Richard Arlin Walker and Joaqlin Estus
ICT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — With 33 mushers and dog teams, the 51st Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race will have the smallest field of competitors in the history of the race. But the field is no less interesting and competitive.
The diverse field of mushers includes two past Iditarod champions, four top Alaska Native mushers, twin sisters who are Iditarod veterans, a father and son who raise and race sled dogs in their native New Hampshire, an Iditarod veteran and television personality from the documentary series “Life Below Zero,” and a pediatric dentist racing in his eighth Iditarod. A fifth Indigenous musher, Lars Momsen, Sami, injured his shoulder in the Fairmont race in Canada and dropped out of the Iditarod.
A majority of 2023 Iditarod mushers are Alaskans. Others hail from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, and South Africa. The finishers will join an exclusive club: As of the finish of the 2022 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, 823 individual mushers have completed the race.
Race festivities kick off Saturday with a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage. After that 11-mile run, the actual 1,000-mile race from Willow to Nome, Alaska begins at 2 p.m. Alaska time on Sunday.
Mushers and their dog teams will traverse a rugged landscape of forests, tundra, icy rivers, a steep mountain pass and deep gorge, and windswept coastlines. They might have to navigate whiteout conditions, sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds.
Mushers must manage their dogs’ pace, rest, feeding and health. And mushers must fend off their own sleep deprivation. The timing of rests and feeding is part of a strategy that can make a difference in any race. Eddie Burke Jr. learned that in the Knik 200 on Jan. 8. He and Brent Sass leapfrogged each other throughout the race, but Burke took advantage of an opportunity to give his dogs a rest and a snack; that break gave them the boost they needed to take the lead and finish about 12 minutes ahead of Sass. Burke will race in his first Iditarod this year; Sass, the defending champion, will seek his second Iditarod title.
(Related: Five Indigenous mushers set to compete in 2023 Iditarod despite rising costs)
Mushers must also be ready for the unexpected, whether moose on the trail; overflow on top of ice and warm daytime temperatures that can make the trail mushy and harder for the dogs; or whiteout conditions that can make it hard to keep track of the trail. Jeff King was within 70 miles of winning his fifth Iditarod in 2014 when he and his team lost the trail in a blizzard and had to scratch. Iditarod veteran Nic Petit scratched midway through the race in 2019 when his dogs were spooked on a stretch of trail that they had lost in a storm the previous year and wouldn’t continue.
Richie Diehl, Dena’ina Athabascan, of Akiak, is a three-time top 10 Iditarod finisher and a past Kuskokwim 300 champion. He placed fifth in the Kuskokwim 300 and third in the Bogus Creek 150, both in January.
At a meet-and-greet event for fans on Thursday, Diehl said he’s feeling pretty good about this year’s race.
“I’ve got a nice group of dogs and we’ll see how things go in the first half and then from there, if things are good, then we’ll start trying to do a little racing after that,” Diehl told ICT.
He thanks his Athabascan heritage for his love of the sport. “A lot of my relatives up in Stoney River and Lime Village (100-plus miles northwest of Anchorage) way back when they used to have dogs for trap lines and stuff. So my dad, when he moved up to Stony River, he started helping them when he was there because he was a teacher out there. And he would help all my mom’s uncles and stuff, go out on the trap line, and he picked it up from there and then kind of passed it on to me.”
Diehl told Iditarod Insider about the varied conditions of the 2022 race.
“It was for the most part pretty smooth going through the Burn,” he said, referring to Farewell Burn, site of a large wildfire in 1977. “From Rohn to Tin Creek it was pretty bare and rugged and then after that a lot of moguls and it was rough. From Tin Creek on to Nikolai, it was really kind of a nail biter. I was thinking it would be hard on the dogs. It actually wasn’t too bad but it was tough to watch, the constant up and down and balancing.”
He added, “Right outside Rohn, there was [reportedly] a lot of open water but nobody really knew. There actually ended up being not open water but a lot of river overflow. After we left the checkpoint there, we had a good 80-yard stretch of 10 inches of water.”
The 2023 field is well tested.
Sass, of Eureka, Alaska, finished first, third and fourth in his last three Iditarods and is one of six mushers to win the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest, a former 1,000-mile race that has since been shortened to 450 miles. Sass placed second in January in the Knik 200 and in the Copper Basin 300.
Peter Kaiser, Yup’ik, of Bethel won the 2019 Iditarod and has finished in the top 10 seven times. He won his seventh Kuskokwim 300, a highly regarded mid-distance race, in January. Fans lined up Thursday night to get his signature on a poster for this year’s Iditarod.
He said it was good to get pre-race activities taken care of. “Every day is one day closer to getting on the trail, so that’s good,” Kaiser said.
Kaiser said he feels ready for the 2023 Iditarod. “I think there’s some sections that are going to be kind of rough but they’re kind of normal rough areas, (I’m) kind of used to it. I think some of the rookies are in for a treat when they see some of that. If you’ve done it a few times, you kind of have an idea of trouble spots, where it can be troublesome. Overall, I think it sounds like it’s pretty decent.”
Ryan Redington, Inupiaq, of Knik, is a two-time winner of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Minnesota, two-time winner of the Kobuk 440 in Kotzebue, and finished ninth, seventh and eighth in his last three Iditarods. His grandfather, Joe Redington Sr., co-founded the Iditarod in 1973; the older Redington and two other family members are in the Mushing Hall of Fame.
Ryan Redington said he’s looking forward to the race. “I’m excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun…I’m just proud to be in the race and carry on the family tradition of being in the race. I hope to do my fans and all of my supporters proud.”
Redington does anticipate some rough sections, though. “I think there’s going to be, there’s supposed to be low snow between Ophir and Iditarod and those sections are going to be tough, just a lot of moguls. But I look forward to being out there with my dogs and the fellow mushers in the race and I wish everybody the best of luck.”
Mike Williams Jr., Yup’ik, of Akiak is a seven-time Iditarod finisher who placed a career-best eighth in 2012. He’s also a second generation musher. His father, Mike Williams, Sr., competed in the Iditarod 15 times before retiring at age 61. In many of those races, Mike Sr. carried thousands of sobriety pledges from Alaska Natives.
Williams is optimistic about the 2023 race. “I’m feeling pretty good and I’m confident that we will make it down the trail. As long as my dogs don’t get sick or injured, I should be able to finish with a pretty big team. The reports for the weather forecast and the trail conditions from what I’ve heard, I like the sound of the reports that I’ve heard. So I’m pretty confident we’ll have a pretty decent trail.”
Redington is one of two mushers in the 2023 Iditarod with family ties to the earliest Iditarod. Jason Mackey, a seven-time Iditarod finisher and member of a prominent mushing family that includes three Iditarod champions returns to the race after a year hiatus. Mackey’s father, Dick, won the Iditarod in 1978; his brother, Rick, in 1983; and his brother Lance in 2007, 2009, 2009 and 2010.
Lance Mackey, who last raced in the Iditarod in 2019, died from throat cancer last year. He is being posthumously honored as the Honorary Musher of the 2023 Iditarod.
Keeping a heritage alive
Alaska Natives have long been underrepresented in the Iditarod, which was founded to celebrate the heritage of the sled dog, which had a vital role in Arctic life for several thousand years. Use of the sled dog for transport and travel began to wane in the mid-20th century after the introduction of the snowmobile. However, some of the most prominent figures in the sport have been Indigenous Alaskans.
Three of the earliest winners of the Iditarod were Alaska Natives: Carl Huntington, Athabascan, 1974; Emmitt “The Yukon Fox” Peters, Athabascan, 1975; and Jerry Riley, Athabascan, 1976. John Baker, Inupiaq, won the race in 2011.
Other prominent Alaska Native mushers include George Attla Jr., Athabascan, known as the Huslia Hustler, who placed fourth in the first Iditarod and won the Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage 10 times and the Open North American eight times; and Mike Williams Sr., Yup’ik, a veteran of 15 Iditarods and two-time recipient of the race’s Most Inspirational Musher award.
Williams Sr., chief of the Akiak Native Community, has said raising sponsorship money is difficult for rural Alaska Native mushers whose communities aren’t connected to the road network. He said mushing is to Alaska Natives what the seagoing cedar canoe is to Coast Salish peoples and the horse is to Indigenous peoples of the Plains. He has called on affluent tribal governments and tribal organizations to support competitive mushing through sponsorships to help keep an important part of Alaska Native culture alive.
“It’s something we want to tell the whole world: we’ve always had dogs in our villages,” Williams Sr. told ICT in 2015. “We’ve hunted and camped with our dogs for thousands of years and they’ve helped us. We want to continue to keep that culture alive, to share our culture and why we run these dogs and why we have kept our dogs. We do it for more than competing.”
Joaqlin Estus reported from Anchorage.
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