Editor's Note

I’m a magazine writer, or at least I thought I was before I became the editor of a weekly newspaper. I’ve always thought that newspapers were responsible for getting the rough story out into the world while magazines were responsible for writing the comprehensive stories—that magazines can ruminate and contact more sources. I’ve learned that this isn’t always true. This will be the 10th issue of the Press I’ve been involved in and I’m learning, week by week, that great writing can be spur of the moment.

This Iditarod issue kind of snuck up on me. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared for it, I just thought we had more than a week to button everything up. In putting this issue together, I realized how much I don’t know about the Iditarod. I’ve lived in Alaska my entire life and I couldn’t tell you much about “The Last Great Race on Earth” other than it’s a sled dog race, and somehow Balto was originally involved. I can recognize a couple musher’s names—Aliy Zirkle, Mitch and Dallas Seavey, Lance Mackey, you know, the guy ADN said looks like Snoop Dogg. And that’s about everything I knew before this issue.

I spoke with Alaska journalist Casey Grove about the Iditarod—he follows and has reported on the race like an NFL superfan—and he said, “the big question this year is, ‘will anybody beat Dallas Seavey?’” He said Mushing Magazine did a big story on it. I had no idea what he was talking about. Because of my lack of Iditarod knowledge, we covered as much as possible in this issue of the Press.

I had a great conversation with Robert Redington, grandson of Joe Redington Sr.—The Father of the Iditarod—where he schooled me on the race and everything that goes into it. Among other things, I learned that, like his grandfather, he too races large dogs. “A bunch of four by fours,” Robert calls them. Press photo intern Young Kim checked out the Fur Rondy events downtown this past weekend. Kyle Clayton talked with musher Ketil Reitan, who also does guided polar bear tours out of Kaktovic. Ammon Swenson talked with Chief Iditarod Veterinarian Stuart Nelson about what goes into taking care of the dogs. And Press brew guru Dr. Fermento talked with Anchorage Brewing’s Gabe Fletcher about this year’s Rondy brew. There’s more, but you’ll have to flip through the following pages to find out.

Thank you to the Iditarod Trail Committee, iditarod.com and Bri Kelly at Thompson & Co. for helping connect us with mushers and Iditarod officials. And, as always, thank you to all the Press contributors. This paper wouldn’t exist without you.