Sports

The 2024 Iditarod kicks off Saturday with a ceremonial start in Anchorage followed by an official race start in Willow on Sunday.

From there, 38 mushers and as many as 608 sled dogs will make the 1,000-mile trek to Nome.

Here’s what to know about this year’s race:

When will the Iditarod start?

The Iditarod begins, not so much as a race, but more like a sled dog parade with the 11-mile ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday, March 2.

The mushers start getting their teams ready downtown early Saturday. Then, starting at 10 a.m., they set off, one-by-one every couple minutes from Fourth Avenue near D Street. The untimed run through Anchorage takes them down city streets and onto the trail system, ending at Campbell Airstrip.

There are plenty of places to watch from. Those include hotspots like downtown, the hill on Cordova Street near 15th Avenue and the Trailgate party in the Eastchester Park area.

Next on the agenda: the official race start Sunday in Willow

After the ceremonial start, mushers truck their dog teams north for the official start at 2 p.m. on Willow Lake. Again, they’ll leave in two-minute intervals, beginning their journey to Nome in

The Iditarod says folks driving to Willow to watch the start should look for signs on the Parks Highway in Wasilla and at Houston High School that will have information on available parking. Parking will cost $20 in Willow. The Iditarod is also encouraging people to take a shuttle, instead. There’s a shuttle that leaves from the Lakefront Anchorage Hotel and from Wasilla. More info on prices and timing here.

What’s the trail route this year?

It’s an even year, so the Iditarod is on its northern route. That means when the teams reach the ghost town checkpoint of Ophir about 350 miles into the race, they’ll turn north to get to the Cripple checkpoint and then the village of Ruby on the Yukon River. They stay on the Yukon headed west to Galena and then Kaltag, where the northern and southern routes rejoin. From there, it’s about 350 miles to the finish line in Nome.

How are trail conditions? 

It sounds like a little bit of everything. Race Director Mark Nordman said there is plenty of snow south of the Alaska Range and headed into the Dalzell Gorge from the Rainy Pass checkpoint. But after Rohn, in the Farewell Burn area, there are miles of bare ground, Nordman said.

It’s common to see dirt and rocks on that section of trail, and while the lack of snow coverage means the mushers and their sleds will take a beating, the dogs tend to take advantage of the good footing, he said.

“They are slugging and working away with all their muscles getting over the Alaska Range, and then it’s all of a sudden running on dirt and frozen ground, and so they just take off,” Nordman said. (Check out this video footage of the snow-less stretch of trail between the Rohn and Nikolai checkpoints, posted by veteran musher DeeDee Jonwrowe, who was on a snowmachine.)

Beyond Nikolai, Nordman said, there’s good snow coverage, but there is some question about a section of trail that passes over sea ice on the edge of Norton Bay near Elim, roughly 850 miles into the race. Mid-winter storms have broken up the ice, and the race might need to be rerouted to go overland on an old mail route, he said.

Who’s competing in this year’s race?

There are three champions returning this year, including reigning champ Ryan Redington, five-time champ Dallas Seavey – returning after taking a year off in 2023 – and Pete Kaiser, who’s raced it every year since 2010 and is coming off his eighth Kuskokwim 300 victory. Kaiser and Redington have each won the Iditarod once, while Seavey is looking to break a tie with Rick Swenson for the most Iditarod wins ever.

Other likely contenders for top-10 finishes are Jessie Holmes, Jessie Royer, Matt Hall, Matt Failor, Aaron Burmeister, Nicolas Petit, Mille Porsild, Travis Beals and Paige Drobny.

Nobody in this year’s Iditarod has run it more than Burmeister, with 21 finishes, or Royer, with 20.

There are also 16 Iditarod rookies this year, racing along with 22 veterans.

What happened with the disqualified mushers? 

It’s complicated.

Separate accusations of violence against women derailed the Iditarod dreams of both Eddie Burke Jr., the race’s 2023 Rookie of the Year, and its 2022 champion, Brent Sass.

In Burke’s case, he had been charged with a felony domestic violence assault in 2022. It’s unclear if the Iditarod knew about the charge ahead of the 2023 race, but the case remained unresolved heading into this year’s competition.

The Iditarod announced Feb. 19, it was disqualifying Burke under the race’s Rule 53, which deals with musher conduct. On Feb. 23, the state Department of Law said it was dropping the charges, because the alleged victim in the case had “declined to participate in the prosecution.” That same day, the Iditarod announced Burke had been reinstated. Then, on Feb. 26, Burke said he was withdrawing, because, in the meantime, he had leased dogs from his team to other Iditarod mushers.

The Iditarod disqualified Sass on Feb. 22 amid allegations of sexual assault contained in a letter sent to race officials nearly four months earlier and about a week after reporters with Alaska Public Media, the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica began asking the race for comment on the letter, as well as allegations made by two women directly to the newsrooms.

Sass has denied the allegations and has not been charged with a crime related to them.

Including Burke, five mushers who had been signed up voluntarily withdrew from this year’s Iditarod.

How many dogs are on a team?

This year, the Iditarod is returning to a rule allowing teams to have as many as 16 dogs. That had been the limit until 2019, when the race announced a limit of 14 dogs per team.

Nordman, the race director, said the 14-dog limit had been instituted based on concerns for dog care, the cost of flying dogs back from the trail and to make it easier for smaller kennels to compete. But Iditarod mushers voted after the 2023 race to return to 16-dog teams, and after the race’s Rules Committee agreed, the Iditarod Trail Committee board gave its approval.

Nordman said five years with the limit at 14 dogs showed no difference in the number of dogs sent home from checkpoints along the trail, which would be an indicator of any difference in a musher’s ability to care for more or fewer dogs, he said.

“Who wouldn’t want to take the biggest string of dogs possible in the biggest sled dog race in the world?” Nordman said.

In the early days of the race, there was no limit on the number of dogs in a team, he said. Then the limit was 20 dogs per team for many years, before the 16-dog rule in the more modern era.

Along with the 16-dog maximum, there’s also a minimum: Race rules say mushers must start the Iditarod with at least 12 dogs.

Where do the dogs go that don’t make it to the finish line?

Mushers with dogs that are injured or otherwise not performing well in the race can “drop” them in checkpoints. Veterinarians in the checkpoints are supposed to take a look at each dropped dog before the race ultimately flies them back to Anchorage or on to Nome.

A team needs to have at least five dogs when arriving at the finish line in Nome.

What do mushers carry in their sleds?

A lot!

There’s some mandatory gear that race officials have to check for at each checkpoint, like a veterinarian notebook, a cooker capable of boiling at least three gallons of water and a pair of snowshoes, among other things.

Some mushers carry extra items that are not mandatory, like a ski pole to help push the sled along. Mushers will also pick up bales of straw and bags with supplies – including dog food – in checkpoints and carry it with them to bed down and feed their teams while taking breaks along the trail.

When can we expect a winner?

First-place finishers typically arrive in Nome under the famed Burled Arch finish line in about eight days. Based on the Iditarod’s last run on the northern route, in 2022, we can expect this year’s winner to finish sometime Tuesday, March 12, likely early in the morning, but that depends on how fast the trail is overall and whether any storms hit during the race.

Mushers who make fewer mistakes and suffer less damage to their sleds, themselves and their dogs will understandably have faster times.

They’re all looking for a “dream ride,” Nordman said.

“I think all of us that have run dogs have had it,” he said. “You remember that one night when everything just clicked. It’s like you’ve got a steam engine ahead of you, and they’re just busting through the snow and having fun with it the whole time.”

How do I follow along?

Alaska Public Media will have daily coverage online and radio reports on the Alaska Public Radio network every weekday of the race. We’re also sending out our Iditarod Daily email newsletter again this year. It’ll include our latest coverage, race analysis and our “Dog of the Day” feature. Subscribe for free here. The Iditarod itself also has varying levels of coverage through its paid Iditarod Insider subscriptions.

Have a question we missed? Email Alaska Public Media’s Tegan Hanlon and Casey Grove at thanlon@alaskapublic.org and cgrove@alaskapublic.org.

The Iditarod has disqualified a musher from the upcoming running of the Last Great Race.

A release from the Iditarod Trail Committee says the race’s board held an emergency meeting on Monday and decided to disqualify Eddie Burke Jr. of Anchorage. It says the disqualification is pursuant to rule 53, which says that “All Iditarod mushers will be held to a high standard of personal and professional conduct.”

The release does not explain what Burke did to violate the rule, but Alaska court records show the 34-year-old musher is facing felony and misdemeanor assault charges for a May 2022 domestic violence incident in Anchorage.

Burke was the top rookie in last year’s Iditarod as well as the Yukon Quest Alaska 300 earlier this month.

Burke’s disqualification follows a message sent to Iditarod mushers saying that the race’s board had been informed about “a number of accusations being made within our community concerning violence and abuse against women.”

It does not name any mushers but goes on to say that the ITC board and personal conduct committee are “monitoring the situation closely.”

The stands at Thunder Mountain High School’s gym were full on Saturday as the Skagway Panthers and Hoonah Braves varsity basketball teams faced off in Juneau’s first annual Elizabeth Peratrovich Women’s High School Basketball Invitational.

The teams were battling to see who would be crowned the tournament’s first champions. Ultimately, it was the Panthers who took home the title with a 29-8 win.

Thunder Mountain girl’s varsity basketball coach and event organizer Andy Lee said the tournament is meant to showcase the deep pool of talented female athletes in Alaska and to honor Alaska Native culture in Juneau. 

“I’ve always thought of Elizabeth Peratrovich, hearing the stories about her and her impact on the civil rights movement and the legislation that she’s impacted and the people she’s influenced — what a great role model,” he said. 

Peratrovich’s activism was a driving force behind the Alaska legislature’s passage of the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945. That bill was signed nearly two decades before the federal Civil Rights Act.

Lee said it was only right to choose one of the most influential women in Alaska’s history as the tournament’s namesake. He said it was important to choose someone for the girls who can inspire them. 

Keidre Hartman, a senior on the Thunder Mountain girl’s team, said she really enjoyed the tournament and having the teams come play on her home court. 

“I really like helping build up the community, and Native culture is definitely a big part of Juneau, and so I like being able to support that,” she said. 

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska was the tournament’s main sponsor. Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson was in the stands to watch the championship game. 

He said the tournament is special because it lifts up young women in the sport and honors basketball’s deep roots in Alaska Native culture.

“I think it’s just exciting to see young ladies given the center stage and to do it in honor of Elizabeth Peratrovich makes all the more sense makes it a thing to be excited about,” Peterson said. 

Lee said he hopes the tournament will become a tradition for the young high school. 

“I want things to live on, beyond the people that are here and the message. And I want it to resonate with young women who play — and I hope there’s a 50th-annual,” he said. 

Lee said plans are already underway to expand next year’s tournament. 

On normal days, Jim Jager works as a high-level city employee at Anchorage’s port.

But earlier this week, he was doing manual labor along the cross-country ski trails at Kincaid Park, on the western edge of town. Snow was piling up on the course markers, so Jager pulled a leaf blower out of his car.

“I was blowing snow off the v-boards, so that the skiers could see where the trail was,” Jager said.

Jager is one of dozens of Anchorage residents who are volunteering at Kincaid during the ongoing week-long, national-caliber cross-country ski race series, known as the SuperTour. The events, which continue Saturday and Sunday, have drawn Olympians, top-level junior athletes and a contingent from Canada for some of the highest-level races in North America this year.

Good results could help racers qualifying to compete at the World Cup in Minneapolis in February, on the top-level circuit’s first swing through the U.S. in two decades. Typically, World Cup races are held at Scandinavian and Central European venues.

“I mean, it would be a surreal experience to get to race a World Cup on home soil,” said Sammy Smith, 18, a talented Idaho junior who won both Tuesday and Wednesday’s races at Kincaid. “It’s hard for a lot of American racers — they spend their entire winters in Europe, so not a lot of opportunity for family or relatives to come watch.”

The Anchorage cross-country races wouldn’t be happening without volunteers like Jager — one of many city residents with strong ties to the highest level of the sport.

Jager is an accomplished long-distance ski racer himself; his son Luke is an Olympian who is currently racing in Norway on the World Cup.

Other retired Alaska Olympians were scattered all across Kincaid Park as volunteers and race officials: Adam Verrier was doing play-by-play announcing on the stadium intercom, and Tyler Kornfield was helping to run tests for traces of banned chemicals that, if rubbed onto skis, can help them slide faster.

Also present Tuesday was Kikkan Randall, who won a gold medal at the 2018 Olympics and now heads the Nordic Ski Association of Anchorage, which is organizing the events.

“It takes a big team,” she said. “But thankfully, we’ve got a good group here in Anchorage that just reflexively comes out and does this.”

Randall added that she was a little jealous that her job kept her from spending her day on skis. But, she said, she also remembers how much racing hurts, “so it’s kind of nice to watch.”

Many of the visiting athletes were experiencing Anchorage for their first time, and reviews were positive — even from racers who have competed at scenic European mountain venues.

“I was not expecting this big of a town, at first,” said Liliane Gagnon, a Canadian national team member. “Skiing here at Kincaid, seeing the oceans and the mountains when it’s sunny, it’s really nice, honestly. The trails are awesome. I’m loving it here, so far.”

Befitting Anchorage’s informal status as Cross-Country Ski Town USA, more than a dozen locals are competing this week as part of two Alaska club teams.

Those Alaska athletes usually spend much of the winter on the road, living out of suitcases at Airbnbs in ski towns across the country.

But it turns out that sleeping at home and racing at Kincaid were not as much of an advantage as some expected. Michael Earnhart, a 21-year-old U.S. Ski Team member who trains with the Alaska Pacific University club, said he was initially excited to race in Anchorage.

“But it ended up being kind of weird to not go somewhere else and get that whole lock-into-the-race feeling,” he said. “It’s finals week for me — I was kind of thinking about other things. Normally, you go on a ski trip and it’s just skiing. You can tell teachers, ‘Sorry, I was out skiing.’”

Earnhart still managed a third place in the week’s opening event, a three-minute-long sprint race.

His father, William, was watching from the side of the trail. He’s the board president of the Anchorage ski association, and said that beyond the SuperTour races, he’s looking forward to next winter, when his organization will host the national championships at Kincaid.

“Nordic skiing in Anchorage started with volunteers and racers,” he said. “And that’s what continues it.”

Jimmy Manning was a standout player in Juneau’s vibrant baseball scene before World War II — and one of the few Lingít players in the league. A 1999 article in the Gastineau Heritage News described him as “possibly Juneau’s best homegrown player.” And his 1962 obituary in the Alaska Daily Empire, written by fellow ballplayer Erv Hagerup, called him the “Pride of Douglas.”

“Jimmy was a hero in my mind before I ever saw him,” Hagerup wrote. “Mainly because the older folks were always talking of his latest accomplishments in sports.”

Manning was so respected that, in 1963, the newly built baseball diamonds in Savikko Park were named the Jimmy Manning Memorial Ballpark. 

It’s not clear when or why that name was lost. But Lillian Petershoare, a tribal citizen of the Douglas Indian Association, says it would mean a lot to bring the old name back.

“Juneau, before anything else, is a Native community. And as such, our footprint needs to be very visible here,” she said. “And that’s beginning to happen.”

The pride of Douglas

Manning was born around the turn of the century — in 1903, according to one source. As a boy and a young adult, he quickly became a local star.

Signs that once stood in Savikko Park said he excelled at basketball. His obituary says he was a formidable track and field star at Douglas High School. But he was most celebrated as a baseball player. 

Manning’s heyday was in the Juneau City League in the 1920s and 30s. In the Gastineau Heritage News, Mac Metcalfe wrote that baseball in Juneau was then so popular that the 1928 season began with a parade, and Gov. George Parks threw the first pitch.

A preview of the 1925 baseball season in the Alaska Daily Empire called Manning “one of the best young players in the league.”

“The champions’ lineup was materially strengthened by his acquisition,” it read.

Hagerup wrote that Manning threw “a blindingly fast ball” with “deadly accuracy.” That he was the first Juneau player to hit three home runs in a single game. And that in a single weekend, Manning pitched three complete games in two days, winning them all and striking out 27 batters. 

Hagerup, who described Manning as “tall, athletically built, straight as an arrow — a gentleman at all times,” also wrote of how badly he wished he’d asked Manning about the early days. 

“I intend to ask Jimmy about the early day sports on the Channel, but I find that this is now impossible,” he wrote. “Within earshot of the ballparks on both sides of the channel where he had received the loud acclaim of thousands, he slipped away and has taken his story with him.”

Manning died at the age of 59 in 1962 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. His grave is on the cemetery’s map, but there’s no marker there today. 

“One by one they slip away and take their stories with them,” Hagerup wrote six decades ago. “We fill-in the details as best we can and the stories become partly fiction. Our neglect robs us of a rich story of factual history of this area.”

“A story that I can’t let go of”

Petershoare doesn’t want that to be so — and she sees a greater harm beyond the loss of factual history.

“When my mother was alive, she used to say, ‘It’s as if this community has forgotten its original people,’” Petershoare said. 

And for most of her life, Petershoare had never heard of Manning. A few years ago, she was speaking with Lingít elder Marie Olsen when Olsen mentioned him.

“It really intrigued me because she said that the ballfields in Douglas were named after him,” Petershoare said. “And so I thought, ‘Here’s a story that I can’t let go of.’” 

There are three baseball diamonds in Savikko Park on Douglas, north of Sandy Beach. It’s where, in 1962, the city burned the T’aaḵu Kwáan village while most of the people who lived there were away fishing.

Manning died a few months later. Shortly after that, the city named the fields after him. He would have played many games nearby — Metcalfe wrote that during the city league days, Douglas had a ballfield “near Sandy Beach, just below the Native village.”

But sometime between then and now, signs that read “Jimmy Manning Memorial Ballpark” disappeared. Today, a larger sign denotes the whole area as Robert Savikko Park — Savikko was a former Douglas mayor and served on the Juneau assembly. The words “Anax̱ Yei Andagan Yé” are below that, in smaller letters, with no explanation. That’s the name of the village the city burned.

When Petershoare first asked the city about the ballpark’s lost name in 2020, Colby Shibler, a Parks and Rec employee, told her that he’d seen some old signs in storage with Manning’s name on them.

“I said, ‘Oh, gosh, Colby, would you please go down the hall and take a picture of those signs?’” Petershoare said. 

They were old interpretive signs made in 1982, a little rusty and with some holes worn through the print. There were four of them, bearing sanitized histories of Douglas Island, Sandy Beach and the park itself. 

One presented short biographies of Manning and Savikko. 

“These ball playing fields are dedicated to the memory of Jimmy Manning,” that sign read, “who many believe to have been the best all-around athlete in this community’s history.”

The sign said a little about Manning’s parents and his playing career, and it said the ballfields were named after him on July 4, 1963. But there was a lot more the sign didn’t say.

“Nowhere is there a mention of his Lingít identity. And yet, we learned that Savikko was Finnish-Swedish,” Petershoare said. “This is such a continuation of the legacy of ripping away, you know, with the Douglas Indian village.”

That could change soon. The city is working with Douglas Indian Association to make the ballpark Manning’s again. City Manager Katie Koester says that during an October meeting, the two organizations decided that they want to do it right.

“We tried to get the signpost installed so that we could move quickly, even with the ground freezing,” she said. “And the consensus was more, let’s give this time and maybe use it to tell a story.”

Petershoare sees the effort as a chance to resurrect Manning’s legacy — and to help undo Juneau’s legacy of erasure. She thinks visible acknowledgments of Lingít people in Juneau’s history could matter for the future.

“I want our Alaska Native youth and all youth to read this signage and walk away from it with their shoulders pulled back,” she said. “Standing tall, feeling proud of Native history in this community.”

Listen here:

Juneau’s pinball community has created a space where women can play without as much pressure — women’s only nights.

Anyone who identifies as a woman or non-binary can play. Participants say it’s often more fun than the co-ed tournaments. 

Tawney Letterman, who also plays in the usual Tuesday night tournaments, says she enjoys playing with just the women sometimes.

“There’s a lot less peacocking,” she said, demonstrating a strut. “And the women are like, ‘Good ball babe!’”

Tuesday was the third women’s night at the Bearcade in downtown Juneau. Kristin Bailey was checking the scores. 

“It’s way more relaxed. It’s more of a funner, chill vibe,” she said. “That’s my favorite thing about it.”

The women aren’t competitive with each other. When one plays an especially good round, everyone shares her excitement. So far, three different women have won each women’s tournament, and they are all pretty happy with that. 

“We all just want people to play and have fun, at the end of the day. And like, congratulate you when you do a good job and say it’s okay when you don’t,” Letterman said. 

But they are more competitive when it comes to the upcoming state tournament in Sitka. It’ll be the first in Alaska. 

“We’re all, like, hella focused. We’re all already like, ‘None of us are gonna drink, no one’s getting stoned.’ We’ve already talked about strategies,” Letterman said. “Like, ‘should we get leather jackets?’”

The top 16 players in Alaska will compete in the state championship in January. Five of the qualifying players are women — all from Juneau.