Jessie Holmes leads Iditarod mushers up the coast

As the frontrunners of Iditarod 54 approached the coast and the first coast checkpoint of Unalakleet, it was cold, calm, and clear. Inside the checkpoint building, on a bluff above the river, it was busy, with checkpoint volunteers whipping up eggs, frying bacon, brewing coffee and making the famous sourdough pancakes the Unalakleet checkpoint is known for. Bleary-eyed race officials were watching the trackers, and vets were prepping for the influx of dogs and mushers to come.
Louisa Paniptchuk, manning the kitchen, said that people look forward to the Iditarod all year long in Unalakleet. She and her husband are in their sixth or seventh year of volunteering. “It’s just the excitement of the front row seats, of seeing every musher come in,” she said.
Paul Ivanoff III, known as Bebucks, said that people in Unalakleet aren’t tired of hosting a checkpoint yet. “It means you get to see the best world class athletes of the canine kind, with some phenomenal dog mushers giving the best care that they can to their to their dogs,” he said.
Ivanoff said that the famous sourdough pancake tradition was started by Middy Johnson, the late mayor of Unalakleet and an Iditarod finisher himself. “He always served sourdough pancakes at his house,” said Ivanoff. “He thought maybe if we start serving sourdough pancakes for the checkpoint, that would be good for the community, be good for the race, it’d be good for the volunteers.”
Iditarod Race Director Mark Nordman said that the cold in the pre-coast part of the race can affect how well sleds slide. “Once they get to the coast, it’s a different snow altogether. It’s just a little more grainy,” he said.
Nordman said the quality of dog care has been great during the cold temperatures. “I really like a race that’s cold at the beginning and when it warms up, because dogs always eat much better,” he said.
Defending Iditarod Champion Jessie Holmes was the first to reach Unalakleet. He arrived with 13 dogs on the morning of Sunday, March 15. It was cold and clear, with the sun just peaking over the mountains. A small crowd of locals, race officials and volunteers huddled around the berms piled up on the ice of the river, waiting for Holmes to come around the bend.
Holmes appeared to be in good spirits as he set the snow hook of his sled. His jacket was crusted with a thin layer of frost and there was ice on his beard and eyebrows. Holmes began unhooking dogs from his gangline and gathering them together in a group huddle before breaking open a bale of hay and arranging it for the dogs. “Glad to be out of the wind, I’ll tell you that much,” he said.
Holmes said he started around 2 a.m. from Tripod cabin and mushed through the morning hours. He arrived at the coastal checkpoint at 9:27 a.m. He initially planned on staying for five hours and ended up staying for six, pulling out at 3:27 p.m. His strategy so far had been to stop for five hours. “Paige seems to be following suit,” he said, referring to Paige Drobny, the musher behind him.
He started his cooker before pausing to accept the Ryan Air Gold Coast Award, awarded to the first musher into Unalakleet, and snapped a few pictures with fans. Holmes said the wind on the way up to Unalakleet was constant, especially on his nose. “I figure I can only do this a few more years, for my nose’s sake,” he joked. “If they have some kind of regenerative nose surgery, maybe I could tough it for a while longer.”
In his cooker, Holmes mixed five pounds of beef fat, 12 pounds of beef, eight pounds of Caribou Creek Gold dog food, and what he called his secret ingredient – probiotics powder. “Oh man, that was the easiest batch of dog food I have made yet this year,” he said, starting to ladle the food into bowls.
In response to a question about how his dogs have been eating, Holmes said they’ve been taking food really well. “Crazy, like you’ve never seen, like nobody in this race has ever seen, actually,” he said.
After feeding his dogs, Holmes entered the checkpoint building in hopes of feeding himself. He shyly asked for a pancake hot off the grill and was rewarded with a fresh one. After the hubbub of his arrival died down, he slipped quietly into one of the bedrooms and shut the door.
By the time Paige Drobny had made her way into the checkpoint at 12:18 p.m., the sun was high in the sky and the wind was beginning to pick up. Drobny was quiet at first, steadily working on spreading straw out among her dogs and feeding them from her cooker before handing each of them pieces of frozen fat which were quickly scarfed down. Drobny came into Unalakleet with 13 dogs and dropped one. “She just wasn’t really having fun anymore,” said Drobny. “This is her first 1,000-mile race. She’s starting to question my sanity.”
Holmes and Drobny had been in the top two positions of the race since Ruby. Drobny often tailing Holmes by mere hours. The pair are neighbors, or nearly as close at it comes when living out on the Denali Highway.
They camped in the same spot at Tripod before heading to Unalakleet, and Drobny said that they talked about how weird it was that it was the two of them at the front. “I think either of us, you know, whoever wins will be happy for the other person,” she said. “Not gonna go slash his tires on the way home or anything.”
Drobny estimated that Holmes would win. “I’m several hours behind Jessie and with trackers and communication, he’s gonna move when I move,” she said. “Unless there’s some sort of event for him, I think that he’ll probably be the winner of this race, but I’ll be still pushing right behind in case something happens.”
As Drobny changed her boots before heading into the checkpoint, she was asked about the possibility of winning the race – a woman has not won the Iditarod since Susan Butcher cinched her fourth win in 1990 – and Drobny had been hovering around second place since Ruby. She said she believed her dog team could win, but she was not going to try too hard to push for it. “If the opportunity doesn’t present itself perfectly to me, then I just won’t take it, because it doesn’t matter that much to me,” she said. “But I think to have a woman, any of us women, out there win this race again, would be amazing.”
Many say the race really begins in Unalakleet. After passing through the checkpoint, mushers have to contend with sea ice, coastal weather, and then the notorious Topkok Blowhole during the final section to Nome. Deedee Jonrowe, a longtime Iditarod musher and 16-time top ten finisher, arrived in Unalakleet in time to give Drobny a hug as Drobny began to cook dog food.
Jonrowe suspects that with the snow that fell in last week and wind along the coast picking up, mushers may have some tricky weather to contend with ahead. “That’s going to blow around. I think the biggest thing they got to look forward to is in ground storms,” she said.
Jonrowe said that the racers got bunched up a little because the Yukon was a little slow. “I wouldn’t call it a fast race,” she said. “The competition is very good. It seems like extremely good competition. And that’s kind of exciting to see.”
Inside the checkpoint, that competition was sharing a meal together. Holmes, awake from his nap, was talking to Drobny, just in from the cold. They both departed Unalakleet that afternoon to continue up the coast towards Nome, Holmes in first and Drobny again trailing by just under two hours.

Expedition Class Participant
Before the competitive mushers arrived, expedition class mushers Kjell Inge Røkke and Thomas Wærner arrived at the checkpoint Saturday, March 14 at 6:04 p.m. and left a scant three minutes later at 6:07 p.m., continuing to a rest point just out of town. It was there that Wærner made the decision to withdraw from the race due to symptoms of kennel cough in his dogs, according to an official Iditarod press release.
Røkke and Wærner have been swapping dogs out along the trail, according to Race Director Mark Nordman.
 The Expedition Class is new this year. Participants do not have to run qualifying races, are allowed to accept outside help, switch out dogs and don’t have abide by mandatory rests. They are not eligible for any prize money or awards and are outside the official race standings. The three mushers in this class were Røkke, Wærner and Steve Curtis. Curtis, far behind the other expedition class mushers and the Iditarod mushers, ended his race in McGrath.
The new addition has been met with skepticism. DeeDee Jonrowe was worried they would affect the competitive nature of the race and worried about the existence of the class changing the nature of the Iditarod. “I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the original race,” she said.
Still, she admitted, things change. “Maybe this is one of those step changes,” she said. “I think they’ve got some things to work out. I don’t think they’ve got it all figured out yet, but it’s gone smoother than I anticipated.”
Louisa Paniptchuk at the Unalakleet checkpoint was also skeptic. “What in the world is this person doing? You know, I could see both sides of the coin where he prior to this, I’m told he donated a lot of money to Iditarod and to keep it going year after year,” she said. “My own personal opinion was just because you had so much money doesn’t mean that you could jump in anywhere you want.”
Røkke pushed on from his rest point just past Unalakleet and continued on towards Nome, where he arrived on Monday, March 16 just after 12:40 p.m.