Richard Arlin Walker
Special to ICT
Han Gwich’in musher Jody Potts-Joseph and her dog team were en route from Nikolai to McGrath on March 11 in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when they came upon a bison on the trail.
The bison wasn’t happy about the encounter. It lowered its head, scraped at the ground with a hoof and charged in the team’s direction.
”It charged and then stopped. It did that like three or four times,” Potts-Joseph told Iditarod Insider later in McGrath, 311 miles into the 975-mile race.
The dogs’ lines became entangled in the melee. Potts-Joseph got her Glock out but it jammed and wouldn’t fire, so she got behind some spruce trees and started throwing sticks at the large animal. Then, she remembered what her grandmother did when a grizzly bear came into her yard.
The grandmother got her children inside and then courageously went up to the bear and said words in the Han Gwich’in language that essentially mean, “We’re not a threat to you. Have mercy on us and leave us alone.”
“And that bear just calmed down and turned around and walked off,” Potts-Joseph said.
Her grandmother and other elders always told her that animals understand the Native language. And so Potts-Joseph spoke her grandmother’s words to the bison, “and it popped its head up and then just turned around and trotted on down the trail,” she said.
“I’m glad I remembered that and that I knew those words,” she said.
Staying on the trail
Potts-Joseph and her team seemed unfazed when they arrived in McGrath at 7:37 p.m. local time. She chose to take her mandatory 24-hour rest there, behind all but seven other mushers and teams, yet content that she is accomplishing what she set out to accomplish: To keep her dogs healthy, and to promote mushing — traveling the way of the ancestors — to young Alaska Natives.
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race was founded in 1973 to keep alive the heritage of the Alaska sled dog, which was being replaced by the snow machine. But Alaska Natives have been underrepresented in the annual event. Six Alaska Natives have won the Iditarod in its 54-year history, and six Alaska Native women have competed, with Potts-Joseph the latest.
As of 5 a.m. local time on Friday, March 13, past champions Pete Kaiser, Yup’ik, and Ryan Redington, Iñupiaq, were in the top 10 and within 40 miles of Jessie Holmes, the defending champion.
Credit: Courtesy Iditarod Trail Committee
Kaiser and Redington have been in the top 10 for much of the race. Paige Drobny, a marine biologist whose mushing career includes four top 10 Iditarod finishes, including third in 2025, is mushing only five months after cancer surgery and has been trading the lead with Holmes for much of the race.
Iditarod rookies Kevin Hansen, Iñupiaq, and Jesse Terry, Anishinabe, were 16th and 23rd, respectively, at 5 a.m. March 13. Potts-Joseph trailed the field in 33rd.
It takes grit to be at the back of the pack. You’re alone out there in the Alaska wilderness – just you, your dogs and your wits.
Brian O’Donoghue knows. A former reporter and retired journalism professor at the University of Alaska, he has the distinction of receiving the Red Lantern Award in the 1991 Iditarod and the 1998 Yukon Quest. The Red Lantern is awarded to the last musher to cross the finish line.
“At that point, it’s like a struggle for survival and you’re just worried that you’re going to get caught by a storm or get lost or the trail will drift in,” O’Donoghue told ICT of his Iditarod experience. But he and his team ultimately did what 16 other mushers and teams didn’t do in the 1991 Iditarod: They finished.
“I have no regrets,” O’Donoghue said of his Red Lantern finish. “I mean, I feel lucky to have finished. I think it was one of the great unexpected adventures in my life. Coming into each village was just a cheerful, great moment. The locals were just really enthusiastic. And even for me, coming in at the tail end of the pack, they really rolled out the red carpet.”
Next up: Home of the Yukon Fox
The 2026 Iditarod began on March 8 in Willow, Alaska. Mushers and teams climbed Rainy Pass, the highest point in the Iditarod, descended Dalzell Gorge, and then traversed Farewell Burn, a treacherous 35-mile stretch known for little snow, frozen tussocks and exposed ground. Mushers Sydnie Bahl and Brenda Mackey sustained damage to their sleds traversing the Burn.
From there, mushers and teams navigate the interior to the Kuskokwim and the Takotna rivers, then head north to Ruby and the Yukon River. Ruby is the home of Emmitt “The Yukon Fox” Peters (1940-2020), winner of the 1975 Iditarod and top 10 finisher seven times. The race speeds up from there: the frozen Yukon to the icy Bering Sea coast and Nome.
In addition to rests they take off trail and at checkpoints, mushers and teams are required to take a 24-hour rest and an eight-hour rest. The timing and length of rests, feedings and the ability to pick up the pace when opportunity arises are an important part of a musher’s strategy.
Though in the lead, Holmes and Drobny and their teams recorded rests of 39 and 29 hours, respectively, at checkpoints by the time they reached Cripple (425 miles). Kaiser and his team had had nearly 43 hours of rest; Redington and his team had rested nearly 42 hours.
Kaiser, the first Yup’ik to win the Iditarod, hung back earlier in the race, taking four-hour rests in Finger Lake (mile 123) and Rainy Pass (mile 153) and a five-hour rest in Nikolai (mile 263).
Holmes and Drobny cut rests short to build some distance from the field, but Kaiser and his energized team picked up the pace and closed the gap to stay within striking distance.
“Pete’s style, as we’ve watched him over the years, particularly in the Kusko, which he’s dominated and won 10 times, is not to go out front and be flashy,” said Iditarod Insider commentator Bruce Lee, a veteran of seven Iditarods including a top 10 finish. “He waits back mid-pack. He’ll set back like a rattlesnake waiting to catch what comes, then all at once — boom, boom.”
The “Kusko,” or Kuskokwim 300, takes place in January in Bethel and is widely considered the premier mid-distance sled dog race.
Looking ahead
Holmes was the first musher to reach McGrath (mile 311), at 8:03 p.m. March 10, and received the Alaska Air Transit Spirit of Iditarod Award. He received beaver fur musher’s mitts with Athabaskan beadwork on moose hide, handcrafted by Loretta Maillelle of McGrath, and a beaver fur hat made by Rosalie Egrass of McGrath.
Holmes was also the first to reach Cripple (mile 425) – the checkpoint closest to the halfway point in the race – and received the Dorothy G. Page Award, named for the co-founder of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. He received $3,000 in gold nuggets for his arrival at 1:56 p.m. local time March 12.
The first musher into Kaltag (mile 714) will receive a check for $2,000 and 25 pounds of salmon from the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.
After the race. Northern Air Cargo will present the Herbie Nayokpuk Memorial Award — $1,049 and a flight jacket — to the musher chosen by checkpoint volunteers as best epitomizing Nayokpuk’s spirit of mushing the Iditarod. The check represents the roughly 1,000 miles of the race, and Alaska’s status as the 49th state.
Nayokpuk (1929-2006) was an Iñupiaq musher who was known as the Shishmaref Cannonball. He competed in the Iditarod 11 times and finished in the top 10 eight times, one of those times placing second.