I gotta just take a moment to write about my memories of the Iditarod. In Alaska, everyone stops what they are doing to watch the start of the race. They listen to updates on their way to work or school. They watch updates on the local news. School kids learn about this race and about the Serum Run (getting the diphtheria vaccine from Anchorage to Nome), and other eras of Alaska’s history.
When I was just a little qaigya’aq (means seal cub) learning about the Iditarod, I was taught that is was because of the Serum Run. But, as Joe Redington, Sr, often called the father of the Iditarod, so often stated, it was actually based on old freight and mail runs. So, being the smart-alec I was even back then, I assumed that it was white people trying to revise their own history and that, eventually, they’d reach some consensus about what the Iditarod meant, other than us kids getting to watch sled dogs on tv during school hours. Joe Redington, Sr seems to have won.
Mind you, in the 1970s-1980s, the Iditarod’s 1,100 miles was about a 20 day affair (now, sadly, it’s not even a 2-week affair). We’d watch Outsiders (that means non-Alaskans) come to race against our Alaskan teams. We’d size up the teams and make comments about which checkpoint the most rookies would drop out at, who’d be the red lantern (last one to cross the finish line) this year, who wasn’t in the race this year. We’d listen to the daily updates about who took the lead, who’s sled took a beating, if any of our favorites were doing well or losing time. It was 20 days of talking about the Iditarod!
My fondest memories were of watching the epic race of 1985 when all seemed lost due to a blizzard just as mushers (that’s what they call the people at the back of the sled) were all pulling into the last checkpoint before the finish line in Nome. All the tv and newspaper types were predicting that the race would be delayed by days and that some guy would win. Others were saying that teams would be lost in the blizzard. It was all any Alaskan could talk about.
Then we got news that Libby Riddles had gone ahead into the blizzard! She left Shaktoolik and was racing for the finish! Well, all the guys were like, ‘She’s gonna get lost and die,’ or ‘She’ll turn back,’ or some such. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was glued to the tv or the radio, telephone close at hand just holding our collective breath, waiting …
After 18 days, 20 minutes and 17 seconds, at 9 am on Mar 20, 1985, Libby Riddles crossed the finish line!!!! Students were hustled into neighboring classroooms with tvs being rolled down the hallway at breakneck speed, replays of her finish were being aired on all 3 news channels!! Libby Riddles won the Iditarod!!!! Her historic finish was replayed during every newscast that day, radio announcers replayed audio of her finish and her answer to the first questions.
Just thinking about that momentous event brings me incredible pride. The first woman to win!!
Susan Butcher is another famous musher who dominated the Iditarod during the 80s. If I remember correctly, she won 1986-1988 … losing narrowly to some guy in 1989.
I mean no disrespect to male mushers by saying ‘some guy.’ It’s just that in a sport during a time in history that was dominated by men, some guy is as respectful as I can be. Some guy was always expected to win, yes? Like baseball and football, I remember teams (sometimes), but not individual players because some guy is always going to be the best baseball or football player. Not disrespectful, just accurate.
So, Libby Riddles, Susan Butcher, DeeDee Jonrowe, Mary Shields and Lolly Medley became important sports figures to me as a little cub learning about this world from a human’s point of view.
These women showed the world that women can compete and win in one of the most grueling races out there. Tempuratures in that part of Alaska can get down to -100F. Winds whipping across that ice regularly upend everything that isn’t properly tied down, including mushers, their sleds and their dog teams.
You can’t be a stupidhead and think you’ll have any chance of surviving even part of the Iditarod Trail. A lot of mushers drop out before they even finish. There are so many things that can go awry in an instant in Bush (that means rural) Alaska.
With the 53rd Iditarod’s start in the books, I’d like to acknowledge what an incredible history of diversity this race embraces! Apayauq Reitan, an Inupiak musher became the first openly transgender woman to compete in the 2022 Iditarod.
For more on Libby Riddles’ win: www.smithsonianmag.com/…
For more on kick-ass women of the Iditarod: www.adn.com/…