Iditarod has a reputation as the toughest sled race in the world. The competition in Alaska is celebrating its 50th anniversary. A German who made it to the finish line seven times is now a race judge.
Snowstorms, extreme sub-zero temperatures and a lonely stretch through the Alaskan wilderness – over 1800 kilometers long: the Iditarod rightly has the reputation of being the toughest sled dog race in the world.
This weekend, 49 mushers, including 17 women, will start with their dog teams. “It’s one of the last great adventures,” says German Sebastian Schnülle in a dpa interview. Born in Wuppertal, he grew up in East Friesland and knows it from his own experience. He has been there seven times since 2005. In 2009 he made the distance from Anchorage to Nome in ten days and five hours – and finished second.
Most participants are native Alaskans, only a handful of foreigners – this year from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and France – dare the tough adventure.
challenges
What’s the hardest part about it? “By far the sleep deprivation,” says Schnülle without hesitating for a second. Because after around six hours of driving, the dogs are allowed to take a break, but the work goes on for the so-called musher. “You’re a cook, a masseur and you have to take care of everything,” says the 51-year-old Canadian by choice. The food for the dogs is prepared, their joints and paws are massaged, and the animals’ shoes have to be changed. There is hardly any time for the sled drivers to sleep. Then it’s on to the next checkpoint.
Schnülle is now retired as a musher, but he is still involved in the competition as a judge. Because of Corona, the race was shortened last year, and some towns were bypassed. But this year – the 50th anniversary – the traditional route is back to the remote Nome on the Bering Sea, a place that can only be reached by ship or plane, but not by car.
The Iditarod race owes its name to an old path that, since the late 19th century, connected remote gold mining and port towns in the far north – through deserted ones
Tundras, dense forests and across icy rivers. The route became famous in 1925, when a diphtheria epidemic threatened the children of the indigenous people of Nome in particular. Back then, mushers transported saving serum to the remote location.
sled dogs
In 1973, another rescue operation was at stake. “Back then, the sled dogs in the villages were increasingly being replaced by motorized snowmobiles,” says Chas St. George, a member of the Iditarod board. To save the tradition, a handful of mushers started the race. The first Iditarod was an all-male affair, the winner needed 20 days.
“It was really an expedition,” says Schnülle. With lighter equipment, better food and faster dogs, the competition has now “completely” changed. In 1985, 29-year-old Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the race – in 18 days. The course record is now a good eight days.
But the motive why mushers take on this hardship has remained the same for Schnülle: “It’s the love for dogs and for adventure,” says the German. He was studying environmental engineering in Germany when he went on his first dog sled tour in Canada. A little later, at the age of 26, he emigrated to the Yukon.
There he founded his own dog sled company, but he failed “miserably” in his first long race, the Yukon Quest, Schülle admits with a laugh. But slowly he learned. At his first Iditarod in 2005, he was in 38th place – but then he “tasted blood,” says Schnülle. In the summer, the full-bearded Canadian by choice offered tours for tourists on glaciers in Alaska, and in the winter he trained for the races.
Expensive sport
The sport has become very expensive, with rapidly increasing costs for dog food and equipment, Schnülle laments. In 2018 he gave up sledding, an economic decision that also had something to do with climate change. A shorter season in the ice, a higher risk from dangerous crevasses.
It’s getting warmer in the Arctic Circle, and that’s also been causing problems for the Iditarod participants in recent years. Due to a lack of snow, the route had to be moved further north. “We have enough snow this year, but climate change is a big concern, there are more extreme storms,” says Chas St. George. In 2019, the ice at the edge of the sea collapsed in stormy weather. More ice bridges would often have to be built so that the mushers could travel the route.
Schnülle, who lives close to nature in a wooden hut in the Yukon wilderness, quickly becomes enthusiastic. With the Iditarod races he had fulfilled a “life adventure”. There you experience camaraderie, not only with the other sled drivers and the villagers, but also with the dogs, who grow close to your heart like partners. “You’re lying in a sleeping bag in a storm, in the middle of nowhere, and you’re absolutely in the here and now,” says Schnülle, describing the appeal of extreme sports.