Seavey brings Iditarod title home to Willow

NOME — Dallas Seavey said that, more than anything, it’s the lifestyle that keeps him mushing.

“My job is to be in the wilderness with a bunch of sled dogs,” said Seavey, 25. “My daughter thinks heaven is 90 dogs in Willow.”

Seavey, who became the youngest musher ever to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race when he crossed the finish line in Nome Tuesday night, raises and races dogs for a living, with a fair amount of mushing-related tourism in the mix. His wife has run the Iditarod. Both his father Mitch, who won the Iditarod in 2004, and his grandfather, Dan, also competed in the race this year.

“It’s the lifestyle — that’s what keeps me coming back,” Seavey said by phone from the home of his Nome host family.

Seavey moved to Willow in 2009. Prior to that he lived in the Caribou Hills/Sterling area of the Kenai Peninsula, where his father has his kennel.

“My wife and I looked all over the state trying to find the best place to raise and train sled dogs,” he said.

They settled on Willow for a few reasons — first being the trails. Willow’s got plenty of them — 80 miles just in his neighborhood. Seavey said it’s rare in Alaska to find trails you can run on in the fall before the rivers freeze and the snow is thick. Willow has those kinds of trails, too.

“It’s not the extreme cold that you get in Fairbanks and you don’t get the meltdowns like you do in Wasilla,” he said. “The Iditarod starts 20 miles from my house. If you want to go to any of the major races or training grounds, it’s only two to four hours to get there.”

Seavey said he had a great run to Nome, but did admit to one regret — he missed seeing his dad, Mitch Seavey, cross the line in seventh place. Dan Seavey, 74, Mitch’s dad, is likely still on the trail as you read this. As of 5 p.m., Thursday he was in 51st place, traveling from Shaktoolik to Koyuk with just under 200 miles to the finish line.

Seavey said he missed his dad’s finish because he was getting some rest. The second he stepped off the runners he was shaking hands, posing for pictures, hoisting an oversized check.

“Through all of that you feel great, you’re on cloud nine there, then all of a sudden it hits you like a ton of bricks and you just collapse,” he said. “I think (my dad) understands, having raced the Iditarod as many times as he has. He knows how you feel 12 hours after you finish.”

They’ve been hanging out in Nome since then.

Seavey described his dog team as uneven. He had 70-pound dogs in harness as well as 30-pounders.

“They operate as a team, as a unit despite their differences,” he said.

They all came from other kennels. They were puppies in a too-big litter or lived in a kennel belonging to a musher leaving the sport.

“Every dog on my team was one that I bought from someone,” which, Seavey said, also means that “every dog we have, someone decided not to keep that dog.”

He said his strategy in the race was to hold onto his speed, but also to build a reserve of energy in his dogs as he went, giving his dogs as much rest as he could and holding them back until the right moment at the end of the race.

He said there were times when a little burst of speed might have meant he won one of the smaller prizes along the way, like the gold nuggets that are the reward for being first to reach the halfway point in Cripple, or the prizes for being first to the Yukon River or first to the Bering Sea.

“I kept on saying, ‘I don’t want the gold, I want the keys,’” Seavey said, referring to the famous brand-new pickup that was part of his winnings.

Speaking of that pickup: “You guys can better believe you’ll see that thing driving through Wasilla with one very happy musher inside.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.