Rick Swenson

In every sport there are names that transcend and are easily recognized among the hardcore fans and arm-chair ones alike. The Iditarod is no different. In a competition where more people have climbed Mount Everest than have finished the Iditarod it is pretty select company to become a well recognized musher in this sport.

While these folks are the names that we know, lets not forget the mushers and their teams in what we call back-of-the-packers, the countless handlers, musher’s widows (those waiting for their spouses to come in from the trail), the support staff and of course the dogs.

These are names which are automatically associated with the race:

Joe Redington, Sr. – co-founder and affectionately known as the “Father of the Iditarod”

Rick Swenson – the only five time champion, the only champion to win in three different decades and the only musher to have completed 30 Iditarod’s

Dick Mackey – the 1978 winner in the only photo finish in Iditarod’s history

Col. Norman D Vaughan – finished the race for the fourth time in 1988 at the age of 88 and led an expedition to Antarctica in the winter of 1993-‘94

Susan Butcher – the first woman to ever place in the top ten and the first four-time winner

Libby Riddles – in 1985, the first woman to win the Iditarod

Emmitt Peters – set a race record in 1975 that wasn’t broken until 1980, known as the Yukon River Fox

Rick Mackey – wearing bib #13, the same number his father wore in 1978, crossed the finish line first in 1983, making Dick and Rick the only father and son to have won the Iditarod

Joe Runyan – 1989 champion and the only musher to have won the Alpinrod in Europe, the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod

Terry Adkins – retired from the United States Air Force, the only veterinarian on the first Iditarod in 1973 and now one of only eight mushers to have completed at least 18 Iditarod’s

Doug Swingley – the first Iditarod winner living outside Alaska and the second four time winner
Martin Buser – a four-time winner who holds the record winning time and was the first musher to break the nine-day barrier
Herbie Nayokpuk – the Eskimo from Shishmaref, the “Shishmaref Cannonball” who raced in eleven Iditarod’s

DeeDee Jonrowe, Charlie Boulding, and Lance Mackey – all came back to race again after life threatening bouts with cancer

Robert Sørlie – first musher from out of the United States (Norway) to win the Iditarod

Lance Mackey – won the 2007 Iditarod after winning the Yukon Quest only 10 days earlier – first musher to have won both races in the same year and made Dick Mackey the only father to have won the Iditarod and to have two sons also win the Iditarod, all wearing bib #13. Lance Mackey repeated his feat of winning both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod in 2008. Lance is the first musher to ever win four consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races in a row (2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010)

John Baker – first Eskimo to win the Iditarod and also set fastest winning time of 8 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes and 39 seconds in 2011.

Who is your favorite musher?

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Iditarod 40: Parking in Willow (robertforto.com)

Like a great whiskey, fine wines, and maybe prime beef, they say things get better with age?

But do they? I am 41 years old today. At 9:05 pm over four decades ago I came into this world to two parents full of hope and optimism of great things to come. I was their first child born shortly after the the worst of the Vietnam war and before disco, free love and the Brady Bunch.

My mom and dad where working folks, attending college when they could and trying to make their place in the world. They were middle class and sure, they had their struggles, they always managed to provide for my brothers and I.

Throughout the years I have had more than my fair share of up’s and down’s. But I have lived life to the fullest and while there are many things I regret there are few that I would change.

I believe that we are put here to follow a path. Good, bad, or indifferent, what we choose to do, learn and teach on this path is what makes us who we are.

A Native American elder once told me, “live you life as if it was an eagle feather.”

I have and I do.

As I sit here in my cabin in Alaska thinking back on the last 40+ years I realize this is exactly where I should be. I am doing what I set out to do almost 18 years ago when I first got into mushing. Funny thing is, until now I had not noticed that it has been almost equal time chasing this dream as had not.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings and honestly I don’t worry about it too much. Like Iditarod champion Martin Buser says, “dogs don’t care about what’s around the next bend in the trail…maybe we should live a little more like them…”

If I sit here and wonder and plan and calculate and analyze will things change? I doubt it. The only thing I can do is keep following my path and things will come. Good or bad I know that I have lived my life and gained enough experience to meet them head on.

So today, like any other, I will follow the advice of someone else that I have come to admire. No its not some great philosopher, poet, preacher, or teacher. It’s the great Ferris Bueller.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

So today I guess I become a bit of a vintage. I just wonder what year it will be before I’m old?

Iditarod 40: Famous Names

Vintage 1971

Rick Swenson

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