IDITAROD NOTEBOOK: News from the Trail for 2025
Editor's note: This story will be updated as the mushers advance in the 2025 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Check back for more details.
Richard Arlin WalkerICT
Thirty-three mushers and dog teams set off from Fairbanks to Nome on Monday, March 3, in the 53rd Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. This year's race is unique in many ways. Here are some highlights.
Serum Run: The 2025 Iditarod takes place during the 100th anniversary of the Serum Run of 1925, a relay of mushers and dog teams that fended off a diphtheria epidemic by delivering antitoxin to remote Alaska communities. The sled dog had been part of Alaska Native life for centuries, but – thanks to coverage in newspapers and on radio – the Serum Run of 1925 cemented the Alaska sled dog in the world's eyes as a symbol of grit and tenacity.
Family ties: The Iditarod was founded in 1973 to keep alive the heritage of the Alaska sled dog, which was being supplanted by snow machines (snowmobiles, to you lower 48ers). This year's race features several mushers with family ties to the first Iditarod: past champion Ryan Redington, grandson of race founder Joe Redington Sr.; three-time champion Mitch Seavey, whose father Dan competed in the first and 40th Iditarods, and several other in between; Jason Mackey, whose father Dick raced in the first Iditarod and won the race in 1978; and Brenda Mackey, Dick's granddaughter and Jason's niece. All told, six Mackeys, six Redingtons and six Seaveys have raced in the Iditarod. The Mackeys have produced three champions, the Seaveys two, and the Redingtons one.
Climate change: This year's race casts the spotlight, as it has in past years, on a changing climate in Alaska. An estimated 114 Alaska Native communities 'face some degree of infrastructure damage from erosion, flooding or permafrost melt,' the Associated Press reported, quoting a January 2024 report from the Alaska Native Health Tribal Consortium. Thawing permafrost is causing riverbank loss along the Kuskokwim and the Yukon rivers.
Several pre-Iditarod mid-distance races were canceled or rescheduled this year because of unusually warm weather and lack of snow; the Iditarod was also affected. The race usually starts in Willow and ends in Nome, a distance of 975 or 998 miles, depending on a route that alternates between odd and even years. But because of hazardous trail conditions resulting from lack of snow, this year's race start was moved to Fairbanks. The race distance increased by about 130 miles.
Mushers and dog teams will check in at Nenana, Manley, Tanana, Ruby, Galena, Nulato, Kaltag, Eagle Island, Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Koyuk, Elim, White Mountain and Safety before reaching Nome. Total distance: 1,128 miles, according to the Iditarod Race Committee.
Strategy and endurance: Mushers and dog teams are required to take one 24-hour rest and two eight-hour rests, although mushers generally feed and rest their teams as needed off-trail or at checkpoints.
Training, nutrition, pace and timing of rests are all part of a team's strategy. But that was upended with the move of the race start to Fairbanks. The route from Fairbanks to Nome is flatter than Willow to Nome, and mushers may decide to travel farther before taking their required 24-hour rest. But they'll have to contend with conditions along the Yukon River.
'If you've been on the lower Yukon River, where that river is a mile wide, if there's a wind it's just like being on the Bering Sea coast,' Iditarod veteran Bruce Lee said on Iditarod Insider. 'The trail blows in and it can be very challenging, physically and mentally, for both mushers and dogs.'
Representing the underrepresented: Ryan Redington, Inupiaq, is one of six Alaska Natives to win the Iditarod but is the only Indigenous Alaskan in this year's race. A retired Iditarod veteran, Mike Williams Sr., Yup'ik, said in earlier interviews that the cost of flying in food and supplies and taking time off from work to travel to good training grounds is expensive for rural Alaska Native mushers. Another musher, 2019 champion Peter Kaiser, Yup'ik, said he's taking a break after a tough training season made tougher by lack of snow.
Alaska Native mushers were once a dominant force in the Iditarod. The race was won by Alaska Natives in 1974, 1975, 1976, 2011, 2019 and 2023. The top three finishers in 1974 and 2023 were Alaska Natives. And 2011 champion John Baker, Inupiaq, is the sixth-winningest Iditarod musher of all time, with a total of $602,658 in earnings in 22 races. Williams said he hopes the Alaska Native presence in the Iditarod will rebuild. For him, it's a culturally significant event: sled dogs have been part of Alaska Native life for centuries, he said, and in the Iditarod mushers travel ancestral routes the way their ancestors did.
Iditarod rookie Emily Ford is African-American, an Alaska transplant from Duluth, Minnesota, and a veteran of several challenging mid-distance races. She's mushing in the Iditarod because 'I want to continue to represent Black people in cold places.'
She noted in her Iditarod biography the influence of Black cold-weather pioneers, among them North Pole expeditioner Matthew Henson, and Iditarod finishers Becca Moore and Newton Marshall.
'With an understanding and drive to show that anyone can adventure and everyone deserves to discover the outdoors, regardless of race, gender identity or upbringing, I continue to seek adventure and represent the underrepresented in outdoor spaces,' Ford said in her bio.
A look at the competition: The field of 33 mushers includes 17 veterans and 16 rookies from four countries (Canada, Denmark, Norway, U.S.) and seven U.S. states (Alaska, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin). Three mushers are well-known from reality TV: Lauro Eklund, 'Mountain Men'; Jessie Holmes, 'Life Below Zero'; and Quince Mountain, 'Naked and Afraid'.
Two mushers are past Iditarod champions: Ryan Redington, 2023; and Mitch Seavey, 2017, 2013, 2004. Nine have finished in the top 10, three are past second-place finishers.
Seavey is by far the most seasoned musher, having competed in 27 Iditarods with 18 top 10 finishes. Redington has completed 10 Iditarods and has four top 10 finishes.
Several 2025 Iditarod competitors tested their mettle in respected mid-distance races in January and February. Redington finished second in the Joe Redington Sr. Memorial Sled Dog Race, an annual 200-mile race that starts in Knik. Holmes won the Copper Basin 300, an annual 300-mile race that starts in Glennallen. Michelle Phillips won the 450-mile Yukon Quest, an annual race that starts in Teslin.
No small task: Competing in the Iditarod is a logistical feat. Mushers drop food bags and bales of straw for dog beds at each checkpoint before the race. Volunteers staff checkpoints, make coffee, log musher and dog team's arrival and departure times, and do veterinary health checks.
BY THE NUMBERSHere's a look at some of the numbers, from the Iditarod Trail Committee.*Pounds of dog food: 180,000*Dog booties: 100,000*Bales of straw: 1,200*Cups of coffee: 25,000*Number of volunteers: 1,500
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