In 2006, Akiak musher Mike Williams Jr. won the Bogus Creek 150 Sled Dog Race. Nineteen years later, in the pre-dawn dark, Williams Jr. and his 10-dog team won the race for a second time.
Williams Jr. crossed the finish line at 7:08 a.m. on Sunday to a small crowd of family, friends and supporters.
“It feels good,” Williams Jr. told KYUK reporter Evan Erickson and Yugtun host Sam Berlin at the finish line, after feeding his dogs beef and fish soup. “I'm pleased with the dogs and satisfied. It’s satisfying. I worked hard this year to train the dogs, and I've been working with these dogs for a while now.”
Williams Jr. takes home $15,000 of a $100,000 total race purse and a woven grass mat trophy made by Kelly Lincoln.
Williams Jr. said that it’s not the end of his racing season. He has a 50-dog kennel and wants to get some of the less-experienced dogs out on the trail for the remaining races in the Delta Championship Series and for village races around the region.
“There's a bunch of other races that I plan to do,” Williams Jr. said. “I've got a bunch of young ones too that I'm working with, and I'll probably give these guys a break and run the young ones for the next one.”
Kwethluk musher Raymond Alexie, the defending champion, finished in second place, 22 minutes after Williams Jr. at 7:30 a.m. with 10 dogs.
“I'm beyond proud of these guys,” Alexie said of his dogs at the finish. “I think this is the best team I've ever had in the Bogus [Creek 150] – how they ate, how they ran.”
Alexie said that he struggled a bit with the second quarter of the race, between the Tuluksak River and the Bogus Creek checkpoint.
“The biggest challenge was going up to the checkpoint after passing Tuluksak was really punchy and slow,” Alexie said. “Then coming back, I was gambling with a little speed in them, trying to catch up to Mike, but…”
No musher has ever won the Bogus Creek 150 more than twice in a row in its 36-year history. Williams Jr.’s win denied Kwethluk musher Raymond Alexie the chance to break that streak – Alexie won the race in 2023 and 2024.
Alexie has indicated that he may step away from mushing after this season, but didn’t speak directly to his plans at the finish line.
“I’ll figure it out,” Alexie said.
Bethel’s Pete Kaiser came in third about 15 minutes later, at 7:46 a.m., with 10 dogs.
“Had a heck of a run coming down, really nice and fast, not as fast as the guys in front. So, yeah, I can't complain,” Kaiser said. “I had a good time.”
Kaiser made the history books this year with his ninth win in the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race, tying the all-time record for most wins, shared by Jeff King of Denali Park.
For the first time in 15 years Kaiser isn’t running the Iditarod, but said that he might continue with the local mushing season.
“We'll see what the weather does here and what training conditions allow us to do, we'll see,” Kaiser said. “It's been a long winter training in tough conditions. So if it stays, stays good like this, yeah, sure, yeah. Probably keep racing.”
The 2025 Bogus Creek 150 Sled Dog Race had been postponed twice this winter, the first time because of poor training conditions, and the second when the Kuskokwim 300 was bumped back by two weeks because of trail concerns.
Considering the poor training conditions, races in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have seen strong participation this winter.
“It's always been strong out here, and in the last so many years there's even more young kids racing and it's super strong,” Kaiser said. “I think Spyridon [Chaney] is coming in, maybe, behind me; that's pretty incredible.”
Rookie of the Year, 15-year-old Spyridon Chaney of Napaskiak, placed fourth. At the finish line, after his longest-ever race, he said that he felt: “Good. Real good. Tired, sleepy.”
He ran his ap’a (grandfather) Fr. Alexander Larson’s dogs in the Bogus Creek 150 this year – nearly the same team he ran in the Akiak Dash earlier this month when he also placed fourth.
In the second half of the Bogus Creek 150, Chaney passed competitor Robert Charles Jr. of Akiachak to take the fourth place position, which he held for the final 35 miles. He said that it was a bit of a Hail Mary strategy.
“Pushed the dogs to go,” Chaney said. “Pushed them like, didn't slow down, tried not to stop.”
The run up to Bogus Creek
After a mass start at 3 p.m. on Feb. 22, the 16 teams headed up the Kuskokwim toward the Gweek River and onward toward the Tuluksak River, Little Bogus Creek, and Big Bogus Creek.
The top of the pack kept a pace of around 10 miles per hour for most of the run up to the checkpoint.
Rookie Dray Pasitnak led the pack early in the race, moving as quickly as 13 and 14 miles per hour, but was overtaken by a few other teams including Williams Jr. on the overland trail after the Gweek River. From that point on, Williams Jr. kept a lead for the remainder of the race, with other mushers leapfrogging for the first half.
By the final stretch into the Bogus Creek checkpoint, though, the top of the race was clear. Williams Jr. was the first to reach the halfway checkpoint, arriving at 9:29 p.m. on Feb. 22, 7 minutes ahead of Alexie, who arrived at the Bogus Creek checkpoint at 9:36 p.m. Kaiser arrived another 7 minutes later at 9:43 p.m.
Coming into the mandatory 4-hour rest at the Bogus Creek checkpoint, less than 30 minutes separated the top five mushers.
The run back to Bethel
After their rest, although the top few finishers left the halfway checkpoint on the way back to Bethel separated by just a few minutes, Williams Jr., Alexie, and Kaiser remained in the same order throughout the 70-mile run downriver.
Pasitnak, one of four rookies in the race, scratched near Tuluksak around the time that Raymond Alexie crossed the finish line.
The rest of the pack stuck fairly close together, all completing the race within three hours of the winner. Solomon Olick of Kwethluk brought up the back of the pack, winning the Red Lantern Award in the 2025 Bogus Creek 150.
Find the final leaderboard here.
A race of winners and rookies
Like the 2024 Bogus Creek 150, six former winners took to the trail from Bethel to Bogus Creek and back: defending champ Raymond Alexie (2023 and 2024), four-time winner Lewis Pavilla (2009, 2010, 2013, and 2017), 2006 winner Mike Williams Jr., 2021 winner Richie Diehl, two-time winner Pete Kaiser (2008 and 2022), and 2018 winner Maurice Andrews.
Four rookies also started the race: Chaney of Napaskiak, Pasitnak of Akiachak, Schouviller Wassillie Jr. of Akiachak, and Michael Larson of Kwethluk. All but Pasitnak finished the race. This year’s race was faster than last year's by nearly two hours.
The Kuskokwim 300 Race Committee, which puts on its namesake race, the Bogus Creek 150, and suite of other local races, has its next competition scheduled for March 1 – the February 50 Doubles, where teams of two mushers compete together in a sprint race downriver and back to Bethel.
Editor's note: KYUK's Evan Erickson contributed to this story.