Iditarod

As the Iditarod has become more competitive, the middle- to back-of-the pack mushers who made it more of a cultural event have struggled with rising costs.

Some legendary careers are winding down. Other mushers are taking a break. All are grappling with higher costs in an already-expensive sport.

Christian Turner is an unlikely entrant in the 1,000-mile sled dog race, but not for lack of experience: He’s a two-time finisher, placing his highest at 15th in 2015, his last Iditarod.

The four-time Iditarod victor's kennel said he died Wednesday night after a long battle with cancer, following his re-diagnosis last year.

An Iditarod sled dog was found safe after disappearing from a checkpoint in the race three months ago and covering nearly 150 miles.

Mille Porsild and Michelle Phillips were the top female finishers in this year’s race. On one of the final runs they moved their dogs indoors to get out of a severe windstorm.

Mille Porsild of Denmark, Michelle Phillips of Canada and Riley Dyche of Fairbanks were penalized for taking dogs inside shelter cabins to ride out the storm with winds so strong, they whipped up white-out conditions.

Burmeister has been competing in the Iditarod since his rookie run in 1994, when he was rookie of the year.

Gerhardt Thiart and Bridgett Watkins were rescued and flown to Nome.

Veteran Iditarod musher Aaron Burmeister talked to Alaska Public Media’s Jeff Chen at the Nome radio station, KNOM, roughly a day after Burmeister finished his 21st Iditarod. Burmeister talks about stepping away from the Iditarod, about how his race went this year, and how much dog mushing has changed over the many years he’s been a competitive musher.

We’ve been publishing a “dog of the day” during the Iditarod. Here’s a round-up of who we’ve met so far.

In this hour-long interview, we hear more from 2022 Iditarod champion Brent Sass about how he’s forged a unique bond with his dog team, how he draws inspiration from his idols like Susan Butcher, and how his life in his remote homestead has made him the musher he is. Alaska Public Media’s Lex Treinen sat down with Sass, along with a group of other reporters, and Sass’s dad Mark at the Nome Nugget newspaper in downtown Nome.

Since the Iditapod left off, after Brent Sass's epic first Iditarod victory, teams have continued to arrive in Nome, including a fun race for 3rd and 4th place, two Yukon-Kuskokwim mushers in 5th and 6th, an impressive 7th place finish for a second-year musher and a Nome local coming home to finish in 8th before stepping away. We're also going to step away, but not before we answer another listener question and bring you one last Dog of the Day.

Pete Kaiser and his dog team raced across the Iditarod finish line at 9:45 p.m. Tuesday in fifth place. Family and friends from Anchorage, Aniak,...

Brent Sass and his team tumbled down a hillside in a raging windstorm on his final run into Nome. "The whole time I was like, ‘Yep, here we go, pulling a Sass again, making it interesting, and the last leg of the frickin race every single time.’"

Tempest is Jessie Holmes’s lead dog. She’s a sweetheart who likes to bark at just about anything, he said. Without a dog like her, he said, “you just can’t pull off what we’re trying to pull off.”

Kaduce said he opted to keep 14 dogs in harness instead of sending the slower ones home.

Iditapod goes on a deep dive talking about "old school" Eureka musher Brent Sass, who won his first Iditarod championship early Tuesday in Nome. That was despite howling wind that almost caused him to stop in the final miles, with five-time champ Dallas Seavey still in pursuit, just about an hour behind. We'll take you to the finish line, plus Sass's Golden Harness dogs Slater and Morello are the subject of our listener question AND the Dog(s) of the Day.

“He's a really special dog all the way around,” said Aaron Burmeister.

The two six-year-old Alaskan huskies led for most of the 1,000 miles, through headwinds and over hills.