The Iditarod is known for its toughness, but this year three teams on the 1,000-mile trail to Nome are in the race’s first-ever noncompetitive Expedition Class.
Two are wealthy businessmen who’ve contributed money to the race. One is a former champ.
Despite their financial contributions, some mushers are questioning what the businessmen – including Norwegian billionaire Kjell Røkke, who lives in Switzerland – are doing in Alaska’s Super Bowl of dog mushing.
As chair of Aker ASA, Røkke sits atop a web of companies that primarily deal in energy and fish products. One of Aker ASA’s subsidiaries, Aker BioMarine, produces dog food made from Antarctic krill.
Røkke has sponsored Iditarod mushers before and gave the race at least $300,000 this year, to lower musher entry fees and boost the race purse.
But Røkke’s money isn’t what’s causing a stir in this year’s race. For Fairbanks musher Jeff Deeter, an Iditarod veteran with six finishes, it’s the Expedition Class’s relaxed race rules.
“There are things that he's doing, his group is doing, that are not representative of Iditarod and long distance racing,” Deeter said. “ And I have a real problem with that.”
The Iditarod Trail Committee is the nonprofit that puts on the race, and it’s struggled to stay out of the red in recent years as costs have gone up and sponsorships have declined.
The ITC announced in June that Røkke would join the race and was contributing financially. But race officials declined to answer questions about Røkke. At a media day three days before the race started, the Iditarod announced Canadian businessman Steve Curtis would join Røkke and his fellow Norwegian, 2020 Iditarod champ Thomas Waerner, in the Expedition Class.
It wasn’t until hours after the Musher’s Banquet – a ticketed dinner event two days before the ceremonial start where the teams’ start orders are determined – that race officials sent more information on the Expedition Class to news media.
The release said the Expedition mushers are not limited to a set 16-dog team like the other mushers. They can swap in fresh dogs, are not required to take any layovers and can receive outside assistance in any form. And, so far in the race, Røkke is also mushing very close to Waerner, who is supporting him on the trail. Curtis is supported by three former Iditarod mushers on snowmachines.
The race has also said Expedition mushers are “explicitly instructed to separate themselves from the competitive element of the race and must not interfere in any way.”
It’s that last part that Iditarod veteran Aaron Burmeister, who is not in this year’s race, is keeping an eye on. Aside from Waerner’s dog team, Røkke is being flanked by two snowmachines tasked with breaking trail and setting up camp.
Burmeister said snowmachines, piloted by locals or Iditarod’s video crew, are common along the trail. And he said they can be a good thing, particularly if a blizzard makes the course hard to follow.
But snowmachines come with downsides, too, Burmeister said.
“If you're traveling the trail and you've got a one-inch crust and there's sugar snow underneath you, a dog team out front, any snowmachine that's out there, if they break the crust up and you fall through the base, now you're going from nine miles an hour on a dog team down to seven struggling to go through deep snow,” Burmeister said.
Still, Burmeister, who served on the Iditarod’s board of directors for 10 years, said the influx of cash brings positives off the trail.
“Having the expedition mushers out there I feel is a really positive thing for the event, because it brings in revenue,” he said. “It really promotes the race in a big way, both financially and publicly, and it allows people to accomplish a bucket list item.”
At the ceremonial start in Anchorage, defending Iditarod champion Jessie Holmes had concerns, at least in part related to where he planned to take a mandatory 24-hour break.
“I think that it's really thrown me for a loop on how I plan to run the race. I plan to go to Cripple for the 24, but apparently, Thomas (Waerner) and Røkke, they plan to push an aggressive pace and race us to Nome and beat us to Nome,” Holmes said.
And the Cripple checkpoint is usually quiet. It’s not a community like other checkpoints and consists of only a couple small buildings. Despite fewer amenities, some mushers like to take their 24-hour break there because they and their dogs can bed down for some good rest away from hustle and bustle.
Holmes said the extra snowmachines were making him second-guess his strategy.
“Just adds more to the musher’s plate to have to try to contemplate what they're going to do,” he said.
Waerner said he’s been training with Røkke for four years now, including a notoriously brutal section of trail along the Norton Sound coast.
“We're building up a new team, so it's gonna be fun to see it on the trail,” Waerner said. “I'm looking forward to seeing the trail again, the whole trail, but we've been going from McGrath to Nome last year. So we’re seeing a lot of trail again.”
The Iditarod typically takes just over eight days for the top teams to complete, and longer for others, meaning mushers spend a lot of time on the runners watching the dogs trot along the trail. In Anchorage, Røkke said he was nervous but excited to get underway, and called running the Iditarod a “great adventure.”
“I'm really not a dog man, per se, but I connect very well with the dogs,” Røkke said. “You have to be in a good mood, whatever happens, smile, laugh, tell them story, sing, and that's what I do.”
Røkke was the sixth musher to depart the Willow restart and, along with Waerner, lingered around the front of the pack for the opening stage of the race. On the opposite end of the procession was Curtis, the only other Expedition musher
Veteran musher Mille Porsild said her skepticism of the Expedition Class hasn’t changed since it was first announced last summer.
“I strongly believe in what has been the traditional spirit of this race. In my mind, this is and should remain the pinnacle of our sport,” Porsild said. “This is the Tour de France, the Olympics of our sports. And I sincerely hope that that's what it will be in the future.”
The Iditarod did make one thing clear in its earliest statements about the Expedition Class: If Røkke or Curtis make it to the famed Burled Arch, the race’s finish line in Nome, they will not receive an official Iditarod finisher’s belt buckle, but instead will win a separate Expedition Class belt buckle.
