Race Season Wraps in the Arctic

The Kobuk 440 Sled Dog Race brought Alaska’s wintertime “race season” to a close.

Ryan Redington was the first to finish the race from Kotzebue to the village of Kobuk and back. The 2019 champion is the grandson of the late Joe Redington, Sr., known as the “Father of the Iditarod.”

Father and son Ketil and Martin Reitan competed in the Kobuk 440 as part of an epic mushing adventure: first along the Iditarod Trail (Anchorage–Nome), then to Kotzebue, Kobuk, Kotzebue, and finally to their hometown of Kaktovik — a 2,400 mile journey the elder Reitan quipped was a “camping trip.”

Images above and below: A Kobuk 440 sled dog rests in straw while other teams stand ready to leave the starting line in Kotzebue; volunteer fellow Emily Hofstaedter, reporting from the Kobuk 440 trail.

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