Ahead of this year’s race, KNOM rebroadcasted its coverage of the first-ever Iditarod Sled Dog Race in 1973. In the audio, you’ll hear play-by-play coverage leading up towards the finish line, followed by an interview with champion Dick Wilmarth.
Soon after airing, Dick’s daughter, Rebecca Wilmarth reached out to KNOM to ask more about the broadcast — It was her first time listening to it.
After his historic win, Dick took his $12,000 prize pot (equivalent to more than $90,000 today) and invested in gold mining equipment. Rebecca said the family eventually settled in Red Devil, Alaska, along the Kuskokwim River.
During her trip to Nome to see this year’s Iditarod finish, Rebecca sat down with KNOM Community Relations Manager Quinn White to talk more about her upbringing and her father’s Iditarod legacy more than 50 years after his win. Not only did he make history as the race’s first champion, Rebecca said “He just proved it was possible.”
Listen to Rebecca Wilmarth's full interview:
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Quinn White: Your dad is Dick Wilmarth, the first guy to finish the Iditarod in 1973. For our listeners who might not know, the other day we got to rebroadcast our original broadcast of that Iditarod race. I know it made me feel special to listen to it, tell me about how you felt when you listened to it.
Rebecca Wilmarth: I follow the radio station on Facebook, and just love seeing all of the updates and I came across that clip of the audio, and that was something that I'd never heard before, and usually at this time of the year, a lot of the historical Iditarod stuff surfaces on social media and in the news. So I was really happy to see that come across my feed, and I shared it with my family, and reached out to the station and asked if I could get a copy of that so I could preserve it for my kids and all of his other grandkids. So I thought that was really special, that you guys have put that on there.
QW: I have the flash drive sitting on my desk, so I'll get it for you before you leave. But, it was like, what, 15 years between when he won the Iditarod and when you were born?
RW: Roughly, yeah.
QW: What stories — did he talk about when you were growing up?
RW: Yeah, he did. I'll just tell you a little bit about his history and how he ended up racing the first Iditarod. He came up to Alaska from Idaho with his brother Larry in the spring of 1960 you know, in search of adventure. He was only 16 at the time, somebody they encountered told him to head out west, and so they ended up in McGrath and took a canoe down the Kuskokwim and built a trapping cabin at the mouth of the Holitna River and found work at the Red Devil Mine. It was a Mercury mine during that time. So he made his lifelong home in Red Devil, and that's where he later raised his family. He was drafted to the Army, and then spent a couple of years doing that, and then learned to fly afterwards. When he learned about the race in the spring of 1973 he had to quickly gather up a team. You know, dog mushing was a lot more prominent back then in that area. The mail was carried by dog team. And so I know he was familiar with mushing in general, but it was not like he had a team ready to go, and that he'd been training for the Iditarod or anything like that. So it's kind of an impromptu thing for him. He gathered up a handful of dogs from villages up and down the river. I've heard him talk about like Sam Parent from Kalskag, George Fredericks from Sleetemute — and the advice that they gave him about running was to never push his dogs, let them go at their own pace. He loved the team that he had. He said that they saved his life. As far as the race itself, he talked about doing a lot of [snowshoeing] and breaking trail, not having a lot of dog food along the way. He met incredible people along the way. He was given beaver and dried fish. And he talked a lot about, at one point, people were talking about quitting, like, ‘let's turn back,’ and he had his mind set on going to Nome, and looked at them and said, ‘I'm going to Nome.’ So I think it was a different race then, and he was the first winner, but I think most importantly, he just proved it was possible.
QW: When I was looking at how fast it took him, almost three weeks, and now we look at these guys, they make it…
RW: Seven to nine [days].
QW: Isn’t that nuts? Wow.
RW: Just thinking about this year and the cold temperatures that the mushers have been reporting, I think it was more similar to that, just deep, deep cold and a lot of snow, a lot of trail blazing.
QW: It sounds like he wasn't an expert in dog mushing when he started, and it sounds like, from how you described when we were on the phone yesterday, that after the Iditarod, he went, ‘Oh, that's it for me.’
RW: Yeah, basically, I think, he was asked ‘What now, why didn't you ever mush again?’ And he just had a big smile on his face and said, 'because I won.’ That was good enough for him, I think. And he took his winnings from the Iditarod and bought gold mining equipment and got into gold mining. And that's kind of where my history started. A lot of my childhood summers were spent at our placer mine near Flat, and that was the cornerstone of my childhood. I watched him build things, fix things, operate machinery, run a business. He was a pilot, and he inspired all of his kids to be go-getters, hard workers, and just that, no quit mentality, I think, is something that we all take for him.
QW: I mean, after you win the Iditarod, I guess it doesn't get much better than that. What else do you do? Where else do you go from here?
RW: Yeah, but you know, we were close to the race as kids, we would go over to Iditarod, and he would have a big wall tent set up there, and he'd have coffee and a big pot of beans going for the mushers. And mushers were coming and going, and we'd sit and visit with them, and that was really special to be a part of that, getting autographs and just being involved that way.
QW: How special. Now you said that you still spend your summers out in [Red Devil]?
RW: Yep, born and raised in Red Devil. My two girls attend school in Palmer now, so we're only able to be home in the summertime. But [it's] my life-long home, and I now work for Donlin Gold, and that's a mine near Red Devil off the Kuskokwim River. I always remember my dad saying this, this mine's kind of been in the works for about 30 years, and I, you know, remember him talking about it… So it's just come full circle for me, you know, to be here in Nome, to work for a gold mining company, to be able to share all of this with my family, it's pretty special.
QW: That is really special. That's exactly what I was going to bring up, when we were on the phone yesterday, you described it as a full circle moment. I don't even know the right way to phrase my question — I can only imagine how it's hard to describe that special feeling.
RW: It is. just thinking about all the steps that led him to all of the things that he did, and the path that he laid for me and his family, and I'm just happy to carry on that legacy. It's hard to describe this special feeling.
QW: When you were down at the finish line last night for Jessie Holmes' win with your daughter, tell me about that. What was that feeling?
RW: Just exciting. I mean, to watch the excitement on her face. She knows her grandpa won the first Iditarod and when people ask her about that, her face just lights up. It's just, I hope that by bringing her here and involving her in all of this, she'll do the same for her kids, and her kids will say, my great-granddad and so, yeah, just carrying on that specialness.
QW: Well, I'll tell you what, when you emailed the station to say that you heard the audio, you wanted a copy of it, it made my week. That's all we could ever hope for is that our work connects with people. I know when I listened to that audio, it made me feel special too, like hearing like the children cheering on the street and like the announcers going, it's incredible to hear.
RW: Yeah, it definitely sounds like it was just as exciting then as it is now, and that's amazing for Iditarod to have carried that on for so long, bringing people from all over the world to share in that moment and celebrate dog mushing in such a special way. Happy to be here.
QW: Is there anything else that I didn't ask you about, either about your dad or about you and your family, that you think is important for us to know?
RW: I think we covered it. I'm just really appreciative of you guys sharing that 1973 stuff, and continuing to bring that forward so that the history is not lost. I think that's amazing and just appreciate being able to share that with my family.
