedied has over time been far surpassed by all that it lost and cost.
Immediately, Jim Fix’s running death popped in my head, although Fix’s prior lifestyle and genetics were deemed the cause of his heart attack while running at 52.
Met Stu, an impressive Man. He lives in the Hearts of All who were fortunate to know Him.